Tips to design UX for an eCommerce checkout

Do you want to know the secret methods the top eCommerce website development company in India uses to design a stellar eCommerce checkout user experience?

Imagine the situation: a potential customer clicks on your advertisement, lands on your product page, then adds the products of their choice to the cart, proceeds to the checkout page only to abandon the cart and exit without buying. This phenomenon is called cart abandonment and results in loss of revenue and money wasted that you spent for attracting customers.

In this article, we will talk about the top 5 best tips that you must follow for reducing the rate of cart abandonment and design a great user experience.

Now, before going into the topic directly, let’s find out why people abandon their carts.

Why do your clients abandon their carts during checkout?

According to a study by Baymard Institute, 69.89% of cart abandonment happens due to the following issues:

Cost: Customers tend to underestimate the total cost of their purchase because they don’t see the shipping cost and taxes until checkout.

Friction: Many customers get intimidated by the idea of creating an account.

Time: People are aware of the time required during the checkout process.

Designers can help in resolving these 3 issues by the use of the following steps.

Top 5 tips for designing eCommerce checkout UX

Given below are the tips for increasing eCommerce conversions:

1. Tell customers about the total cost ASAP

According to experts, customers value time and expect fast and free shipping. Therefore, the best solution is to provide free shipping. But, if your customer does not qualify for free shipping, tell them the total cost as soon as possible in the process.

Don’t make your customers invest their precious energy and time to go through the entire checkout process and then tell them that there are extra costs for shipping and taxes. This is a dark UX trick and you are strongly recommended not to use it.

Not only will you lose the trust of your customers, but you will also annoy them.

2. Enable customers to buy without signing in or creating an account

The more data you have about your customer, the more effective will be your marketing strategy to them. And this is the reason why so many companies make it mandatory for customers to sign in or create an account before purchasing.

This single practice hampers the shopping experience and results in cart abandonment. Our advice is to let your customers have the option of using a guest checkout payment, all the while making the process of creating an account optional.

Many companies offer the option of checking out as a guest or registering as one. This option of guest payment is for the customers who are not interested in creating an account.

To help these customers, you can chuck the idea of creating customer accounts and take them straight to checkout.

Another option is you can let them sign in using their social media accounts and then capture the relevant data that you will need for facilitating the checkout process.

3. Reduce the number of form fields

You can streamline the process of checkout by reducing the number of form fields required for filling up by the customer during the checkout flow. According to Baymard, there are 15 form fields in an average checkout flow. Most websites can reduce this number by 20-60% and yet maintain the quality of the checkout experience.

Thereby, reducing the number of fields by half a margin, which is a great time saver and smoothens the checkout flow. Customers can get a feeling of intimidation and overwhelm if they see a lot of form fields. The following steps will help in resolving the issue:

Amalgamate the first name and last name fields into a full name field.

Utilize a single address field with the option of adding a line for those who need it.

Get rid of unnecessary fields such as title and middle name, etc.

Provide the option of setting the billing address as the shipping address.

Ideally, after optimizing the checkout flow, the process will contain no more than 6-8 fields, but if you can reduce the number of form fields, you will lower the frustration of the customers. This is what the best UI/UX companies in India do.

4. Offer a layout of the checkout process

Do not try collecting all the information in one fell swoop – instead, you can try breaking the process of checkout into separate steps and guide the customer through each step.

You can break the checkout process into the following steps:

• Cart.
• Customer info.
• Shipping method.
• Payment info.

After the customer clicks on the "Proceed to Checkout" button, display each step at the top of the page in a progress bar, showing them where they are in the process.

After customers know exactly what they are looking at and what needs to be done for completing the checkout process, their minds will be at peace, and they will be more likely to fill out the field forms.

5. Utilize copy and visual hints for putting minds at ease

According to Baymard Institute, customers are less likely to share their payment details with eCommerce websites. You can do the following to reduce the tension of the customers:

• Rename the credit card payment area as "Secure credit card payment".
• Use the phrase "secure 128-bit SSL encrypted payment" and do provide that to reduce the risk of data theft and provide additional security.
• The sensitive area of the credit card payment needs to be visually contained, set it apart from other areas.
• Provide the padlock and badge icons for providing additional visual hints of security.

Make use of the above-mentioned visual cues for the credit card fields for instilling confidence in your customers. Assure them that this sensitive information will be handled carefully and sincerely.

Although this does not increase the actual security of the website, it will help in easing the minds of the customers. This is exceptionally useful for new eCommerce stores trying to build their reputation.

Connect with one of the best UI/UX companies in India and delight your clients

There an n-number of ways to increase usability and foster strong relationships with your clients. And one of the best methods is by helping them make more money. You can start applying these top 5 checkout design tips for reducing the rate of cart abandonment on your eCommerce website.

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