You may have a streamlined marketing campaign for enhancing the sales of your online business or eCommerce website, but boosting the conversions should take precedence over everything else. After all, it determines the success of your online store and thereby, of your business. One of the crucial elements that boosts conversions for an eCommerce website is the check-out page. If the payment process is flawed (time-consuming or not secure), then customers tend to move on to your rival website.
The solution to increase your sales is by making your check-out process page as simple as you can. This write-up explores seven vital characteristics of designing a check-out process page that will determine higher conversion rates for your eCommerce website.
- Give customers assurance of security: Security tops the list of things that customers look forward to during the check-out process. Poor security is a definite red flag for them and leads to abandonment of shopping carts among other reasons. This is the reason why you need to stress on winning their trust right on the check-out page. Let your customers know that the website complies with all the security measures on an eCommerce website by displaying security seals or badges such as Verisign and logos of popular credit and debit card companies such as VISA and Master Card. Make sure that these seals or badges are clearly visible on the check-out page.
- Don’t force customers to create an account before they check-out: There are numerous online shoppers, who will be using your website for the very first time. If you want to convert them into your customers, don’t force them to create an account or register when they arrive at your site. But this doesn’t mean that you can ask them to fill up the registration form just when they are about to check-out as it is all the more annoying for them and distracts them from checking out smoothly. Wait for them to complete their shopping and then ask them to fill up the forms.
- Allow customers to edit the cart: Allowing customers to edit their shopping cart is one of the must-dos. Although this may look like an elementary tip, which makes no sense, it is immensely useful. What you can do is let customers edit and update the quantity of the items in their cart, remove items and even change the color (such as that of a dress), if possible. This ensures that your customers will count less on the back button and complete the check-out process. This in turn will enhance your sales like never before.
- Offer customers more than one shipping and payment methods: A common practice that is being used by some of the topmost online retailers is – multiple shipping and payment methods. For instance, if it is a returning customer, give them the choice to select an alternate shipping address. You can also offer the option of gift wrapping the products with a message.
Source
Multiple payment methods can include making use of online payment systems such as PayPal, Google Wallet and even Apple Pay, if applicable. Some retailers also allow users to select the delivery date for various products, although with certain terms and conditions.
- Minimize the number of steps for check-out for your customers: When online shoppers get the desired products on an eCommerce website, they usually want to checkout speedily. A lengthy check-out process becomes a major hindrance in this case and they tend to abandon their shopping carts feeling an acute level of frustration. The solution here is to minimize the number of steps that customers have to take in order to complete the check-out process on your website. You can in fact offer them a one-step checkout process, wherein they can take all the call-to-action in one page itself and proceed to check-out. Simple!
- Indicate the number of steps left for customers to complete the process: If it is not possible for you to reduce the number of steps or to implement a one-step check-out process on your website, then you can go for another useful alternative. Let the customers know which step of the checkout process they are on. For instance, entering their shipping address can be step one, choosing the payment method can be step two, entering coupon code can be step three, reviewing order and proceeding to check-out can be step four and so on and so forth. You can indicate the steps through large icons and with the help of color coding.
- Make the page aesthetically appealing to your customers: Another essential tip that you need to take into consideration when it comes to increasing the conversion rates of your eCommerce website is to make all the pages aesthetically appealing to your customers. While many businesses concentrate on home pages and landing pages, it is a given that even your check-out page is designed flawlessly. Make sure that the page is devoid of clutter, has appropriate size of fonts, clearly visible buttons and is intuitive so that shoppers can face no issues while checking out from their mobile devices with smaller screens. Get inspired by taking a look at some of the well-designed eCommerce websites mentioned in this article.
To conclude
Shopping cart abandonment during the check-out process is one of the harsh realities of eCommerce websites that even many top companies have faced at some or the other point of time. Take a cue from the points mentioned and work towards an effective check-out process page, which will surely boost the conversion rates like never before and contribute to the success of your online business. Apart from following these tips, do not forget to test the page. Even though it can take up a lot of investment in terms of time, testing is definitely beneficial in the long-term. You can select from numerous testing methods to make sure that you offer visitors a seamless checkout process.
This post was written by Michael Georgiou, a dynamic business professional and entrepreneurial guru associated with Imaginovation – Raleigh Web Design Company proven his success in creative strategy, online branding, project management, and communication projects in both the public and private sectors.
