A checkout page has a major hand in eCommerce conversions. Without an optimized checkout page, the chances of a shopping cart abandonment increase significantly.
Cart abandonment happens too often during the checkout process and it can occur for a number of reasons. It won’t be wrong to say that it is a curse on eCommerce. So, how do you prevent this from happening?
Let’s try to understand why visitors abandon the checkout page and find out how you can overcome them with simple tweaks.
1. The hidden cost is a conversion killer
The unexpected hidden cost is one of the major reasons why customers abandon the checkout process. According to the Baymard’s research, extra hidden costs such as shipping charge, tax, transaction fee hold the highest percentage (55%) amongst the reasons for abandonment during checkout. Still, most of the eCommerce stores do not reveal the actual order total up-front before the payment page in the checkout process. E-retailers taking overhead, extra, or hidden costs must reveal the exact product amount in the checkout process itself rather than disappointing the customer later on the payment page. In fact, the best place to reveal the estimated cost of the cart is right after a customer selects the shipping option.
2. Compulsory account creation
The compulsory account creation ranks at the 2nd position in the study done by the Baymard Institute to find out the reasons for shopping cart abandonment during checkout. About 34% of customers leave the checkout process just because the web store asked for compulsory account creation to make a purchase.
When so much of alternative options like social login and guest checkout are easily accessible on the websites, it does not seem a wise idea to offer only the traditional account creation option on the checkout page. As a merchant, you should understand that if not you, a majority of your competitors would already be providing the social login and guest checkout options on their e-commerce platform.
Do not let the shoppers bother about creating an account unless you have a very strong reason to hold them back. Do not compel them to visit your rival’s store for easy checkout. Integrate a guest checkout or a social login option on your checkout page today.
3. Too long/complicated checkout process
The length and complexity of a checkout process make a visitor reluctant to leave the checkout page. To overcome this problem, you can think of implementing a single page checkout on your store. Although there’s no clear conclusion to the debate between one page checkout vs multi-page checkout, I would prefer a one-page checkout over a multi-page checkout. Well, even if you are using the multi-page checkout process, make sure to ask only relevant information so that the consumers can make a quick purchase from your store. Amazon’s checkout process, for example, is a multi-page structure, but still, it’s quite simple and fast. It’s because it doesn’t ask for too many details, just the important ones. The account creation step would ask for your name, email, and your desired password and that’s it, you have an Amazon account.
So, either you are offering a multi-page or single-page checkout, the main aim should be to reduce the number of entries in forms used in the checkout process. Whether it is the account creation form or the billing/shipping address form, customers are never going to like if you thinking to capture more than enough details. You can take a reference regarding the best checkout form designing from “5 things you probably didn’t know about eCommerce checkout”.
4. Unsatisfactory return policy
According to the data collected by Invesp, 30% of the products that are ordered online are returned, which is 21.11 higher as compared to the brick-and-mortar store(8.89%). In the same data, it was found that around 58% of the online shoppers want a hassle-free return policy.
The concerns regarding the product return always revolve around a customer’s head. Ever before they decide to make a purchase, the first thing they confirm is whether the product can be returned easily, if in case it contains some problems.
Your return policy plays a major role in the decision-making process of the consumer. In order to provide satisfactory return policy, you must also have an efficient RMA system that allows you to tweak your return structure.
The return process of your eCommerce store should reflect your return policy well. In simple terms, deliver what you have mentioned in your return policy. If you have a flexible return policy but customers are finding a tough time during the return process, it is going to create a negative impact on your store. You can lose the trust of your customers.
So, make sure to manage your returns well. To make this easy for you, we suggest you to try the Return Manager module by Knowband. Check out the Return Manager addon for Prestashop, Return Manager extension for Magento and Return Manager extension for Magento 2.
Also read: 4 simple tips to reduce ecommerce returns
5. Lack of multiple payment options
Even today, there are many eCommerce companies that are restricted to a few selected payment modes only, which is surely not a good sign considering the various preferences by consumers to make the payment. When consumers do not find their preferred payment mode on the checkout page, they are left with no option except leaving the purchase incomplete. Do not let this happen to your eCommerce store.
Enable multiple modes of payment on your store and allow your visitors to make their own choice for the payment purpose.
Conclusion
The checkout page is the most important element of the whole conversion funnel. Most of the consumers reaching on the checkout page have the buying intentions at some level. It depends on how well you have structured your checkout page and your return policies to persuade the customers to complete their purchase. To check which step is creating trouble for your store visitors during the checkout, you can try out the Prestashop Checkout page analytics addon. This addon can be a useful solution for you to track all the important metrics of your checkout process.
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