E-commerce has become a very significant channel for companies to increase sales, and the checkout experience is a fundamental part of this process for digital channels to generate profits.
What is a checkout experience?
This includes several matters, such as website design, colors, fonts, browsing, payment methods, and website speed, among others.
All of these aspects impact customer satisfaction as they want to be able to buy easily and quickly over the Internet, but if the page takes a long time to load or it does not have a large payment gateway, it is unlikely that customers will return.
Main e-commerce workflow automation processes
Why is the checkout experience important?
Improving the checkout experience in businesses’ e-commerce is important because if the customer can access the website, browse through it easily and make a purchase in just a few steps with any payment method, they are more likely to make the transaction and become a repeat customer.
That is why a website must have a good design that fits with the brand, and is attractive and user-friendly so that users can easily browse through it.
However, even though design is very important, companies must improve the checkout process to include the methods that are most widely used by the brand’s target audience.
How does e-commerce use big data?
How to improve the checkout experience?
One of the main concerns for entrepreneurs is how they can increase the conversion rate of website and digital marketing campaigns in order to increase revenue.
Creating better checkout experiences will help this rate improve, but, as we said before, the entire process includes several aspects that can either improve or hinder online payment. Here are 10 aspects to consider that can improve users’ experience of your website:
- Reduce the time it takes for the website to load: because of the need to do everything quickly, it is estimated that the time limit for a website to load is 2 to 3 seconds, so optimizing this process is essential to improve the checkout experience. Some tips for optimizing your site are: Reduce the weight and size of the images, remove any plugins that are slowing down the load time, compress files, test the website speed, and more.
- Have a large payment gateway: to ensure your consumers do not quit the checkout process before completing a transaction, all of the payment methods used by customers and the target audience should be available.
- Optimize product pages and descriptions: it is important that the product pages for each product are complete and eye-catching in order to capture the attention of any potential customers. It is essential that customers have all the product information, specifications, measurements, description, type of manufacture, price, among other things. These pages should be written according to the terms used by the customer, and should include photos and videos where the product’s features can be clearly seen.
- Reduce the number of steps before payment: if the customer must go through many steps before making the transaction, such as filling out unnecessary personal data, many customers may quit the page before making the purchase. The process must be synthesized, and for this reason some companies choose to enable payment without registration, because forcing the customer to register or provide additional data is one of the factors that causes them to leave the online store.
- Have good customer service through digital channels: automating some processes helps provide customers with quick responses. In addition to technological tools, there must be trained personnel to attend to the direct and digital channels.
- Send order status notifications: Notifications informing customers of the order status and location gives consumers peace of mind, thereby enhancing the shopping experience. These notifications also have a high opening rate, making them a great opportunity to add offers and promotions to generate more sales.
- Ensure your site is adapted for all devices: nowadays, sales through mobile devices such as smartphones have increased considerably, so the store must be mobile responsive.
- Establish a clear returns policy: one of the first things online shoppers look at is whether the business has a clear returns policy. This process should be easy for customers to do, so it should be short and may be automated and, if possible, offer free returns or their money back.
- Offer free or low-cost shipping: if possible, online businesses should offer free shipping or shipping that costs less than the competition to increase the number of sales.
- Guide the customer with strategically placed calls to action: calls to action are buttons placed at strategic points and with catchy phrases to guide consumers to perform a certain action, in this case, sales.
Digital Customer Journey, the key to sell more in your e-commerce
Benefits of a great checkout experience
Creating the best online checkout experience has big advantages, but it must be properly implemented by organizations. Some of the advantages are increased online sales, secure transactions, faster order processing, and resource planning.
Improving this process is key to conversion. It’s all a matter of eliminating any unnecessary steps and making transactions simpler to avoid losing sales.
To improve the purchasing experience, most businesses choose to hire companies specialized in adding effective payment platforms that meet their needs. PayRetailers offers a wide range of payment methods so that your company can reach new markets and get more customers.
