Checkout Page: It can make or break your conversion

E-commerce is becoming extremely competitive and most merchants are battling a poor conversion rate with an increase in the cart abandoners. So, how to boost the conversion rate, especially during the checkout?

Easy checkout would lead to a better customer experience and better the customer experience; the better would be the conversion and it’s therefore a cycle. An e-commerce website development should not be visualized differently from a successful checkout page.

Below are some of the leading practices and guidelines for a successful checkout page:

• Linear checkout process:

Keep the checkout as easy and linear as possible. Having multiple steps during a checkout will break the link of the customers and some of them might get discouraged to move further and at a later stage abandon the cart. In particular, during account creation; make the checkout process linear and if there is a need to create a third party account, the process should take the user to the next step and not redirect it to the previous page for avoiding confusion.

• Form field labels should be descriptive:

Having confusing and overlapping fields can create a problem during checkout. In case if you have multiple fields with similar names, have a short description attached next to the respective field to avoid any sort of confusion. Fields like billing address, names, phone numbers and zip codes are generally quite confusing in nature. Likewise, when you ask for an email address, please clear out your intentions as to why you would be using the same and how many times would you establish an email communication, if you plan any.

• Contextual words can kill conversions:

Try to avoid using contextual words like Continue, Back, etc. as they might make the buyer’s life difficult. While you use buttons like ‘continue’ on the final checkout page, it can either mean to continue to checkout or continue shopping further on the store. Similarly, back is associated with multiple actions like either going to the initial page or just going back to the last search query. Using precise words like Checkout Now, Press Back for Shipping, Continue to shop further etc. might avoid confusion and increase the conversion.

• Multiple clickable elements:

Having a variety of clickable elements on the same checkout page can distract the users. It would not only consume a lot of time is viewing all of those clickable elements but also motivate the customers to move away from the order page. Some of the modern e-bay store developers though take care of such scenarios and ensure optimum and easy checkout.

• Shipping VS. Billing Address:

Fields like shipping and billing address create a great deal of obfuscation and for those merchants or marketplace developers who keep such fields mandatory, checkout experiences worsens to a great extent. Many of the customers do not understand the difference between the two fields and tend to provide wrong information. Use shipping address as a billing address by default. Auto-fill options might work out well too.

• Make the error message clear:

Most companies providing e-commerce website development service do not help customers understand the importance of errors on account of which most merchants do not showcase the error message clearly. The error messages should be communicated in a way that it is easily visible and understandable.

Summing up, check out process is one of the finest ways to deliver superior customer experience. No matter if you are a web development company, a group of e-bay store developers or an e-commerce merchant; make sure you consider all of the above points while planning a checkout page.

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