How to Increase Ecommerce Checkout Conversion Rates in 8 Simple Steps

Are visitors adding items to their cart without checking out?

Perhaps it’s time you review and increase your checkout conversion rates. While this may seem like a huge challenge, optimizing your checkout conversion rates is crucial for sales.

A high checkout conversion rate means more visitors are buying your products or services, resulting in more sales and revenue for your business.  A low checkout conversion rate means many visitors are abandoning their carts or failing to complete their purchases.

Are you eager to boost your e-commerce checkout rate but don’t know how? You are in the right place! 

Below, we rounded up 8 tips on how to increase checkout conversion rates, driving sales and profits in the process.

 

To start, what is the Checkout Conversion Rate?

The checkout conversion rate is the percentage of store visitors who complete the checkout process successfully after showing the intent to buy. When visitors visit your online store with the intent to buy, they often have two choices—make the purchase or abandon it.

If your checkout procedure is seamless, visitors will convert without hassle, boosting your checkout conversion rates. However, if not, they’ll abandon the purchase, causing you to lose the sale.

But here is the kicker:

Sometimes, the intention to abandon a purchase may stem from factors aside from your checkout procedure. Perhaps the customer is window shopping or creating a wish list for later, causing them to postpone the purchase. And that’s normal.

However, what if the issue lies in your checkout procedure? How do you boost your checkout conversion rate in that case?

Before we go into that, let’s first understand why customers abandon shopping carts.

 

Reasons why Customers Abandon their Shopping Carts?

According to research by the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of ecommerce carts get abandoned. In other words, almost 70 of 100 potential customers fail to complete the checkout process.

Here are a few reasons customers abandon their shopping carts:

The extra cost is too high (shipping, taxes, etc.)

When unexpected fees raise the base price of a product, customers may reconsider their purchase. This could result in them abandoning their shopping carts. Some customers even add products to their carts to view the total price and abandon the purchase if it’s too high.

 

The need to create an account:

According to research by Baymard, 28% of customers abandoned their purchase because they were asked to create an account during the checkout. Forcing prospects to create an account before checkout adds friction to the purchase cycle, causing them to abandon their cart.

 

Complicated and Time-consuming Checkout process

If customers have to wrack their brains and spend time completing the checkout, they’ll bounce. A complicated and time-consuming checkout process affects the customer’s user experience. Reduce the steps and forms in your checkout process to decrease cart abandonment and boost checkout conversion rates.

 

Security Concerns

If customers feel that their credit card details and other financial information aren’t safe, they’ll abandon their cart and shop elsewhere. Ensure you use a reliable fraud management system on your e-commerce store to gain customers’ trust.

 

Slow delivery

61% of shoppers want their items delivered within 1-3 hours of online purchase, while 80% want same-day shipping. If your business can’t match customer delivery time expectations, they’ll bounce. Set a delivery time that suits customers’ needs to reduce cart abandonment and increase checkout conversion.

 

Better pricing from your competitors

Not all customers visit your online store to buy; some come to compare prices. Such customers will abandon the cart if they realize that your competitor offers a better deal.

 

Why is Checkout Conversion Rates Important for Your Business?

Here is why checkout conversion rate is important for your business and why you should take ecommerce checkout conversion rate optimization seriously. 

 

More sales and revenue

As we mentioned earlier, the checkout conversion rate is the percentage of store visitors who complete the checkout process successfully. Obviously, an improved checkout conversion rate means more sales for your business. And more sales means more revenue, which is good for your business. Remember, a little uptick in your conversion rate can increase sales significantly. So, ensure you invest effort and resources in increasing your checkout conversion rates.

 

Better Return on Investment (ROI)

After investing time and resources in driving customers to your online store, you want to see them convert to paying customers. Boosting your checkout conversion rates can make that happen, resulting in more revenue and a better return on investment in your marketing effort.

Additionally, you spend less acquiring new customers when more website visitors are turning into paying customers. This helps maximize your ROI.

 

Lower Cart Abandonment Rate

Did you know that e-commerce stores lose $18 billion in sales revenue annually due to cart abandonment? By optimizing your checkout conversion rates, you can reduce cart abandonment, increasing sales in the process. Obviously, when there are more sales, your revenue increases.

 

Tips to Increase your Checkout Conversion Rate

Here are some simple tips on how to increase checkout conversion rates: 

 

1. Review and simplify the Checkout Process

If you want to optimize your conversion rates, you need to focus on the elephant in the room:

The checkout process!

Review the checkout process carefully.

Are there too many steps needed to complete the checkout? Reduce them.

You should also consider a guest checkout option that allows visitors to make a purchase without creating an account. Customers often abandon their carts due to the complicated and time-consuming checkout process involving many steps and mandatory forms.

Yes, we get it; you want to collect enough customer information for marketing reasons. However, your main focus should be on streamlining the checkout process.

A straightforward checkout process eliminates friction, allowing customers to buy with ease. This helps boost your checkout conversion rate, increasing sales and profit for your e-commerce business. 

Other ways to simplify the checkout process are:

• Requesting less information from customers
• Decluttering the checkout page
• Utilizing smart forms that generate city, state info, etc., from zip code
• Using Google auto-fill forms to save time
•  Implementing the auto-detect credit card type feature, which detect card type from the first 4 digits

 

2. Show Trust Signals

Customers buy from brands they trust.  

In fact, according to a study from Adobe, seven out of 10 customers choose to buy from brands they trust.

Want to obtain customer’s trust?

Start by proving that their data and money are safe.

You can do that by showcasing trust signals like positive customer reviews. You can also display badges from recognizable internet security organizations to gain customer’s trust.

With the rapid increase in data breaches and payment fraud, customers are more cautious about performing transactions online. Your business must allay such fears, providing reassurance that customer financial and personal information is safe. This helps increase checkout conversion rates.

 

3. Offer Free Shipping and Free Returns

Did you know that extra costs like shipping and taxes lead 48% of shoppers to abandon their carts?

Offering free shipping to shoppers helps reduce the overall cost of their purchase, encouraging them to complete the checkout. Plus, customers love freebies and a good deal. Not only does it give your business a competitive advantage, but it also improves customer satisfaction and encourages repeat purchases.

Free return is another freebie to consider. It allows customers to shop with confidence, knowing fully well that they can return the product if they aren’t satisfied. This makes them more eager to complete their purchases, increasing conversion rates. 

While freebies are a good way to woo customers, ensure you don’t overdo it. Offer free shipping and free returns only if you can afford them. We also recommend using them as a short-term promotion for a limited time to protect your profitability.

 

4. Provide Multiple Payment Options

Customers will abandon their cart if they can’t find their preferred payment method. But if you offer them multiple payment options, they’ll be happy to choose the one that works for them.

Include multiple payment options to streamline the checkout process and improve customer satisfaction. Or better still, you can save money and enhance customer convenience by leveraging Payment Savvy, a software that offers an all-in-one payment solution.

Payment Savvy solutions are designed to provide e-commerce businesses with custom and secure payments that boost checkout conversion rates, sales, and customer retention.

Whether it is credit and debit cards, ACH payments, pay by text, or integrated voice response, Payment Savvy has it all. It offers customers a convenient and straightforward e-commerce payment solution with the highest security and no hidden fees.

 

5. Be Transparent with your Pricing and Fees

No one wants to be surprised with unexpected or exorbitant charges at the final stages of checkout.

It’s a complete turnoff!

In fact, it’s the leading cause of cart abandonment.

To avoid losing customers at the final stage of checkout, clearly disclose all the charges associated with the purchase up front. Whether taxes, shipping, or service fees, stating charges related to the purchase helps build trust.

It also reduces friction in the buying process, increasing the chances of securing the sale. Remember, if customers know how much they’ll pay for an item beforehand, they will likely complete the checkout.

 

6. Retarget Cart Abandoners

Cart abandonment will happen regardless of what you do to prevent it.

The good news?

Not all cart abandoners are a lost cause!

You can still encourage them to revisit their cart and complete their purchase.

How? By offering incentives like discounts, free shipping, and hard to resist offers.

Alternatively, you can set up cart abandonment emails to remind customers of their cart, encouraging them to complete their purchase. Ensure you highlight key selling points and what they’ll miss if they fail to make the sale. 

Don’t also forget to get the timing right. We recommend sending the first cart abandonment email a few hours after abandonment. At this time, the product is still fresh in the customer’s mind, making them more likely to revisit their abandoned cart and complete the purchase.

 

7. Optimize your Website Speed

What’s a greater turnoff than unexpected charges?

A slow website!

According to statistics, 47% of consumers expect websites they visit to load in two seconds or less.

Unfortunately, your sales page takes 30 seconds to load—which is a total turnoff.

You see, for each second of additional page load time, conversion rates decrease by an average of 2.11%.

The worst part?

64% of online shoppers who have a poor user experience on a website will go find a different store to shop at. You won’t only lose sales to your biggest competitors due to your slow website, but you could lose customers forever. 79% of shoppers who have issues with site performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again. So ensure you optimize your website speed to improve user experience and increase checkout conversion. 

 

8. Direct Customers with Clear call-to-action buttons

The last place customers want to get lost in is your sales page checkout process.

No one wants to look at your sales page and feel overwhelmed, or worse like they’re in a giant maze.

You can prevent this by adding clear call-to-actions to guide customers in every stage of the purchase process. The CTA should be bold, compelling, and self-explanatory.

You can try CTAs like “Proceed to Payment” or “Continue Shopping ” to ease the checkout process. Don’t also forget to also align your CTA with user intent, tailoring it to the stage of the checkout process.

 

How can Payment Savvy help improve your Checkout Conversion Rates?

Ecommerce checkout conversion rate optimization goes beyond designing an aesthetically pleasing checkout page. It involves streamlining the checkout process to remove frictions and hurdles that may cause customers to abandon their carts.

Payment Savvy can help your e-commerce business increase checkout conversion by offering customers a secure, easy, and convenient way to pay for their goods. The all-in-one payment software can be easily integrated into your web-based system for seamless transactions. Plus, it’s easily customizable, meaning you can tailor its features to meet your business goals and needs. 

Get in touch with us today, and let us help you increase your checkout rates with our customizable, convenient, all-in-one ecommerce payment solutions.