Ways To Optimize Checkout Process In PrestaShop

It’s no more surprising to hear Prestashop store owners lamenting over abandoned carts or incomplete purchases because of the complicated checkout order process. In order to understand what distracts customers from completing the shopping procedure and how these barriers can be eliminated is essential in maintaining any business, whether big or small.

Among other factors, improvising your checkout process is perhaps the most effective way to improve customer retention and increase conversions on your website. It’s an area where, though visitors are close to completing a purchase, things can go wrong if the process hasn’t been designed with the user in mind.

Once a customer has selected items from your site and is ready to pay, it should be all about making the purchase as smooth as possible for them. To do this effectively, you’ll need to understand how customers behave at each step and develop strategies to improve the checkout process. Luckily, this article will help you optimize your checkout flow and keep customers on track.

To make this accessible and easy to digest, we’ve broken the information down into the following sections:

1. What are the standard checkout process steps?
2. Why are you losing sales & people are abandoning carts?
3. Best practices to nail the checkout flow

Let’s start with examining the essential steps of an eCommerce checkout process and move further with why customers are abandoning checkout. Once we have a clear understanding of these two, we will highlight the most effective methods for optimizing your PrestaShop store’s checkout.

WHAT ARE THE STANDARD CHECKOUT PROCESS STEPS?

The checkout process is the series of steps a customer follows through to purchase the items in their shopping cart. An ideal checkout flow must have a smooth and frictionless user experience.

Let’s have a look at the typical checkout process.

Shopping cart> Billing info> Shipping info> Shipping method> Preview order> Payment> Confirmation

In case your checkout process is loner, shorter or completely different, you must amend it in the first place. However, if you have a similar process and still experiencing abandoned carts, it’s time to know

THE REASONS BEHIND CUSTOMERS DITCHING YOUR CHECKOUT

Well, the reasons behind aren’t limited to just one or two but a lot more than that; many of which are common to eCommerce stores. Some will be more relevant to you and your business, while others may not be as impactful. Ultimately, your job is to work on each reason, focusing on the ones that bring you the best results.

To help you find the causes of checkout abandonment, here are some of the major ones as per Baymard Institute’s statistics drawn from 41 cart abandonment rate studies:

• Additional and unexpected charges added at the time of checkout always deter customers.
• Forcing customers to create an account not just adds steps to the checkout but in some cases can turn away a potential guest or one-time customer.
• Non-inclusive shipping options and pricing when customers get to the checkout only to find that their preferred shipping method is not available or is too costly.
• Extremely complex checkout instead of a smooth, fast and convenient one.
• Errors and crashes in the form of performance issues, slow speed or page not found errors might cause users to lack trust in your service or seek a service that provides better user experience and interface.
• Security and protection issues might arise where customers deny providing personal, shipping or billing information to a service they don’t trust.
• Inadequate payment options is a major reason customers leave the checkout. Customers want to pay with their preferred method, and in some cases only have certain methods to pay with. The fewer options you have available, the lower your conversions will be.

Let’s have a look at some of the

BEST PRACTICES TO MASTER THE ECOMMERCE CHECKOUT FLOW

Offer Guest Checkout

One common barrier to checkout completion is making shoppers register before they proceed to checkout. However, guest checkout option eliminates this issue and gives customers the option to enter an email address and head straight to checkout.

This doesn’t mean registration should be avoided as it comes with certain advantages for both customers and retailers. Instead, the option to register can always be displayed once the customers have completed the purchase. All it requires is entering an email address and setting a password so registering later wouldn’t require much efforts.

All in all, offering guest checkout is a great way to avoid making registration a barrier and getting customers straight into the business of completing the purchase.

Get Rid of Distractions

Once the customer has reached the checkout area, your job is to keep them thereby reducing the number of distractions and unnecessary information. The ideal situation here is to get the customer to the order confirmation page as quickly and easily as possible. This is a win-win situation.

Eliminate any kind of distractions that might make them leave. Instead, provide them with relevant information and help. This will, in turn, minimize the risk of accidental clicks which might bring them away from the checkout page.

Pro-tip: Integrating a progress indicator on your checkout page will tell customers which stage they are at and how many steps are left.

Offer Multiple Payment Options

As an eCommerce website owner, it’s more cost-effective to offer limited payment options due to high transaction fees charged by other credit card companies. However, do take note that most customers have preferences – and it’s your responsibility to provide the convenience of choice for your customers.

Thankfully, there are now several new payment methods that offer users the flexibility to choose the way they want to pay. Besides from directly entering their credit card details, platforms like PayPal allow users to simply provide a one-step log-in and use the payment details stored within PayPal.

You can also find the right payment alternatives suited for your business and customers with good research.

Display Trust Signals

As long as your customers realize they need to provide sensitive information, especially card details, thoughts about the legitimacy of your business and security are bound to rise. This is why it’s important for you to tell your customers about the security measures on your site.

Identify the relevant trust signals present on your website and provide a brief explanation of what it does and how it keeps your customers safe. Some of the indicators might include:

1. Your SSL certificates
2. Third-party security validation (such as Norton, McAfee etc.)
3. Logos of supported payment options
4. Proof of local/national business accreditation, depending on the scope of operations

Reviews and ratings

This would not only develop trust in customers but help them make a quick purchasing decision without any insecurities.

Make Use of Mobile Shortcuts

It’s all about making the checkout less of a chore for mobile users in any way you can by optimizing your store for mobile. Make forms easier to use, integrate possible shortcuts or display the correct keyboard for each form field to makes the entire process easy for mobile users. For example, defaulting to the numeric keyboard for card number entry saves shoppers a little time and effort.

In summary, put your customers’ needs ahead of your own. This is the only mantra to more conversions and less abandoned carts.

For any other queries, get in touch with certified PrestaShop developer.

An accomplished Online Marketing Expert, She has provided digital marketing services across the globe. Her vast knowledge and experience motivates her in contributing in the form of writing on the latest technologi