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In this month’s article, I will discuss more tips to avoid Checkout abandonment. I also encourage you to join the eBizInsider forums which contain a wealth of knowledge.

Let’s split the checkout process into two distinct steps. The first step is a shopping cart page where the consumer adds products to the cart. The second step is the rest of the checkout process including the shipping and billing page, order review and confirmation. The largest percentage of abandonment occurs on the shopping cart page. There are steps you can take and things to avoid during this checkout step to make the experience easy for your customers and profitable for you.

Single Page vs. Multi Page Checkout

Single Page checkout is most likely two or more pages in total, one page displays your cart and all the other checkout information, including shipping and billing information on this single page, and the second page would be the confirmation page. Some checkouts allow customers to review the content before submitting their order. Multi-page checkout includes a cart, checkout pages and a confirmation page. Each option offers benefits and drawbacks depending on your store.

Single page:

• Single page is truly not a single page checkout but most likely two pages minimum including the confirmation page. It is now possible to display everything on one page without reloading the entire page.

• Single page checkout has been gaining popularity because it reduces the number of steps for customers to complete an order.

• Customers who frequently shop online may benefit from the speed of a one page checkout.

• One page checkout makes for a longer page which leads to excessive scrolling. This can cause shoppers to miss fields required to checkout and lead to an unpleasant shopping experience.

• If there is no easy access provided for your customer to get back in the store and shop for more products, single page checkouts might decrease the overall size of your order.

Multi-page:

• Multi-page checkout is a more traditional and familiar checkout model for most customers. If multi-page checkout is not designed properly, it leads to customer confusion and abandonment. Ideal multi-page checkout should not be any more than 4 steps starting from the shopping cart to the confirmation page.

• Here is an ideal flow for multi-page checkout

• Shopping Cart > Shipping and Billing > Order Review [Optional] > Confirmation Page

• It’s easier for customers to have Shipping and Billing combined on one page. Let your customer choose the shipping and billing address to be the same so they do not have to re-type the same information during checkout.

• Order review helps build customer confidence. It allows customers to review information before submitting their order. This allows a comfort level, especially in the case of large orders. Not including an order review takes a step off the checkout process but can lead to increased cancellations if the customer expected a review page to be shown before confirmation. Decide which works best for your website.

My advice is to skip the cart page altogether and let customers add a product to the cart from the category or product page and view all cart related information on these pages. This feature is called, variously, Mini Cart, Persistent Cart or Floating Cart. This feature reduces a step in the checkout and improves the shopping experience. This feature also keeps customers on their current page and allows them to surf and add more products in their shopping cart. When they decide to check out they will be sent directly to the Shipping and Billing page, skipping the shopping cart page altogether. The primary goal is to improve the customer experience, but it also leads to larger orders because of the seamless shopping experience. Research shows it lowers abandonment by as much as 20%.

Account Registration

I have seen websites asking for account registration before I have decided to check out or see the shipping costs. This is a big turn-off for customers. This step should always be optional. Customers will not mind registering on your website once they trust you. When asking customers to register clearly, display how registration will benefit them and they’ll be less hesitant.

Offering your customer a reason to register generates customer information and repeat business, which statistics show convert at higher rates. To review:

• Registration should always be optional

• Show your customer benefits of registering, not limited to an easy way to check out

• Register customers after the purchase unobtrusively and without detouring the customer from check out

You might wonder why, if the big sites do this, that I suggest not doing it. Sadly, if you can’t compete with the big guys at eye-level, then you can’t afford to apply their standards. They have the benefit of
brand recognition.

Secure Pages and Warnings

Security-conscious buyers may amount to 30% of total users on your website. Always test your checkout pages to make sure they’re using secure channels to transmit data and there are no errors or warnings displayed in your checkout. Customers who see security warnings often become lost customers. When you install third party tracking scripts, always install the secure version of the scripts on your checkout pages. You can also display secure icons on the checkout pages that will add customer confidence.

Error Handling

Customers often make mistakes while filling out checkout pages and the difference between successful conversion and abandonment could be as simple as how you handle the errors. Display in a polite and clear way what customers missed and help them complete the checkout. Below are some approaches:

• Highlight the fields that were incorrect or missed by changing the background color of the incorrect fields to point your customer in the proper direction

• Hide or gray out the fields that were entered correctly, or display only the fields that were missed or incorrect

• Display error messages for specific fields missed instead of generic messages

Checkout Page Design

One of the main reasons for checkout abandonment was because customers found the Checkout process to be too confusing. Checkout pages should be clean and easy to understand, leading your customer a step closer to checkout by avoiding clutter on the page. Remove unnecessary navigation from the checkout page to block an exit path, but provide all the required links to your policies and contact information in case the customer needs to review it before purchase.

Checkout pages should be designed so customers can see where they are in the checkout process. A progress indicator should always be visible, like the image below. You know where you are and how many steps until you’re finished.

Another area that checkout design should emphasize is buttons on the page. You should have the button designed so that button to the next step of the checkout is more emphasized than the one that will take you back out of checkout. Here is a an example of the two buttons on the checkout page. Notice the “Cancel” button is darker and grayed out while the “Submit Order” button is bolder and red colored so that your eyes get drawn toward the “Submit Order” button rather than the “Cancel” button. You can even experiment by making the “Cancel” button smaller and light.

Shipping Methods and Payment Options

Providing different methods of payment like Credit Cards, PayPal, Bill Me Later, etc. will give your customers the freedom to choose the payment methods, which in return would increase conversion. Likewise, providing a variety of shipping methods for your customer to choose from will help them choose the method best suited for their needs.

Real-time Credit Card Verification

Credit cards should be verified in real-time, not after the sale is completed. If you verify manually and there is a problem, you take the chance of turning off the customer and losing the sale.

User Opinion

Ask family and friends to shop on your website and provide their opinions of the checkout process. Was it easy, or were there stages where they had to rethink before taking the next step? Based on the feedback, you can tweak it.

Conclusion

Tweaking and customizing your checkout process to meet customer expectations should be continuous. With newer tools and technology there are always new ways to provide your customer with a seamless shopping experience.

When you look at analytics data for your website, do you notice customers dropping out from the shopping cart page before completing checkout? Have you invested time and money but the conversion rate is still lacking? This is a problem throughout e-commerce. However, there are steps you can take to keep those shoppers with you to the purchase. This article will emphasize how to increase user conversions by modifying the shopping cart page.

First, if you don’t have analytics, I highly recommend you install Google Analytics to follow consumer behavior on your website. Google Analytics is free software and some sort of analytics software is a must for every merchant. You can learn more about Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/.

Identifying the Problems

The largest percentage of abandonment occurs at the shopping cart. According to Marketing Sherpa report, the average shopping cart abandonment rate in 2006 was 59.8% and 52.1% in 2007. This means that more than half of all customers adding items to the cart leave the cart page.

The top three reasons why consumers abandoned the cart according to Forrester research study titled “Rethinking the Significance of Cart Abandonment”:

1. I didn’t want to pay the shipping charges [57%]

2. The total cost of purchase was more than I thought it would be [48%]

3. I used the shopping cart for research [41%]

Shipping Charges

If you offer flat rate shipping or free shipping, display it prominently on your website for consumers to see. Do not hide shipping information on policy pages, display it in a visible area like header or next to the Buy button. Don’t expect your customer to search for shipping information; make it easy for them to find. If you are unable to determine actual shipping costs then providing estimates is a good idea. If you charge tax, or if you are offering free shipping based on condition, display that information. Don’t deceive your customers. If you offer free shipping over X amount, display it properly on the page. Let them know that free shipping only kicks in at a certain point. This also encourages customers to add more products to save on shipping, which in turn results in increased order size.

If you cannot display shipping information on product level, it is crucial that shipping and tax be calculated on the shopping cart page. If you only need a zip code to display this information then do not ask buyers for their address. Buyers usually resist providing information until they decide to purchase.

Other shipping-related tips to increase conversions:

1. Display estimated delivery dates for the shipping methods on your web pages and/or cart page.

2. Do not tell customers late in the process that shipping and handling charges would be added. No one likes surprises when it comes to spending money.

3. Avoid charging handling fees for products because buyers do not like hidden fees and charges. Instead, add handling costs to the price or the shipping charges.

Cost of Purchase

Online customers expect their final cost for products to be less than brick-and-mortar stores. The Forrester Research survey which I mentioned above showed that 19% of customers abandon the cart because they didn’t want to wait for the product and 18% purchased the products offline. This suggests that if consumers can buy easily and cheaply offline, they will. To stay competitive do your homework and offer competitive pricing or some other value that consumers can’t resist. If you don’t, you will lose out to the brick-and-mortar stores.

Shopping Cart for Research

41% of surveyors used shopping carts to research about the product and it’s pricing. We can’t stop consumers from researching the product, but we can take steps to encourage people to buy. Present shipping and tax information on the product pages. If the product is shipped free then highlight that information clearly on the product page. If it has special shipping requirements, display them on the product page. Disclose as much information as you can on the product page so consumers don’t have to add a product to the cart just to check total cost.

A customer using your site for research is still likely to return later to purchase some of the products they previously added to the shopping cart. Save the cart information so customers can go directly to the cart page and complete their purchase. Offer features like “wishlists” or “saved shopping cart,” which save lists of products in which customers have shown an interest. The wishlist can be used for comparison rather than using the cart. You also benefit when users register to use this feature.

Page Loads

Error-free fast-loading shopping carts have shown to increase conversion. Keep your shopping cart and checkout pages simple, error free, distraction free and fast-loading. To carry your company branding, a smart designer can carry over the logo and color scheme and make it look like your web site but light weight. Emphasize the steps the customer needs in order to complete checkout or to add more products.

If you use a secure cart, make sure there are no security error messages which might cause users to panic and abandon the cart. Secure http calls are slower than a regular http call because of the data encryption technology used. If your shopping cart is not holding user-sensitive data then the cart doesn’t have to be secure. Also, avoid distracting pop-ups which open dynamically on the cart page and don’t add scripts that disable right click. Most consumers use the context menu to navigate and disabling it will frustrate more than help.

Payment Methods

Display all payment methods that you accept including alternate payment methods like PayPal and Bill Me Later. These latter methods have been shown to satisfy the first time buyer who is not feeling fully secure providing credit card information. From a user’s perspective PayPal is a good way to make secure payments to multiple vendors using single account information and without disclosing credit card information to all merchants. For merchants, PayPal service charges are much lower than credit card charges.

Other Tips to Decrease Abandonment

Call to Action Buttons – Call to Action buttons must be worded properly to describe what they do. They should be placed in visible areas for users to finish conversion. Make the button look and feel as if it is clickable. Also, make buttons leading to checkout larger and bolder than buttons simply directing customers back to the site.

Product Availability – Display product availability on product pages, not on the cart page. The longer you wait, the more frustrated your customers become. If requested quantities are not available then add the available quantity and alert consumers with a user-friendly error message displaying what happened.

Display Product Information – Including pictures and other options like size, color etc. Have a link for users to go back to product pages by clicking name and image.

Make Editing Products Easier – It’s much easier to provide a removable link rather than to have the customer figure out that they have to add quantity as zero and then hit update.

Contact Information – Display contact information clearly on the shopping cart page. Encourage customers to call if they have any queries regarding checkout.

Policies – Provide links to policy
pages like shipping, privacy,
returns, etc. on the cart page. Do not
try to hide these links as most consumers want to know this information before they finish the purchase.

Secure Icons – Display security and privacy
information
to increase
consumer confidence in your website. Keep these icons visible but subtle because too much emphasis on secure
icons can backfire, too.

Registration – Should always be optional and simple. Still, ask users if they wish to register somewhere after their shipping and billing information is complete.

Links Back to Store – Make it easy for customers to add more products to
the cart.

Related Cross-sells – Cross-sell products related to the products already in the cart. Don’t confuse consumers with irrelevant cross sells.

Discounts – If you purchase X product, product Y gets 10% off. This helps conversions. Also, offer coupons
by providing them incentives to
finish checkout.

Summing Up

The bad news is that more than half of all shoppers will abandon the shopping cart and not make the purchase. The good news is that there are many steps you can take to increase your sales and decrease your frustration. Try them!