If you’re running an online retail business, then your website is key to not only drawing in more customers but also helping them be satisfied with their shopping experience as well. One of the most important parts of the customer journey is the checkout process of their items. Any delay, hiccup, or confusion here can easily lead to an abandoned shopping cart and money left on the table. Here, we’re going to look at a few ways that you can stop that from happening.
Avoid long forms if you can
It has happened to everyone who goes online shopping at least once. The site allows you to easily grab the products you want in your shopping cart and get the checkout process started, only to slap you with a huge form to fill out. One of the best ways to slim down this experience is to encourage your shoppers to sign in ahead of time so they don’t have to fill in as much or to allow auto-fill on your site so that it can remember details for return shoppers.
Give a visitor checkout option
Now, you might want as many people to sign up for your online store as possible. However, if it’s getting in the way of completing sales, you should consider changing your priorities. With a visitor’s checkout, you can make it so that your shoppers don’t have to sign in at all. They might have to fill in some more details to complete each purchase this way, but if it’s their own choice, they might be more willing to see it through.
Consider what payment options you should have
Naturally, you want to make sure that the payment process is one of the smoothest parts of any transaction. This means looking into the different ways of accepting payments. For instance, you should look at ACH vs EFT payments for the benefits of allowing faster and cheaper methods of transferring money. Then there are payment gateways like Paypal to offer as an alternative to those who prefer not using payments directly from their own bank. It’s always worth keeping an eye on which types of payments most sites are accepting and seeing if you can implement them on your site, too.
Keep the finish line in sight
One of the problems that lead to shopping cart abandonment is that shoppers might feel like they don’t know how many more steps it will take before their purchase is complete, leading to frustration. Breadcrumb navigation is a great tool to use in your sight that can outline the various steps of the checkout process, as well as where the customer currently is within it. Even if they have a few steps left to go, they might be more willing to commit the time if they can see the end in sight.
Keep a close eye on the analytics of your checkout. Be ready to act on any potential barrier that could stop customers from making the purchases that they want.