The eCommerce checkout process is a pivotal moment, and a friction-filled checkout process can be a conversion killer that cuts directly into revenue.
Data backs this up: A Forrester study showed that eCommerce brands lose a whopping $18 billion in annual sales due to poor checkout experiences while an average of 70% of online shopping carts never convert. Losing a prospective buyer in the final stages of the checkout process is not only a miss one time—it also disables recurring revenue.
So what makes for a great eCommerce checkout experience? Let’s explore some trends and find out.
Modern Trends: Exploring Best Practices in the eCommerce Checkout Process
Many eCommerce brands miss out on the opportunity to optimize their checkout processes. After a thorough analysis, we’ve found three essential ingredients to make the best checkout page.
1. Keep things simple
Splitit found that 87% of shoppers will abandon their carts if the checkout process is too lengthy or complicated, while Barilliance’s study showed that 22% of consumers abandon their shopping cart when prompted to create a user account.
Brands like Nike solve this by enabling a simple guest checkout process. This option keeps things convenient by making it faster for online shoppers to check out without creating a user profile, which can be time-consuming and frustrating.
But this isn’t just about form fields. Another facet of boosting checkout simplicity involves optimizing your checkout page for mobile devices. According to a 2019 report, mobile devices account for over 65% of all eCommerce traffic, and cart abandonment rates reach 80.79% on smartphones.
““The smaller the size of the screen, the more likely a customer is to not purchase. This is problematic considering that for the first time ever, more digital buyers will use smartphones than desktops to shop.” — Barillance
Bottom line: Make it simple for shoppers to go from “Add to Cart” to “Order Complete” with the fewest possible clicks in between.
2. Make it fast
No one likes jumping through hoops to make a payment online.
Customers want to buy items online without having to get out their credit cards, enter in all the card and shipping details, and then hope that it goes through. Speed is everything: A 0.1-second improvement of mobile site speed can increase conversion rate by 8.4%.
The good news: There are many options for a faster, less complicated online checkout experience across devices. Digital wallets like Apple Pay, PayPal, and Fast are all tools that help increase checkout speed online. After linking an initial account, payment can be completed in just a few clicks.
It’s good news, considering contactless payments are expected to reach $6 trillion by 2020. Nearly eight in ten consumers are also now using QR codes, tap-and-go credit cards, and tools like Apple Pay, according to a survey by Mastercard. Why? Because they want safer and faster checkout processes.
Big brands are already getting on board with this shift in behavior. Authentic Brands Group (ABG), one of the largest brand owners in the US, recently partnered with Bolt to enable a one-click checkout for all of the companies under its belt—beginning with the website and app of the fashion brand Forever21. This partnership reached 50 million shoppers in 2020.
Bottom line: Make it a breeze for customers to pay. Offer multiple payment methods, integrate with one-click payment options, and enable contactless payments in-store.
Social Impact Opportunity in the Customer Checkout Process
While covering the basics we discussed above is crucial, they aren’t the only things that make for a memorable checkout experience.
Conscious consumerism is also on the rise. In fact: 88% of consumers say they want businesses to help them be more environmentally friendly according to a study by Futterra, while 71% of shoppers rank environment-friendly practices as one of the most important attributes of a business.
This presents another opportunity within the checkout space in which brands can build deeper bonds with shoppers via social impact.
How? By tying it into the customer checkout process by asking shoppers to make a donation. 55% of consumers like being asked to do so according to one study by Good Scout, and 79% of those who donated reported feeling positive about the experience.
Several companies have already started becoming a participant in social change. Coffee and apparel company Grounds & Hounds, for example, donates 20% of its sales to animal rescue funds. Zomato, a food delivery company across 24 countries, gives shoppers an option to donate a small amount in their checkout process.
A standout example comes from Kenneth Cole, which started The Mental Health Coalition to eradicate the stigma around mental health, and thanks to a partnership with ShoppingGives, shoppers can see how much of an impact their purchase will make for the organization right on the product page.
But it’s not all online: Extending the opportunity to give in-stores strengthens brand identity and helps create an omnichannel experience for customers. The solution? ShoppingGives integration with Shopify POS. In under five steps, any brand can utilize the opportunity to create a positive impact on its customers.
So what does all this mean?
The checkout experience evolves with the average consumer, and as customers begin to care more about the social involvement of brands, companies will need to integrate best practices of the checkout process with their impact strategy moving forward.
Combine Checkout with Social Impact
The best practices in the eCommerce checkout process show that today’s customers want their checkout experience to be simple, convenient, quick, and safe.
But that’s not all. Consumers also care about how brands fulfill social responsibilities (and allow them to do the same). The checkout process is a chance to create a social impact and let customers participate.
Want to get started? Begin by downloading the Change Commerce app for Shopify POS.