Competition for eCommerce is increasing globally; thus, every brand is aiming for absolute supremacy. Conquer their industry, become a force to be reckoned with and sustain that position.
But every business be it B2B or B2C are too occupied with optimizing the front end of the site. Creating attractive designs, UX friendly layouts, improving sales funnel, immersive videos & more and in the process, overlooking the Checkout experience.
The first impression decides a lot; it’s your 1st chance to persuade the visitor to browse & buy as such Checkout is vital. The Checkout Experience has its own importance & can’t be overlooked. So much so that, it even beats the importance for Images, specs, chatbot & other features.
A high volume of traffic to your website is incredible. But traffic alone doesn’t generate sales. Ultimately, the number of sales will impact your business. Which then goes on to decide the money you make.
High Traffic + Low Sales = No Revenue
So, how can a merchant turn his business around by bringing correct changes in the Checkout experience? What can be done to make the Checkout more fruitful, is what we’ll be going through? Read on!!!
What is a Good eCommerce Checkout Page?
When it comes to an eCommerce checkout page design, all websites emphasized reducing cart abandonment. Some are still trying to figure out the best ways to streamline this stage. A Good Checkout page is something that gives the buyer the smoothest transaction – from start to finish.
A Good Checkout page will give its visitors a smooth checkout experience. The journey from start to finish will not feel like a chore- an unobstructed passage from the 1st section to the last. The more you assist them in filing the info, the more likely is the conversion.
An eager visitor who has come this far is ready to place an order. Don’t give them a reason to change their mind. Place the right CTA’s, proper layout, enough payment options, clear shipping & coupons to make their journey as seamless as possible. eCommerce Checkout Optimization is vital for higher sales.
A right checkout page is something that reduces the time & effort it takes to complete the process. At the penultimate stage, you don’t want to disappoint your buyers. If you are looking for unique solutions, then this guide will get you through, on How to not clutter the Checkout interface.
B2B vs B2C eCommerce Checkout
Long & cumbersome eCommerce checkouts can frustrate the most eager B2C customer. Modern online buyers have no time for unwanted info. All they want to do is seize the product and be on their way. Inefficient & confusing checkout will then create a roadblock – thereby bouncing buyers right off.
B2C can sometimes be impulse buying. A Psychology that suggests, that they rush to buy products. Especially on days that see a massive discount (Black Friday, Boxing Day, etc.). If after “Add – to – Cart” there is even the slightest delay, somebody else might grab the product.
The result of this is an upset customer & the cause may have something to do with your Checkout Process.
Streamlining the process is therefore critical. Unlike B2B, where the decision time is more, and a longer Checkout may not be such a concern (Unless it’s suspicious). The B2C protocol is entirely different.
The average B2C buyer has a short attention span, so if you’ve managed to take him till the Checkout page with enticing offers and what not; losing him at Checkout will be a shame. Establish the best B2C eCommerce practices, and in no time, your conversion will go up.
B2B merchants could also follow these practices, as more than B2B or B2C its B2-human; thus, they too don’t want to deal with a clumsy checkout experience. Bring certain B2B specific additions to customize the eCommerce Checkout experience for businesses.
Online buyers have come to expect a lot of features in their Checkout process. Fewest, fastest & safest Checkout is the go-to model for all businesses.
eCommerce Checkout Page - Best Practices
Now, that you have read through till here and realized the importance of a Swift & Clean Checkout page, we will go further & detail all the different practices that are commonly used to give the eCommerce Checkout Page the best vibes.
Let’s go through some of the eCommerce checkout best practices to crack the abandonment issue. If implemented, they’ll ensure your next customer doesn’t withdraw at the last moment.
- Minimize Steps – Reduce the amount of form fills. Only include necessary fields. Draw the email & pre-filled address details from their account page. Make the filling procedure as seamless as possible. An Easy and without friction experience has a higher chance of a conversion.
If the final stage takes too long, users might change their mind and go elsewhere. Don’t complicate the process. Websites with fewer fields have a higher conversion rate. Only ask info you need, to complete the sale and don’t bring it up repeatedly (i.e., Same Shipping & Billing addresses). - Display a Progress Bar to show how far they have come. Drop unneeded steps & make more money. Remove the clutter & lower the time it takes to finish. But, find a way to collect the email address for a chance to retarget them later, in case they retreat.
Trust Seals – Let shoppers know that your site is secure by displaying adequate security seals. Trust seals instill confidence, which in turn leads to higher conversions.
No user wants their sensitive details compromised — Display Norton Secured, McAfee, Verizon, Google Trusted, Comodo and more such logos.
Use Trust signals throughout the buyer’s journey to improve the chances of order placement. Even display an SSL certificate to validate secure shopping.
The perceived level of trust goes up, the threat comes down and they proceed smoothly.
- Single Page Checkout – Another effective way to contain all the necessary fields on one page. Attain the aim to reduce page clicks. However, beware of over-stuffing the page. Important fields too close to one another can lead to confusion & accidental clicks.
eCommerce One-page Checkout brings down the tiring task of browsing from one page to another, which has proven to increase conversion rates. If not possible, try as much to bring together relevant details in one page (financing, coupons, insurance, etc.) - Payment Options - Provide multiple payment options to give your buyers enough choices. They may want to go through Skrill, PayPal, or GPay & not input their Debit Card details, in which case provide the option to do that. You’ll likely convert more shoppers if you offer more payment options.
Customers show loyalties to payment providers. Some of them even allow buyers to go through with installments, COD, credit, and so on. Visa and Mastercard won’t cut it these days.
Digital Wallets like Apple Pay + Amazon Pay has also gained popularity & caused the conversions to skyrocket. The familiarity, speed, and rewards are the reason some users lean towards them.
All countries will have their preferences, as such take your demographics into account before finalizing the payment operator. Also, consider keeping the payment option for the last step. Your customer has finished entering other info and is more likely to continue.
Buttons – Make the “Checkout” & “Continue Shopping” Buttons more prominent. Add plenty of whitespace between them so there’s no mistaking where the user should click.
Ensure, there are 2 Checkout Buttons, one at the top & one at the bottom. Also, enlarge the same, so the buttons aren’t lost/blended in the nearby content.
Position the checkout buttons in such a way that the visitor will see & have access to both the buttons. Use different colors. Make the CTA evident and clear.
- Shipping – Clearly state the shipping methods and the corresponding delivery charges. Be it one-day, expedite shipping, delayed shipping, freight shipping, or any other.
Show this early in the Checkout process to avoid any displeasure. Don’t wait until after the shoppers enter their shipping address to let them know about the various delivery options.
Highlight Free Shipping wherever possible. If it comes with a criterion (< order value), then mention that alongside. This could swing disinterested buyers into placing orders. If that was not the case, remind your buyers that the initial Subtotal on the cart doesn’t include costs from shipping & tax.
- Policies – Give a link to your policies. Make it possible to contact Customer Care from any stage of the Checkout Process. Also, state any guarantees that come with the sale. Post-purchase rules should be made crystal care and then how do you deal with returns. Explicitly state the return window.
Be it B2B or B2C; your customer wants to know, what post-sale assurances can a brand give. Flawed products not taken back, will create a sense of distrust with your buyers. In B2B where Lifetime Customer Cycle is important, a defective product can ruin client relations. - Fewer Reversals – Ensure that the buyer can modify the quantity of the added items, with a simple “+” or “-“ sign. The failure to do so would mean, they will have to run it back to the inventory page. Also, if the item goes “Out of Stock” then instantly notify them of the same.
Simplify the process by adding a “trash” icon next to each product. There’s nothing worse than hitting the back button & finding that all the cart details have gone missing. - A/B Testing – Trying out different versions isn’t something that is limited to descriptive pages. In Checkout scenarios, too, the testing method is applicable. Analyze your buyers’ journey and make the necessary changes. — an experiment based on the typical patterns of your buyer base.
Use Analytics to track their path & see if you can bring about changes in places where they get stuck. A data-driven approach to deal with Shopping Cart Abandonment. Map the path that customers take to complete a transaction & establish the elements that lead to the highest conversions.
On the Checkout page, test CTA’s, fields, colors, placement, wording & a whole lot more. Take one element at a time. There are endless possible tests you can run to derive the formula that works best.
- Alternative Accounts – Allow the ability to transact via Facebook & Google. Give them the option to complete Checkout as a Guest. A mandatory Account creation puts first-time users off. No dedicated sign in needed to buy something.
Keep the account creation to after they have placed the order. Don’t force Account creation. Use Social Driven Checkouts to ease their experience. Else tempt them via incentives (promo codes) into creating an account. Creating a profile is not mandatory, so don’t force it.
- Gross Price – Hidden charges or any additional charge later in the order can be surprising and upsetting at the same time. Users were not expecting such a hike (excluding delivery rates). Therefore, it comes as a shock. This leads to cart abandonment, as the steep increase in rates no longer fits the buyer’s budget.
- Responsiveness – Your audience has been mobile-ready forever. If your business doesn’t align itself on this plain, then it is getting booted out real soon. Optimize mobile Checkout.
Omnichannel is the way ahead, and you may have already adopted this into your selling ways, but it needs to be done well to extract optimum benefits. Position Checkout, chat, “continue shopping,” & other icons carefully.
Half the world is now accessing eCommerce via their mobile devices. Not committing to the same will reduce conversion rates. A checkout flow that is not compatible with mobile will trigger an exit. Buyers will abandon their products in the cart. Invest in a Checkout with mobile in mind.
Master your ecommerce checkout page design on mobile & see a steep increase in order placements. Keep the background cool & easy on the eyes. The text should be visible and clear, not blurred. Follow a mobile-first approach and then work your way up to larger devices.
Use of digital payment wallets also gives a boost, as more people prefer to use this form of payment on phones. Clean and intuitive design is the key to close the sale on mobile devices.
Make your webpage mobile friendly or create a mobile app to make the Checkout process Lightning fast. - Thumb Rule - According to a research by UX matters. 49% of people use the phone one-handed, 39% cradled, and 15% two-handed. In which case, the thumb plays a very active role. Some areas of the are hard to reach one-handed on a large phone. So, place your key buttons within reach of the thumb.
Scrollability can solve this to a certain extent, like the hard to reach areas can be brought to the easy areas. But a never-ending scroll can become a little annoying as well. Make your CTA buttons big and easy for users to easily tap their fingers, contrary to a mouse click on Desktop.
The average width of an adult thumb & index finger is 2.5cm and 1.6cm, which converts to 45-72 pixels. The key buttons (Checkout, Guest Checkout, Continue Shopping, etc.) must be full width & cover at least 44 pixels. Thumb touches shouldn’t take you elsewhere.
Beyond all this make sure to Display Images on the Checkout page as a visual confirmation of the product. Psychologically they get a sense of comfort, and any confusion about the product goes away. Even Add a save button, making it easy for buyers to find items again when they’re ready to buy.
To improve speeds and image loading times for logo/icons rely on CDN (Content Delivery Network). Finally, install Google page speed & stress test your Checkout page for peak seasons with high traffic.
Notable Platforms & their One Page Checkout Options
A seamless Checkout experience is a breeze for any buyer. But to enable the same, you need an eCommerce platform, with a host of integrations that simplifies the Checkout process. Let’s check out some in-demand platforms & how the checkout varies on each:
Magento has FireCheckout, Amasty, etc. as One-Page Checkout Extensions. The WooCommerce One-page Checkout extension displays product selection & checkout forms on a single page. Customers can add products, remove them & complete payment without leaving the page. Using a WordPress Shortcode to insert a field, which can be used to add the checkout process to any page.
Volusion has many customizable elements on the checkout page. You can edit some of the most commonly used checkout variables by going to the Settings option of the Admin interface. Vary the Checkout Variables and redesign to achieve a Single-Page Checkout experience.
Speed up the shopping process & significantly enhance customer satisfaction. Help visitors instantly complete address fields, easily edit product options on the checkout & set default preselected values for checkout fields. Some benefits of these for your
Use a Hosted Checkout Page that is easy to set-up for merchants & eliminates any PCI compliance issues. Because merchants never store the buyers’ payment information on their site and instead store all the info with the checkout solution/payment facilitator. As such they don’t need to have a PCI DSS standard.
The standard is used to reduce credit card fraud & requires an annual assessment. Therefore, upon a breach, a merchant can escape penalties. Processing phone or mail orders also becomes easy due to the Hosted Checkout Ecommerce Virtual Terminal. Often better for those starting their eCommerce store.
Summary – Checkout Best Practices
Follow the do’s & don’ts of an eCommerce Checkout flow. Your business depends heavily on the ability of the user to Checkout smoothly. The goal is to make the Checkout process as intuitive as possible – something that’d lead to higher sales & conversions for you.
At last, what gives you the best ecommerce checkout design? The perfect fusion of Speed, Form filling, Mobile-friendliness, guest Checkout, flow is some of the compulsory components of a smooth Checkout experience. You can’t do without these anymore. Keep the design as minimal & clean as possible.
Streamline your checkout page. Offer all available, convenient options to your customers & make checkout the least stressful part of your customer’s eCommerce journey. Remember what works for one business may not work for another. So, A/B test everything.
Virtina’s best eCommerce experts have straightened the Checkout flow of many businesses (B2B/B2C) in various industries world over. These skilled designers will craft a top-unobstructed Checkout interface. Meant purely for ecommerce checkout conversion rate optimization.
The eCommerce pros at Virtina can even render a bespoke Client-specific Checkout page. Cleans up the exit stage for your customers and do so in a manner that keeps their information secure. A crisp, clean & intuitive process that will not block your buyer’s journey. Get in touch, for the best Checkout solutions.
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Why Conversion Rate Optimization is Vital for eCommerce Success
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Ecommerce: Why User Experience Matters and How to Do it Right
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