You have invested a lot of time and effort to attract visitors to your eCommerce. You have an attractive website and a space where you share up-to-date content. In addition, you have invested in advertising.
In short, you have done everything possible to increase the volume of traffic and conversion in your online store. However, you are not getting all the sales you want. Something is happening to make your customers abandon the shopping cart before completing the process.
The time of payment or eCommerce checkout process is one of the most important moments and where most customers leave. What are the reasons? How can you solve it? Why should you optimise your checkout?
Join us, we are going to tell you.
Definition of checkout process in eCommerce
It is the moment when customers place an order in an online store and proceed to payment. It starts when the user visits the website, continues with the review of the product catalogue and ends when the payment is completed and the confirmation is received.
It seems simple, but behind a checkout there can be complex processes that hinder the purchase and affect the user experience. For example: lack of a unified login and a common interface to complete the payment process within the same page, lack of payment methods or a website that takes too long to load.
In short, we need to know the potential customer very well in order to optimise the steps as much as possible and reflect the results in sales. If you have an eCommerce and you are still not familiar with any of these concepts, we invite you to continue reading this post. We bring you relevant information on how to correctly optimise the checkout process in your eCommerce.
Why should you optimise the checkout process in your business?
Quite simply, because it is the end of the purchasing process, the most important moment in which consumers place the order (they click on the end of the shopping cart and are directed to the checkout page). The checkout page can contain several elements:
– The purchase summary.
– The shipping address and options.
– The payment method.
– The discount or promotion code.
Optimization is all about making the checkout process end in another merchant sale. To do this, it is important to be aware of the problems that affect the eCommerce checkout process (delivery concerns, dissatisfaction with shipping costs, technical problems with the site, slow loading, limited payment options, lengthy registration processes and shipping costs).
Bad practices at the most important moment of a sale have a very negative impact on shopping cart abandonment rates.
How to optimise the checkout process in your online store?
The checkout process marks the end of the purchase. Imagine you are shopping in a physical sportswear store in your city. You stroll down the aisles, choose a garment, compare it with others and try it on. When you find what you are looking for, you go to the checkout to make the payment. This is the checkout process in a physical store. In an online store, it is when the user clicks on ‘checkout’.
You are about to close a sale! But what is the reason why almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned at this point? Or rather, how can we optimise the process?
We have compiled the best practices to optimise your eCommerce checkout:
- Offer different payment methods. Why is it important? Customers can be very picky about which payment method they prefer. While many will choose the best available option, some will only pay using their preferred method and the one they are familiar with.
- Provide different shipping methods. Many customers require delivery via pickup points or outside office hours. Identifying their needs is essential to adjust shipping methods.
- Be clear with the information. Confusing prices, return policies and products generate consumer distrust and affect the abandonment of the purchasing process.
- Provide security. Highlight the security seals and labels, show your customers that this is a secure process and that they can pay for their products with complete confidence.
- Have help and support channels available. You never know if the customer will need to ask questions during the checkout process. This generates confidence among users.
- Eliminate distractions. Avoid all elements that may disturb or distract your customers. You need them to focus on the purchasing process and move towards the final moment. To do this, you can use subtle colours and a simple design.
- Pay attention to promotional codes. Although including them is a good idea, sometimes they can be a double-edged sword. Customers may feel offended when they see a box to insert a discount code that they do not have. Indeed, if they leave the checkout to check if there is a code in any previous step, this increases the possibility that they will not return.
- Enable guest shopping. Allow one-off shoppers to enter their email address and proceed with their purchase. Not all customers want to register, you should never create an obstacle for people who want to buy your product but make things easier for them. On a first purchase, the customer will only have to provide basic data, instead of filling out too many forms.
- Show a progress indicator. It is a very useful tool so that consumers know at all times how far or how close they are to the delivery they want. This indicator must be visible at all times.
- Enable form validation. Form validation helps customers through the process, ensures that the data being collected for customers is accurate, and also helps validate transactions.
- Send a reminder when you receive abandoned carts. It is common to use messages such as “You still have time to complete your purchase!” “Hey, did you forget your cart?” Sending a recovery email does not guarantee a purchase, but it is a good way to try to recover it. Don’t give up!
At PayXpert, we can help you by the use of our Seamless Checkout tool, which allows you to optimise the checkout process and increase sales. It is customisable, ideal for card payments, very secure thanks to tokenisation, and integrates easily with other eCommerce platforms (Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, etc.).
PayXpert’s Seamless Checkout features are:
- Autofill. It works consistently across all platforms and browsers, so your customers can pay faster.
- Responsive. It adapts to different screen sizes (from desktop to mobile) and pops up the numeric keypad where appropriate.
- Real-time validation. It automatically provides real-time feedback as the customer types to ensure errors are detected in time.
- Localisation. It dynamically detects which entries are required based on the country of the card and localises them accordingly.
- Formatting and masking. It facilitates and clarifies data entry for your users, adjusting to the format they see on their card.
Increasing your sales is a matter of improving your eCommerce checkout. Do you need help?
