10 Checkout Page Design Tips that Lead to Conversions
Your checkout page design is considered one of the most crucial elements of your entire website. It makes a key determinant of your sales strategy, either taking the customer to the point of sale or pushing them to abandonment. The reason why you need to optimize it to its full potential is that the cards are already stacked against your favor. According to the latest industry benchmarks, around 70-75% of customers abandon their shopping cart.
Here, several critical elements in your checkout page design come to play. Whether it is the number of steps, checkout fields, loading time, or color scheming, your checkout page will decide if your online business will generate revenue or not.
Optimize your Checkout Page Design
First impressions matter – this is why you should start by improving your checkout page’s design layout. This includes the amount of white spacing, outline, aesthetics, and visual perception of your checkout page. This directly impacts the UX and checkout journey of your customer. If the layout is unoptimized, then the user will not only abandon the cart but may refrain from purchasing altogether. Consider the following to enhance your checkout page’s design to enhance your conversions.
1. One Step Checkout
It is undeniable that the “One-Step Checkout” approach streamlines the conversion process. This eradicates the hassle of loading multiple pages to complete the process.
22% of customers abandoned their cart due to the lack of usability. Here is the break down:
- 8% due to lack of guest checkout
- 5% due to slow checkout process
- 5% due to lack of payment options
- 4% due to excessive information
Elastic Path, a leading eCommerce development agency conducted an A/B test to ascertain which checkout design performs better. Using the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Store, the tests revealed that one-step checkout converted 21.8% higher than a similar multi-page checkout.
Adding details to one page and de-cluttering the information into one solid step has shown credible results. The eCommerce giant Amazon, for example, increased its conversion rate by including details on the item added, a financing offer, free shipping, protection plan, and related accessories on one page.
Another supporting evidence to that is a research conducted by Advertising.com. The study demonstrated that fewer clicks resulted in higher conversion.
2. Optimize Your Multi-Page Checkout Process
Statistically, single-page checkouts have shown to yield better conversion rates than multi-page checkouts. However, condensing the different pages often ends up overcrowding the single, new page. The potential customer is unable to discern the details and feels their efforts wasted, which prompts them to search for new vendors.
Focus on improving the visual aspects by adding white spacing, line breaks, and room between different elements, especially in the form. Logically grouping the options and isolating them onto different pages also facilitates users in filling fields faster with ease.
3. Multiple Checkout Buttons
It is easier for the customers to directly access the checkout buttons if they are added at both the top and bottom of the page. It reduces time needed to scroll back to the button after a form has been filled. It also makes it easier to checkout if a form input field needs revision and the button is at the opposite end of the page.
4. Mention Security Encryption Details
Providing data regarding the checkout’s security encryption details is a sure way to win customer trust. Mentioning your eCommerce store’s SSL certificate, 256-bit encryption, security seals and terms and conditions regarding sensitive data storage encourages the customer to complete their purchases without any worries.
5. Enable Guest Checkout
Adding the “Create Account” mandatory step AFTER a customer has almost completed their order is the same as pushing them towards cart abandonment.
According to a survey in 2018, $236Bn were lost due to online shoppers abandoning their cart in Q1 2018. This amounts to over $1 Trillion annualized.
Enable guest checkout and set bonuses for creating accounts, such as vouchers, discounts, free shipping, etc. These value-added incentives encourage users to register and also purchase more.
6. Enable Saving and Sharing Cart Content
Add options for users to save the receipt of their shopping cart. Add it for both guest and registered users to facilitate their journey. It not only aids in keeping track but also helps customers remember their orders and make repeat purchases.
The shopping cart contents also need to be shareable for situations such as authorizing billing, confirming orders for 3rd parties, or simply for the customer to share their story.
A good way to get this done easily would be to use Magento 2 Save Cart & Share Cart plugin. It provides a link to your cart that can be saved to an account or shared on social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. It can also function as a wish list where you can save items for purchasing later. The plugin’s incredible utility simplifies keeping the record of your purchases and sharing them when needed.
7. Prompt Review to Finalized Cart
When all is said and done, prompt the user to take one last, quick look at their finalized shopping cart. Seeing a summary of the cart contents boosts user confidence and helps them correct any issues in a timely manner. This significantly reduces the chances of wrong purchases that can turn into refunds, returns, and cart abandonment altogether.
8. Customizing the Checkout
Customizing the checkout page itself is imperative for reducing cart abandonment rates. It is the final step for completing the purchase and tweaking just a few elements can have major effects on your sales.
9. Promos at Checkout
Customers simply love promo codes. Now imagine a customer excitedly piling their cart thinking how much they are going to save with a promo they got offsite from one of your campaigns. And then, at the final stage, they find out that the promo has expired. Needless to say, they will abandon their shopping cart, and chances are high they will not be coming again.
Keep your promo codes active and in check. Always mention them at the checkout page so the customer can use them even if they didn’t know about them. This will urge them to purchase again owing to the positive experience.
10. Gathering User Feedback at Checkout
The checkout page marks the nearing end of the customers’ journey. This is the perfect point to gather feedback to understand what the users liked, disliked, and would like to recommend.
While it may seem somewhat complicated to modify the checkout page, you can easily achieve this using Magento 2 Custom Checkout Fields. It allows you to add 12 different types of additional fields to the checkout. The fields have validation checks and also appear in the invoice emails and pdfs.
Making Sure Everything “Checks Out”
You don’t necessarily have to audit your entire eCommerce store to identify key areas for improvement to reduce cart abandonment. Most of the time, customers abandon prematurely due to the most basic issues which can be resolved quite easily. Implementing these quick fixes can do just that and safeguard your website against dropping sales.
