Magento Checkout Tips To Reduce Cart Abandonment

The global average cart abandonment rate for eCommerce websites is around 77%. That’s a lot of lost revenue. So, how can you optimise your checkout on desktop and mobile, to ensure a smooth path to purchase? Read on for our top Magento checkout tips.

Use Different Checkout Options

It’s important to cater to all users when thinking about adjusting your checkout. Focusing on one specific feature and thinking it’ll cut down confusion or lead users astray, doesn’t always bode well for businesses. Instead, it’s all about using a combination of checkout options that can benefit companies more.

Include Guest Checkout

Although you may find offering guest checkout slightly annoying in terms of not securing customer data, for users, it’s helping them avoid another time-delaying obstacle.

Most customers who have reached the checkout stage are there solely to make the transaction. If you require them to register (and don’t make use of social logins), you’re giving them a one-way ticket to cart abandonment.

Brand Outlet give the user the option to ‘checkout as Guest’, making quick yet secure, purchases possible.

Good To Know: Registered users can also find logging in and out slightly tedious and some just won’t do it. We’ve all been there where we can’t remember our login or password details, and yes, it’s infuriating. That’s where both guest checkout and integrating social login buttons come into play.

Integrate Social Login Buttons

Making a purchase using a social account has extended the capabilities of what an online checkout has to offer. It’s something that every site must now include. In fact, some would argue the ability to buy goods through their Facebook account, makes it even quicker and easier than a guest checkout. Not only that, but it means users can easily enter their details for the business to capture, without having to do so. That means next time you come to shop, you’re all set and ready to go.

It’s a win-win. Companies get that important customer information safely stored in their systems and buyers have a simple, secure checkout without the hassle of remembering multiple login details. It also means that by shopping through just one account, the chances of having an email or password hacked from entering it in multiple places on the web, decreases.

Using One-Step Checkout

Once a user has logged in and begun the process of checking out, it’s then onto making sure the checkout itself is as efficient as possible. As an online retailer, your solution is found at the one-step checkout. Welcome it with open arms.

Customers are known to prefer the simplicity and ease of use that comes with a one-step checkout. Knowing that you can purchase a product in just a few clicks makes customers more inclined to continue with their order. As the time and effort required is reduced, sales conversions increases.

Good To Know: For Magento users, implementing one-step checkout can be done through extensions such as OneStepCheckout and Ajax. This helps to make the page a lot more interactive by increasing the user experience and page performance.

Or alternatively, browse the Magento Marketplace to find yours.

The Lindt example below has been created using OneStepCheckout to simplify the checkout process into one clear, neat page.

Even still, as great as the one-step checkout is, there are other factors involved in placing an order that can put users off. These include the process you require to check out, the payment options or your support when checking out. With that, let’s take a look at optimising the checkout process.

Improve The Checkout Form

It’s no lie that checkout forms can be long-winded and overly complicated, particularly on mobile devices where the average cart abandonment rate rise to 85%. But there are ways to combat this.

Make The Most of AutoSelect

As you will have seen many times, when it comes to most improvements online, speed is key. Customers want to be able to do things quickly and with that, using AutoSelect to help save them their precious time is crucial.

Don’t Make Users Fill Out The Same Information

When you’ve entered your details once, doing it for a second time is rather questionable. So, don’t make your customers have to enter the same info twice. You may ask ‘Well why on earth would I do that?’ but too many retailers give it too little thought.

Most customers have the same billing details as they do shipping details. Include a checked option to show the two are the same or alternatively, autofill this section with the details just entered.

The below example from Lindt shows that when the ‘Ship to the same address’ box is unticked, the user is able to enter alternative shipping details.

However, this checkout box is automatically ticked, auto-filling the shipping details from the billing details. This makes checking out your Lindt chocolate a lot more appealing.

Reduce The Number of Input Fields

Not every field on the checkout form is necessary. Even some fields that are marked as “required” are not really required.

The whole point of having a checkout form is to keep it clean and effective. You don’t want to draw attention to anything other than the customer making the sale and you certainly don’t want to make the process look and feel a lot longer and trickier than it needs to be.

Or Remove The Checkout Form

Alternatively, you can eliminate any negativity at your checkout through removing the checkout form. You could take advantage of the Payment Request API. This solves the complications found with forms by eliminating them altogether.

Checkout our post on the future of online payment to learn more about the Payment Request API and how it can help you. As technology continues to develop, it’s certain we’ll see checkout forms being simplified further in the future.

Tidy Up Your Checkout Page

No one likes clutter. Particularly impatient online shoppers who can very easily turn and walk out of that virtual door, mid-checkout.

Remove any kind of product promotion or deal that will send them back to browsing your goods rather than making that sale. If their minds are made up, don’t try and sway them to buy more. Odds are once they’ve gone back a step, they may be more reluctant to go through again.

Make sure all headers and footers are clean and not littered with other promotions and offers that lead to wandering eyes. Life here should be simple and to the point.

Remember: Keep your checkout page tidy by reducing the number of input fields needed. Ask for only the bare minimum. Remove headers or footers that can take the customer elsewhere.

Don’t promote alternative products here either, although getting customers to browse your products is important, once they’ve selected their goods, make sure they get them and don’t revert back a stage to have another scroll.

Use Multiple Payment Options

Having improved the first stages of the checkout, let’s now look at improving the final purchase stage. Integrating multiple payment options into your site combats a similar problem to the checkout login. Only this time it simplifies payment by using popular payment providers.

Good To Know: It is proven that adding PayPal highly affects conversions, in some cases, increasing it by even 30% for businesses.

So yes, as many of you will know, PayPal is a regularly used payment provider, though it isn’t the only one out there. Of course, if you don’t include any alternative payment providers it’s best to get on board with integrating PayPal first. Having done that, start looking into other options such as AmazonPay, ApplePay and so on.

For eCommerce stores that offer worldwide shipping, it’s imperative that you explore multiple payment options. Different countries will prefer different payment methods. If you aren’t going to cater to them, you won’t see much success in your sales conversions. Simple.

Example above and below image is from Brand Outlet.

 

Show That You’re Secure

With hackers getting smarter, online vulnerability is increasing. It’s important to make it clear to your customers that they’re safe shopping with you. But how do you do that?

Include Logos of Your Trusted Payment Providers

Using high-quality logos from reliable payment providers can build trust with your web visitors generating more conversions.

The below example shows ASOS have incorporated multiple, secure payment providers and options for their audience. By including these in the footer of the website, users are continuously reminded that they’re shopping with a secure retailer as they’re scrolling.

Include ‘Safe’ Call To Actions & Buttons

On top of displaying trusted payment providers, enhancing call to actions and buttons to hammer home the feeling of safety and security is another crucial step.

Take a look at this example from Virginia Haywood. By renaming their continue button to ‘Continue Securely’ and showing the snippet of text ‘your order is safe with us’, it reinforces that they’re a trusted retailer.

Buying online can be seen as pretty risky, particularly for more expensive items.  By adding calls to action that highlight purchases are protected, it encourages more sales and builds a relationship with the buyer. If your customers see you as a reliable seller, they’re likely to keep on returning.

Let’s Recap

Having gone through a few eCommerce sites, you’ll now know some of the best current examples for creating an optimised checkout. It’s time to put your findings into practice.

1. Allow new customers to checkout with you as a guest and integrate social login buttons.
2. Make your checkout process one, simple page of up to five steps. These can include billing, payment, delivery, review and place order.
3. Use AutoSelect to fill in the customer’s details for them.
4. Do NOT make your customers fill in the same data twice. Incorporate boxes that can be checked to automatically retrieve the information you’re requesting for, again.
5. If the information you require isn’t essential to the checkout process, i.e. payment, delivery options, and so on, don’t ask for it.
6. Use the new development of the Payment Request API.
7. Remove all aspects of promotion on the checkout page. Don’t distract your users to browse another product that “other people who bought this product loved…”. Focus on the conversion.
8. Include buttons to pay with providers such as Amazon and PayPal.
9. Feature trusted payment provider logos within your site, preferably on the footer and basket pages.
10. Rename your call to actions and buttons to include keywords that relate to security and safety of checking out.

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