6 Ways To Simplify Your Ecommerce Checkout Process

It happens far too often that a brand’s marketing successfully pulls in a customer, the customer adds their desired products to their cart, only to abandon their purchase due to an overcomplicated checkout process. While checkout may seem like an ideal time to gather data on your customers, too many questions, prompts, or hoops to jump through can lose the customer altogether. Simplify your ecommerce checkout process and avoid abandoned cart syndrome with these tips:

1.  Require less information.

Minimize questions and prompts so your customers can get through the checkout process quickly. Use expandable sections for extra information requests (like “Company Name” or “How did you hear about us?”) so your customers can skip them if they’re in a rush. It also may seem like a good idea to include a “Promotion Code” box, but this can make customers think they are missing out on a potential deal and lead to cart abandonment. As a general rule of thumb, require as little information as possible to complete a purchase.

2. Offer multiple payment options.

People pay with a wide variety of payment methods including credit cards, digital wallets, cryptocurrency, and third-party payment apps like Zelle or Paypal. Having all of these options readily available gives your customer the best possible chance to checkout without any problems. Let’s say they don’t have their credit card handy. Allowing your customers to use Apple Pay or Zelle could mean the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart that leads to a sale for one of your competitors.

3. Optimize for mobile.

Times have changed since most ecommerce purchasing was done on a desktop computer, which is why it’s so important to optimize your ecommerce platform for mobile use. Make sure your checkout buttons are large and easy to find, and make sure there are no bugs in your mobile UX. Further to this, make sure your checkout process works through all social media platforms. Meet your customers where they are, so they can easily checkout on the same app in which they found your product to close more deals.

4. Be clear and transparent.

One of the main reasons users abandon carts is because of hidden fees. Be clear about taxes and fees from the beginning of your sale, so customers aren’t surprised when they get to the final part of checkout. Make sure you include important information about your sale as well, such as the price of shipping, delivery time, and return policy so your customers can easily find all of the information they need to trust your business and complete their purchase.

5. Provide a “Guest Checkout” option.

Don’t make your customers create an account to complete their purchase. Eliminate this extra opportunity to click away by providing a “guest checkout” option. If you’d like, you can ask for more information on your customer after the sale is complete.

6. Collect feedback.

Collect feedback on your checkout process and take note of what isn’t working for your customers. Fix these issues to improve your checkout process over time and convert as many sales as possible. Try using a customer satisfaction survey for best results.

Follow these tips to establish a smoother checkout process on your ecommerce website, and check out our blog for more tips on how to improve your small ecommerce business.