Ecommerce brands invest significant time and resources perfecting the customer UX and attracting visitors to their attractive landing page to engage them with great products. They’re important requirements but none of them matter if a high proportion of customers don’t make it past the checkout. A customer who loves your brand may have found the perfect product for their needs, but cart abandonment may be an issue unless the checkout process is smooth and seamless. Research shows us an average cart abandonment rate of around 70% with almost 20% customers complaining that the checkout process was too long or complicated.
Complex checkout steps, hidden/extra charges, security concerns, slow loading pages, bad payment/shipping options, slow delivery, unsatisfactory return policy and a requirement for the customer to create an account are the main reasons behind an inefficient checkout process. Not all visitors to your site will convert into customers but grabbing most of their businesses at the checkout process is the keystone of the entire ecommerce conversion process. Optimizing the checkout will lead to better customer retention, more revenue and encourages future purchases. Here are a few things you can do to enhance the customer’s checkout experience.
Guest mode
While it’s not surprising that ecommerce stores need a lot of information from first-time customers to track data or for newsletters and promotion campaigns, it gets quite irritating for them to reach the final checkout page and find that an account needs to be created. 37% of carts were abandoned because of this. A smart tactic would be to allow a guest login option so that customers can swiftly and easily complete the checkout. Get crafty here and allow login with their social media accounts or entice customers with an offer to create an account.
Exit messages
This is a marketing automation software that tracks when the customer is about to leave your page and presents them a targeted message. You could use pop-ups with offers, CTAs, surveys or use it to collect email IDs for future marketing and abandoned cart follow-ups.
Abandonment follow-up
Include a wishlist feature so that customers can save the item for later and remind them within the first few days. You could sweeten the deal with a personalized offer and give them the push they need to complete the purchase.
Mobile friendly design
Use a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes. Make sure that your CTAs are visible so that customers don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Personalized product recommendations and cross-selling
Personalize your product recommendations and offer complimentary items to increase your average order value. Customers will prefer not to hunt the webstore for related products so you should use cross selling and lead your customers to related products that would pair well with their selected item.
Up-selling and down-selling
Add an upsell and show them substitutes and make them consider buying more. Upselling promotes a higher priced product similar to the one in their cart. If upselling doesn’t work, you can use downselling to offer your customer with cheaper alternatives building trust towards your brand.
Multiple payment and shipping alternatives
Some customers will shop only using their preferred payment options while others will select the quickest way that excludes filling in card details. So you should allow your customers to choose from multiple options for both payment and shipping. Make sure that mobile payment is enabled. You can also use different pay processes like EMI or buy now pay later.
Data autofill & validation
Use optimizing features like autofill for returning customers to instantly fill their details and save time. Avoid any errors by using data validation to highlight input errors. You can also use an address auto filler or suggest a likely delivery address. These techniques will increase your customer satisfaction.
Cost transparency
Customers relish when the price remains the same throughout the checkout. An ideal solution would be to eliminate all extra charges but practically you should display a full cost breakdown so that the customer is well informed of all additional expenses like delivery charges, taxes, etc.
Single page checkout & reviews
Reduce distractions and try to confine your customers to a single page throughout their buying journey for simple, quick and convenient checkouts. For multi-page checkouts you can display the checkout flow with a progress bar and a page to preview order details. Allow your customers to comment reviews of your products for better customer loyalty.
Live chat support
Customers who are offered the chance to ask questions are more likely to complete their purchase. Chat-bots are very effective in answering questions about your product and you can also include an FAQ page that takes care of the most common queries.
Security concerns
Customers are concerned about online privacy and so it becomes important to let them know that their payment information is protected. Instill trust in your customers by displaying security badges and trust seals prominently. Offering money back guarantees or free returns also helps.
We hope that these insights provide your webstore with the edge you can use to outperform the market and gain lots of conversions.