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The checkout process is the most important part of a successful eCommerce business. Even a well-designed online store could be losing sales if customers encounter slow-loading checkout pages, confusing forms, and other unnecessary obstacles during checkout. Optimizing the checkout process can increase conversion rates, decrease cart abandonment, and improve customer satisfaction for AbleCommerce store owners.
This article will discuss strategies on how to create a better checkout experience for AbleCommerce store owners to create an easy-to-follow purchasing journey for their customers that will keep them coming back.
1. Make Checkout Easy
A multi-step checkout process can overwhelm customers by presenting them with too many fields and/or unnecessary steps to complete their purchase. A simplified checkout process will result in customers completing their purchases faster and having fewer abandoned carts.
The following are some suggestions on how to simplify the checkout process:
- Utilize a single page checkout or break down the checkout process into as few steps as possible.
- Remove as many optional fields as possible and make all optional fields appear to be optional.
- Automatically populate fields with saved customer data.
AbleCommerce’s built-in layout settings and customized layouts allow for easy creation of simplified checkout layouts. A simplified, shorter checkout process will encourage your customers to place their orders quickly and easily.
2. Allow for Guest Checkout Option
Forcing customers to register an account to complete a purchase often leads to an increase in cart abandonment. Many people who visit your site are looking to complete their purchase immediately without being required to go through a registration process.
Benefits of Allowing Guest Checkout:
- Reduces friction for new customers visiting your site for the first time
- Increases the speed at which customers complete the purchasing process
- Builds trust with customers as they will have more control
AbleCommerce makes it incredibly easy for store owners to allow customers to checkout as guests. Many eCommerce merchants have found that offering guest checkout has substantially reduced cart abandonment and improved the overall experience for their customers.
3. Increase Speed of Checkout
Customer satisfaction is highly reliant on the speed with which customers can complete their purchases on your online store. Slow checkout pages can cause frustration for customers and lead to them leaving your site.
The following tips can help increase the speed at which customers are able to checkout on your store:
- Compression of images along with the optimization of all of your store’s assets
- Caching enables sites to load faster
- Use a solid hosting service
- Reduce the use of heavy scripts and plugins
The AbleCommerce platform is designed for performance, therefore it is much easier to optimize the checkout speed through optimizing the hosting environment and caching.
4. Provide Multiple Payment Methods
As the online shopping experience evolves, customers continue to expect greater flexibility in how they pay for their online purchases. If customers do not have the ability to choose the payment option that works best for them, it is likely that they will abandon their cart or have a lower conversion rate.
There are several types of payment options that you should provide to customers:
- Credit/Debit Cards
- PayPal
- Digital Wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Buy Now Pay Later Options (Klarna and Afterpay)
The AbleCommerce platform provides a high level of support for multiple payment gateways, therefore you can easily add additional payment methods to allow for a frictionless check out for your customers.
Enhance Customer’s Checkout Experience & Reduce Abandoned Carts:
5. Use Clear and Transparent Pricing
Clear Pricing – Customers don’t like surprises at the checkout. They want to see what their total is before they enter their credit card information.
Best Practices:
- List all charges (including shipping, taxes, discounts) up front.
- Avoid hidden fees.
- Clearly present promotions to the customers.
- Providing transparency creates trust which helps customers feel comfortable making purchases.
6. Improve Mobile Checkout Experience
Mobile-Friendly – With an increase of customers using their smartphones, it is very important to make the mobile checkout experience as easy and efficient as possible.
Here are some great mobile checkout tips:
- Make sure your checkout layouts are responsive
- Make form fields large and clean.
- Make it easy to navigate through your checkout process, and minimize clutter.
- Avoid forcing users to scroll down too far and/or input too much information
AbleCommerce Templates are designed to be mobile responsive, but if you customize the padding, spacing, and button sizes you can improve the usability for all mobile shoppers.
7. Build Trust with Security and Social Proof
Trust – Customers need to feel comfortable giving you their credit card information. Adding trust indicators to your website will increase checkout completion rates.
Ways to build trust:
- Add SSL Certificates
- Add Secure Payment Badges
- Add Customer Reviews/Rating near checkout
- Add Money Back Guarantees/Return Information
- Trust Seals like Norton or McAfee
AbleCommerce has very strict security standards; showing these protections will make your customers feel safe when purchasing.
8. Keep Customer Information for Easy Re-Order
Your customers will be happy to return to you because they have found a great deal on something they love and are returning quickly to buy more—and your customers expect to have a fast and easy experience when checking out!
You can provide customers with this convenient and quick experience by storing their personal and account information and keeping it safe.
You can store:
- Your customer’s billing and shipping addresses
- Your customer’s preferred method of payment
- A record of your customer’s last purchase(s)
With the built-in customer management features of AbleCommerce, the ability to store your customers’ details and to auto-fill their information will not only allow future purchases to be completed more quickly, but they will also encourage greater customer retention.
The Conclusion
A streamlined and well-optimized checkout is vital to increasing conversion rates and providing a positive customer experience. AbleCommerce provides many features and the tools necessary to create an easy-to-use, fast, and secure checkout process. By providing a simplified process for checkouts, allowing customers to choose from multiple forms of payment, improving the experience of mobile website users, and building trust with your customers, cart abandonment rates can be greatly reduced while overall revenues will significantly increase.
An optimized checkout process does not only create happy customers, but it is also the foundation for future customer loyalty and a stronger e-commerce business.
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