If you are losing sales on your e-commerce store, it is about time to optimize your checkout page.
According to Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.57%. Meaning seven out of 10 customers who reach your online store's checkout page ends up leaving their online cart without buying anything.
Unfortunately, cart abandonment leads to hundreds of billions of dollars in sales lost. However, it does not have to be that way.
Your responsibility is to ensure that it is easy for your customers to purchase your products. And this is where checkout optimization comes in handy.
Understanding Checkout Optimization
Checkout optimization is the process of making it easy and quick for your customers to buy from you. Checkout includes filling out a customer form and paying their purchase.
But there is more to checking out and paying for products than that.
Optimizing your e-commerce checkout process involves making people trust your business. After all, people will be hesitant to buy from companies they do not trust.
Thus, you have to be transparent with your pricing and include social proof to prove your trustworthiness.
That said, we have listed six tips on how you can optimize your online store's checkout process and drive in more sales:
Simplify the Process
Did you know that one of the primary reasons customers abandon their cart is due to the cumbersome checkout process?
This includes having to fill out a laundry list of fields or too many checkout pages.
Here's the thing: A customer only needs to read a couple of checkout pages. Less if he opted to checkout as a guest.
- A page where he can review all the items he added to his cart
- A page where he can create an account
- A page where he can fill out shipping details and choose payment methods
- A page where he can fill out his payment details
If he checked out as guests, you could exclude page two. As for page three, you can have the customer tick a checkbox if the shipping address is similar to his current address.
Lastly, only ask for necessary information. Otherwise, customers will think that your online store is a scam.
Use Exit-intent Pop-ups
Many user experience designers would say that pop-ups interrupt a site visitor from doing his tasks. However, you can leverage this feature to prevent a customer from abandoning your cart.
What happens is that whenever a person hovers his mouse towards the "x" or "back" button, a pop-up will appear. As such, it gets the site visitor to stop in its tracks. Meanwhile, you can use this opportunity to remind him that he added items in his online cart and has not checked out yet.
As a result, you can save as many online carts from abandonment as possible.
Avoid Hidden Charges
One of the reasons customers abandon their cart is because of hidden charges. We are talking about taxes, shipping rates, and the likes.
Thus, you should avoid surprising your customers with these hidden charges.
What you can do is include on the product page whether the item is subject to tax. Better yet, incorporate the tax in the pricing. In addition, automatically compute the shipping fee into the checkout page.
That way, your customers can anticipate the amount of money they need to prepare to buy your products.
Have Multiple Payment Options
Here's the thing: Not everyone has a credit card or PayPal account.
If you do not want customers to abandon their e-commerce shopping cart, ensure that you provide multiple payment options. Luckily, these days, e-commerce platforms make it easy to connect with various payment channels.
By clicking here and there, you can accept payments via credit and debit card, PayPal, online banking, and digital wallet. And because of this feature, you are reducing the number of reasons a customer would not want to proceed with the checkout.
Let Customers Checkout as Guests
Another common reason for car abandonment is not being able to check out as guests.
From a customer's perspective, there is no need for online stores to store customer data. It can be because filling out a form is cumbersome, or they do not trust an online database. After all, such file storage can be susceptible to a cyber breach.
Another reason is that they think there will not be a need for your service next time.
Whatever the reason is, you should make it easy for your customers to checkout. Meaning there is no need to create an account. What you can do is ask for their shipping details and contact information instead.
That way, you can still ship the product to the correct address despite the customer not signing up on your e-commerce website.
Ask for Payment Details Last
If someone asked for your credit card details, would you give them? Probably not.
The same thing goes with your online customers. They will not give their payment details unless they know why you are asking for it.
And in this case, that would be the need to pay for their purchases.
That said, it would be best to ask for the customer's payment details last. Let him go through the items he included in his shopping cart, review his shipping details, and choose his preferred payment options first.
That way, you can ask for the relevant payment details. After all, asking a customer who opted for cash-on-delivery for his bank information would be unnecessary.
Conclusion
Optimizing your checkout process can help you improve your e-commerce business's revenue. But other than that, it also encourages customers to stay loyal to your brand.
As such, you will need to remove any obstacles that will hinder people from buying from you. To do that, you can follow the tips listed above.
Meanwhile, you can add features and design elements that can make your online store trustworthy. Some excellent examples are:
- HTTPS protocol on your URL
- Customer reviews
- Stock level
- Security and trust seals
Lastly, always test your checkout pages. That way, you will know where your customers fall out and do something about it. Doing so allows you to reduce your cart abandonment rate and save as much loss of sales as possible.