Checkout is the most crucial stage of a customer’s journey in online shopping. 7 Out of every 10 people who get to your checkout page leave without making a purchase. No matter how good their experience leading up to this, something must be going wrong. There are many reasons like hidden costs, limited payment options, compulsory logins, or security concerts. So how can you optimize the final step in a consumer’s journey for a better customer experience (and more sales)? Let us see the ecommerce checkout page optimization tips to drive more sales.
Know the best ecommerce platforms at- Top 10 Ecommerce Platforms To Know In 2021
Convenience has become one of the most important factor affecting the overall conversion rates. 83% of shoppers agree that they value convenience, hence provide shoppers what they want, even on the checkout page too.
1.1. Allow Guest Checkout-
Providing the ‘guest checkout’ option next to register/sign-in is great for those customers who don’t want to sign up. Regardless of whether they’re security conscious, a first-time buyer, or have another reason for not wanting to sign up, this will cover it. Rather than seeing ‘register’ and leaving the page, visitor can select ‘guest checkout’ and just provide the details required for purchase.
You can push for them to register after the sale has been completed. Create a custom thank-you page for after-purchase, or use onboarding email. Also providing order number and details where order details will be sent, will help them chance to create an account to keep track of their orders.
1.2. Single Click Sign In-
No one likes to remember AccountIDs and password. A solution to this is, you can offer one-click sign-ins. Let them use their social accounts like Google and Facebook to register on your marketplace. Cross-platform functionality eases the login process to sopper and get access to some pre-vetted user info. This can be done by using OAuth2 with an Identity and Access management tool like keycloak. It lets the third party authenticate users and you get limited access to user accounts.
1.3. Provide Pre-filled Fields-
Registered customers should not need to enter the same info every time they buy something from your store. Entering the delivery details is tedious tasks, particularly when they are in the middle of a checkout process. This feature adds convenience, speeds up the process and leaves shoppers with less time to think about abandoning the cart. Common practice for pre-filled is to store the user’s info in small packets. With this way, shopper has to select only one of the many saved delivery and payment options.
1.4. Progress Indicator-
Most of the time,it is not always possible to keep the checkout process short. We know that online shoppers are impatient, then how to stick them through the entire process? Use a progress indicator on the checkout page.
With an idea of how long the complete process might take, the customer will be mentally prepared to go through with it. Progress indicators works well for all type of checkout situations. Also, you should remember to not limit the progress indicator to three to five stages.
1.5 Checkout Buttons With Products-
With shopping carts, customers can buy multiple products and pay for all of them at once. Add a “BUy Now” or “Go to Cart” option to directly take shoppers to the checkout page. It saves more time and reduces the effort taken to scan navigate to the final process.
1.6. Save Cart In Wishlist-
Sometimes buyers use the cart as a glorified wishlist. But they don’t often purchase all the cart products at once. For such case, they remove everything from the cart except the product they wish to purchase and proceed to checkout. However, if there were an option of saving other products in the cart for later, the customer might buy them eventually. Provide the option of cart item saving into the wishlist and you might end up selling more to the customer in the long run. You can provide recommendation engine that shows relevant products based on shopper’s preferences. You can easily generate more revenue with additional AI and ML capabilities.
2.1. Simple Design-
It is easy to create an attractive design but its of no use if the UI of the checkout page is not good at conversions. Create simple design that don’t confuse shoppers. Checkout page should have a clean and elegant design that makes the shopper want to buy the product. You may want a variety of design elements to reflect on your checkout screen, but actually you don’t need that. Rather, just focus on what’s important and highlight the same. So create and improve the checkout page for your eCommerce website.
2.2. Remove Distractions-
Distractions distract the shoppers from their primary goal. It can be a last minute offers, advertisement pop ups, product recommendations, unwanted graphics. This increases the possibility of shopping cart abandoning without completing the checkout process. One of the best tip is to get rid of usual header, footer and menu options from the checkout page and make it blinker for the process.
Unnecessary long process is another common distraction for buyers. Keep it short and include just required fields.
2.3. Use Single Page Checkout-
One-page checkouts are popular as they speed up the checkout process and improve overall conversion rate. Create a one-page checkout to give customers a path of least resistance. Avoid filling the checkout page with lots of information. It is also important for you to know that one-page checkout form is not for every eCommerce business. It is better to conduct A/B testing to determine if it’ll work for you.
WooCommerce one page checkout and shopify customize checkout page are easier ways to employ a single-page checkout on eCommerce websites.
2.4. Optimize For Mobile-
Here are some guidelines to follow-
3.1. Offer More Payment Methods-
Even physical shops offer multiple payment options like credit-debit cards, cash etc. PayPal is one major player. For many customers, paying through PayPal means they don’t have to go and find their card in their wallet. For B2B companies, you may find many departments prefer the old-fashioned way of invoicing. If you use that, you’ll draw customers in who might otherwise have avoided you. You can offer over-the-phone payment with a single click to connect to your VoIP services.
3.2. Allow Order Modification-
Order modification on the checkout page can prevent shoppers from leaving the checkout page. You can let them switch other variants, change the delivery address and alter with other modifiable attributes. The more modification options on the checkout page, the less likely they will abandon the cart. This fundamental feature is mostly hard to execute in an eCommerce application. The modified cart has a ripple effect throughout the codebase, affecting inventory and payment status.
4.1. Implement Data Validation-
Data validation makes the checkout process more secure for shoppers. When you make it binding for just a specific kind of input, decreases the capacity of conmen to interfere with it. Also, it prevents customers from making errors while filling those fields and saves them from further iterations of process.
Hence, proceed and set up validation rules for form fields. Mark out the necessary fields and display input errors if buyers miss or enter incorrect information.
4.2. Show Reviews And Ratings-
Customer words are the most convincing among all promotional techniques. Hence most of the eCommerce portals show customer reviews and ratings with the product descriptions. Display product ratings in summary to show the customer’s feedback. Showing reviews on the checkout page can be tricky though. One can also include a summarised version of reviews.
4.3. Ask About Exit Reason-
You can use exit-intent pop-ups to know the reason of – why shoppers left your cart. The data collected can help you in the improvements that users want to see in your online store.
4.4. Testing And Improving-
There’s no one size fits all solution for a perfect checkout page. Most effective way to ensure you develop the best version of checkout page is by continuous testing. Consider the different metrics, test them and see if you can bring a positive change for your business. Perform A/B testing and discover what works best for your eCommerce store. Go ahead and try page optimization techniques for your business.
Know the details of ecommerce testing at- How To Test An Ecommerce Website/Application?