Have You Maximised Your Ecommerce Checkout?

If you run an ecommerce business, you should already know that the checkout is one of the most crucial elements of your site. Sales can be closed and lost here in an instant, so it’s certainly an area that you should spend time working on to ensure it’s as close to perfect as possible.

A recent article for Multichannel Merchant offered some advice on how you can improve the experience for customers and in the process increase your conversion rate.

While it never hurts to evaluate your online checkout procedure, there are a few signs that yours needs some attention. They include a high rate of cart abandonment, and therefore low conversions.

The news provider notes that you should always put your customers at the front of your mind when you’re looking at your ecommerce checkout and trying to streamline the process. The best place to start is with slimming down the number of fields you require people to fill in.

This is because making your forms too lengthy to fill in is a major cause of cart abandonment. The website revealed that the best-performing online retailers have an average of six to eight fields for consumers to fill in.

Contrast that to the overall average of 14 to 15 fields on ecommerce sites in general and it’s clear to see where there could be improvements to be made.

Look at what fields you have in your online form. Are there any that you can combine? Such as removing a ‘first name’ and ‘last name’ field and simply replacing it with a ‘full name’ field? Or are there any you can get rid of altogether, such as the title field?

As well as slimming your checkout form down, you should look at how you can make the process as easy for customers as possible. That may mean introducing auto-fill for certain fields.

Another major cause of cart abandonment, according to the news provider, is the lack of transparency over the total price of an order, including shipping and taxes. If you wait to show the full price of the transaction until the end of the process it can be an “unpleasant surprise” for shoppers.

“Make sure the total price is justified and visible from the start. In case you have different shipping costs for different countries, allow users to calculate the cost before proceeding to the checkout,” the website suggests.

Payments Journal recently offered similar advice. The website also recommended providing users with a variety of payment options. It notes that people want to use a payment method they’re familiar with, so allowing consumers to use Apple Pay or PayPal as well as a credit or debit card could boost your conversions.

When it comes to shipping costs, the news provider revealed that many people are willing to collect items in store rather than pay for postage. If that’s not an option you currently offer, it could be worth exploring if it’s appropriate for your business.

If you need assistance with ecommerce website development in Manchester, get in touch with us today to tap into our expertise in this area.

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