ECOMMERCE INSIGHTS

Are you seeing a high checkout abandonment rate on your eCommerce website? Want to optimize the checkout page for better results?

A well-designed eCommerce website with a poor checkout experience can ruin all your efforts in growing your business. It plays a vital role in the eCommerce business as it is where the real business happens – online transactions to complete the order.
It can also affect your customer retention rate because, with a bad checkout experience, a shopper may complete their first transaction, but may never return.

So, if you want to provide a smooth checkout experience that encourages customers to complete the process, you need to focus on optimizing your checkout page.

In this article, we will share some of the practical checkout optimization tips to provide a fantastic checkout experience and boost your conversion rate for your online store.
If you are ready, let’s get started.

If you are ready, let’s get started.

Keep the Checkout Flow Short

After selecting products to purchase, customers want a simple checkout page to complete the order and move on with their life.
This is where shoppers can abandon the checkout page or second doubt to proceed ahead if you have a lengthy checkout process with multiple forms.
You can avoid such scenarios by keeping your checkout flow short and simple.

Here are a few tips for you to consider –

• Use single-page checkout flow
• Use a short checkout form
• Ask for necessary details only
• Enable auto form filling
• Enable one-click login with social media

Finally, on this page, you should make it easy and quick for customers to complete the checkout. So, ask for the minimum details you need to deliver the order. Customers can later add other information such as DOB, alternate contact number, and more.

Show Progress Indicators

Whether you are using a single-page or multi-page checkout process, you can guide customers through it using a progress indicator. The indicator should show what steps the customer has covered and what’s left to complete the order.
In the previous section, you can notice that each step is numbered, which guides users to complete the checkout.
Similarly, for multi-step checkout, you can use a progress indicator to show where the user is and how many steps are left to complete the process.

Overall, the progress indicator helps customers determine how much time is needed to complete the process – if it is short, they may feel excited to finish it immediately or skip it for later.

Ensure the page is mobile-friendly

Mobile is not the future anymore; it’s the need of the hour as over 50% of online shopping is done from mobile devices. So, if your checkout page is not optimized for mobile, you are missing a lot of conversions.
Many customers shop on desktop devices where they can view products on larger screens and other details. But they complete the checkout via mobile.
One of the possible reasons behind it is the seamless transaction with wallet applications without entering the card details every time. So, while designing your mobile checkout page, make sure it is mobile responsive and allows payment via mobile wallet apps like Apple Pay.

Allow Users to Change Quantity

While shoppers are at your checkout page, they may want to add, remove or adjust the number of products in the cart – allow them to do so without hitting the back button.

Here’s the thing, if shoppers have to return to the cart to update their products, they may not return to the checkout page again.
So, once a customer reaches the checkout page, your goal should be to let them complete the order asap. For that, allowing users to update quantity on the checkout page can be very effective.

Include Gift Wrap/Message Options

People like to do the shopping for others, and while doing so, they would love to add a personal note or gift wrap the product while it is delivered directly to them.
If you can allow customers to add such personal touch to the products, you are most likely to see a reduction in checkout abandonment. And. the best thing can do is to offer to hide the price for gifts as shown below –

This strategy is likely to be effective during the festive season. But, if you are selling products that can be presented as birthday or anniversary gifts, this should add a spark to your checkout page performance.

Offer Faster Shipping Option

Once a customer places an order, they want it delivered asap. However, the reality is that fast delivery is costly, which may cut off your profit margin if offered for free.
So, the best way would be to let customers choose a faster shipping option, for which they should pay the additional charges.

This way, rather than enforcing additional shipping charges to the customers, you are letting them make a choice, which goes a long way in the consumer experience.

Remove Surprise Fees & Charges

Customers hate surprises on the checkout page, especially if it’s additional charges about which they were not informed earlier.
Moreover, any surprising charges on the checkout page make customers second guess your brand credibility and the order value. If it happens, you will likely face a high checkout abandonment rate.

That’s why we advise displaying the overall charges, including shipping fees, packaging charges, taxes, or any additional charges from the beginning, as soon as the product is added to the cart.
This way, customers know the total amount they must pay and move forward to make the payment.

Provide a Secure Checkout Page

In online shopping, security is a big concern for the customers – they want to ensure that your website is secure to make online payments and that their data is also safe with you.
It starts with adding an SSL certificate to the website to provide a secure connection to process encrypted customer details on the web.
An SSL-certified website has “HTTPS” in the website address, which looks like this –

Display Available Promo Codes

If you offer promo codes or discount coupons to your customers, you want them to find the codes to claim the offers easily.
So, instead of asking customers to check their email for available coupon codes or visit coupon websites to find a code, you should display the available offers on your checkout page.
Doing so makes it easy for customers to find offers to save money on their cart value, which they might not be aware of. This adds trust value to your brand and boosts the checkout conversion rate.

Offer Multiple Payment Method

With the emergence of various payment processors globally, from mobile wallets, crypto, and UPI to internet banking, every shopper has their own preference for making online payments.
So, it is in your best interest to offer as many payment methods as possible so that you don’t lose sales just because customers can’t find their preferred mode of payment.

Additionally, if you sell expensive products, consider offering financing options, such as EMI and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). This allows you to attract all kinds of customers and boost checkout conversions.
If you want to add a crypto payment method to your store, you should check our guide on the best cryptocurrency payment processors.

Enable Guest Checkout Option

Often, first-time buyers just want to buy a product and move on to the next thing. At this point, some customers may not want to go through the signup process, but if you make it mandatory, it becomes a point of friction, and customers may leave the checkout page.
To combat this, you can allow such customers to checkout as a guest, where they have to provide the minimum details required to deliver the order.

This is an effective strategy to convert first-time visitors into customers. Once the product is delivered, you can use the entered email address to encourage them to create an account by offering incentives on the next purchase.

Provide Live Chat Support

When it comes to online shopping, customers may face issues with failed transactions, invalid coupons, or anything. So, you need to be available to help them through the checkout process.
For such a scenario, nothing works better than live chat support. It enables you to engage with such customers in real-time without getting them away from the checkout page.
If you offer live chat across your website, you should ensure that customers on the checkout page should be on your priority list as delayed responses can reduce your checkout page conversion.

Ready to Improve your Checkout Page?

If you are seeing high drop-offs at the checkout page or a high checkout abandonment rate for your online store, you are leaving a lot of potential sales on the table.
You can easily avoid it by analyzing the checkout process and optimizing it for a better checkout experience.

In this article, we shared actionable tips that you can easily implement to increase the checkout conversion rate and grow your business. If you want to go beyond the checkout page and optimize the entire website for better performance, you can contact us for more details.

Born Techies –Digital Commerce agency offers Shopify, Shopware, Magento, and Bigcommerce development with the latest technologies.

Do you want to receive a free consultation about how to optimize your store and generate more sales? Reach us out at [email protected] or contact us, and we will be more than happy to help you out.