When you’re running an ecommerce business, keeping your checkout process simple is essential. After all, the last thing you want is to scare away potential customers before they can buy your products. However, with so many ecommerce businesses having such a complicated checkout process, it can be easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture. That’s why simplifying your checkout process is crucial if you want to stand out from the crowd and give your customers a stress-free experience when buying from your website. Here are three ways to simplify your online checkout process and increase conversions as a result:
Ask for the bare minimum.
The first step towards simplifying your online checkout process is by asking for the bare minimum from your customers. You don’t need to know where your customers are coming from or going to once they’ve purchased from you. You don’t need to know their names, addresses, or phone numbers. In fact, requesting any of this information will only make your customers feel uncomfortable and, as a result, is likely to drive them away from your website. However, there are certain pieces of information that you should request, as they will help you with your business and make the checkout process easier for customers.
- Ask for a valid email address, as this is the best way to communicate with your customers.
- Request a valid credit card.
Although this information is not essential, it will make the payment process easier for your customers and act as a guarantee that they will pay for their order.
Use a single gateway.
If you’re currently offering customers the option to pay for their orders using various payment gateways, you’re making your online checkout process unnecessarily complicated. After all, this is likely to confuse your customers, and you could also be driving away legitimate orders. If you only offer a single payment gateway, you’ll save a lot of time and effort when it comes to getting your ecommerce platform set up, and your customers will thank you for it. After all, you’ll be increasing the simplicity of your checkout process without losing any of the security that comes with accepting card payments.
Make checkout steps optional.
If you’ve been running your ecommerce business for any length of time, you’ll likely have several different products on offer. You may also have different shipping options for these products and different payment methods that your customers can use to pay for them. However, if you force every customer to go through every single one of these steps to make a purchase, you’re making the checkout process unnecessarily complicated.
Instead, you should allow customers to skip any steps that don’t apply to them. For example, if someone is purchasing a single item and lives in the same country as you, they don’t need to input their shipping details; they can enter their payment information. Similarly, you should allow customers to select which payment method they want to use and which shipping method they want to use. This will save them time and help them complete the checkout process faster, which will make them more likely to buy from your website.
Conclusion
As ecommerce businesses, we must simplify our checkout process as much as possible to make it easier for customers to buy from us. There are several ways to do this, including asking for the bare minimum from customers, using a single gateway, and making checkout steps optional. This will not only help to boost conversions but will also make the experience of ordering from our website more enjoyable.
Are you interested in learning more about fast checkouts? Listen to this episode from Thien-Lan Weber
