6 Ways to Improve Your Shopping Cart Checkout Experience

Cart abandonment has been one of the biggest concerns among eCommerce businesses worldwide. According to the Baymard Research 2017, almost 67.91% of online customers leave a shopping site without making a purchase. It means almost 68 users out of 100 users will leave your website without making a purchase. Isn’t that appalling? There can be several reasons as to why a customer may leave your website. The checkout process is one of the key reasons for this abandonment.

The checkout process is the most sensitive part for any business. Among various factors, the customer’s final buying decision will depend on the checkout process. So the main responsibility of any business is to create a smooth and convenient checkout process for any customer while also focusing on other areas of shopping experience. This post offers a few proven ways of checkout experience optimization.

Top 10 Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment:

There are several hundreds of reasons for shopping cart abandonment. The following are top 10 prominent ones among them. These numbers are derived from different studies.

• 60% of customers cite high shipping or tax fees or hidden charges as the reason for shopping cart abandonment.
• 37% of customers may abandon website that requires them to create an account to continue shopping.
• 28% of customers are likely to abandon the checkout process because they think that the checkout process is too long and complicated.
• 20% of customers abandon the website due to technical errors.
• 19% of customers leave the website due to concerns over payment security.
• 18% of customers cite slow delivery times as a reason for website abandonment.
• 11% of customers often abandon the website over dissatisfactory return policies.
• 8% of customers may leave the website if they do not see their preferred payment method.
• 24% of customers abandon their shopping carts if they could not calculate the total cost upfront.
• 95% of customers make their buying decision based on the shipping method. Express Shipping is the most popular choice of shipping.

Knowing these reasons will help you understand where you may need some fine tuning. However, that is not enough. You need to do some real work to increase your checkout percentage. The next section offers some tips on improve the checkout process.

Top 5 Tips for Checkout Optimization:

Checkout optimization may involve several factors. However, the following factors will help you address several issues discussed above.

1) Improve Payment Security:

Everyone is afraid of losing their hard earned money and an eCommerce customer is no different. It is important to build a safe and secure website before making any changes to the website. Many eCommerce companies nowadays implement trust signals through all phases of checkout to build their trust. Logos of payment options, well-defined privacy policies, return policies, SSL certificate, and third party validation like McAfee, Geo Trust, and Norton are a few popular trust signals shared by eCommerce marketers throughout the website.

2) Focus on Mobile-friendly Checkouts:

Today, a large percentage of customers shop through their mobile phones. However, you would be amazed to know 88% of mobile shoppers abandon the shopping carts due to bad shopping experience. Complex navigation, inconvenient checkout, and small product images are some challenges faced by such customers. You need to address these pain areas and focus on improving the shopping experience on mobiles.

3) Guest Checkout:

Customers may feel little disappointed if they are forced to create accounts. However, they may appreciate if you offer them an option for guest checkout because many customers perceive account creation as a tedious affair. You can give them an option to enter their email addresses and continue to the checkout where they can place the order immediately by adding their address and account details.

4) Add More Payment Options:

As said before 8% of customers are likely to leave a shopping cart, if they do not see their preferred payment method. So, try to incorporate all possible payment options. Including PayPal can be a best option because most customers prefer it due to advanced security and convenience it offers.

5) Give Access to Policies:

Unfair privacy, shipping, and return policies are also one of the key concerns among online consumers. So, revise your shipping, return, and privacy policies. Offer prominent links for frequently asked questions, shipping policies, and return policies within the checkout screen. You can also include a live chat option to clear customer queries before placing the order.

Conclusion :

So we have shared a few essential points that an eCommerce retailer should make on the website to ensure smooth checkout process. If you are an online retailer, so the best advice for you to follow and implement these points on your online business to improve your customer experience. Along with this, it is important to choose the right eCommerce platform to host your website. Futurism Diginyze is an AI-powered eCommerce platform that allows you to personalize interactions with your customers by integrating payments systems, inventory systems, and other critical business applications. It comes with a fully integrated suite of advanced digital marketing features. Feel free to contact our team to discuss how our platform will help you improve your site visibility, popularity, and improve the checkout experience.