Thinking about getting an eCommerce website developed? What do you need to know. Just having a large volume of traffic to your eCommerce website is not enough. Will that traffic get converted? So, you need to start planning out on strategies, before hand and have them in place, when you are getting your eCommerce website developed. For higher conversion rates and lesser cart abandonments, an easy and hassle free check out process plays a major role. Do talk to your eCommerce developer about this.

Here are a important hacks for getting your eCommerce Check-Out Page optimized for higher conversions.  

Have multiple check-out buttons

If your eCommerce website visitor should get converted, then, they should be able to navigate to the check out page and complete their purchase. This is when you can say, a sale happened on the eCommerce website. However, if the check out button is not properly labeled and if your site visitor is wandering about, finding out how to check out the shopping cart, then, he will just quit the website and will never return. This is what is called cart abandonment from the visitor. 

If this should not occur, then, provide multiple check out buttons within their shopping cart page, preferably in two to three places, at the top and at the bottom of the shopping cart page. If your website is integrated with PayPal Payment Gateway or Stripe Payment Gateway, provide an option saying, PayPal Check out or Stripe Check out. This way, you can significantly increase the conversion rate and reduce the potential  for cart abandonment.

Have a secured check out process in place

Security has to be of the utmost priority of an eCommerce website. A visitor should not be skeptical about the security on your eCommerce website. If the check out page looks untrustworthy to them, then, they get a fair chance to leave your website without checking out their shopping cart.

In the last five years, 46% of the people in the US, who purchased from an eCommerce website, have been affected by the credit card fraud - as published by Credit Donkey.

If your check out process is not secure, then, people will not feel confident to provide their credit card information on your website, which  in turn will lead to cart abandonment. Make sure the check out page is safe and you have included security badges like Norton or McAfee or anything that you think will assure security to your Customers' payment information.

Reduce the number of form fields 

As per a research conducted by Baymard Institute, websites with lesser form fields have greater performance rate and lesser card abandons.

A website visitor has added items in his shopping cart and he is ready to check out, pay and make the purchase. Don't give him a chance to change his mind and abandon the cart. For this, you need to have a simple checkout process, with not many form fields. You need to eliminate those form fields that are not necessary for a checkout process. For example, Customer's name is required for the payment processing and shipment processing. Do not unnecessarily force him to type this more than once. 

Also, only ask for those information that is required for a check out process. If a Customer's shipping address and billing address is same, then, you need to have a check box that says, billing address is same as shipping address.

Make it a two step check out process, where your Customer can give his name and email address on the first page and credit card information on the second page, and complete the purchase. This worked very well according to a survey that was conducted by the Crazy Egg, where it was found that implementation of two step check out process resulted in a 12% higher conversion rate.

Spurtcommerce, the Open source NodeJS eCommerce Solution comes with the feature of Single Page or One Page Check-out feature. A one-page checkout displays all elements of a standard checkout including basket contents, billing and shipping address, shipping options, and payment information on one page. One page checkouts simplifies the check out process with fewer clicks and fewer pages.

Have Guest Check out option

I'm not against a Customer profile. It is good to have a Customer profile so that you can keep track of their data, their purchase history and their buying behavior. Also, you can send them promotional emails and discount offers on the products they usually purchase from your website. In addition, having a profile gives your Customers an edge, as they can save time on purchases with their stored shipping information and payment information on your website. 

Sure, you should encourage your Customers to have a profile, but there is a huge difference between encouraging and forcing. Just think, is it mandatory for a Customer to have a profile to make purchases from your website? Absolutely not. In a survey that was conducted by the National Retail Federation, 48 percent of the eCommerce store owners said that the feature of Guest check out became one of the primary factors for an increased conversion rate. Also, it is the second important factor for high conversion rates, after free shipping.

To make it simpler, if people are interested in buying products on your website, let them pay you. Do not reinforce your marketing strategies on potential sales.

At the same time, do not completely eliminate the opportunity of having Customer profiles. Just like how Walmart does, you may offer them a promo code or a discount on their next purchase, for creating the Customer profile.

Let your Customers see what's in their cart as they shop

I would like to quote my own personal experience here, based on what happened to me on Big Basket, the popular online grocery store in India. I'm a regular online shopper at Big Basket. Also, I have many a times abandoned my cart there. Once, even though I had added just two or three items in my shopping cart, I ended up purchasing 10 to 15 items which I had added a month, or two or three months ago. It came to a shock when I saw that I paid a huge price for just two or three items. How did this happen? I found that I had checked out what I had added in my basket earlier.  I ended up paying Big Basket for all of my earlier cart abandonments. Is this a feel good factor for a Customer?  You can also relate to the point I have mentioned earlier with regard to having a Customer profile on the eCommerce website. Having a Customer profile on Big Basket proved wrong for me then.  

When a Customer adds an item in the cart, make sure to show them what their cart already has. Amazon also doesn't delete the items on the abandoned cart. But, they show the cart to the Customer, while checking out, with an option to either check out or delete, what the Customer had added during their earlier visits to the website.   

Wrapping Up

Achieving higher conversion rates with easy check out options is not difficult. If you are looking forward to having an easy check out process with the best strategies, then, seek advice for it, by writing to support@spurtcommerce.com