Regardless of what you are selling, the E-commerce platform has evolved in ways you cannot even imagine. This evolution has humanized the platform making it more than just being a convenient way to shop. As an online business owner, it goes without saying that you must now stop viewing your visitors as traffic and instead identify them as a real human being visiting your site. There are a number of reasons why people choose to visit your site. What they see and read on your website will have an impact on their buying decision. Whether they choose to buy from you or your competitor will have something to do with the information they find on your website.
Therefore, with that said, the importance optimizing your E-commerce checkout forms cannot be overemphasized. These tips will help to increase your conversation rate which is ideal for the success of any E-commerce website. If you really want to succeed with your eCommerce website, it is imperative that you ensure that your customers’ needs come before your business objectives. There is a lot that needs to be done to ensure that as a business owner you are able to focus on the needs of your customers and still be able to change your checkout process. Take into consideration the following tips:
1. Never attempt to force the registration process
Understanding your customers’ needs is the key to the success of any eCommerce website. As a business, you need to understand that your customers are after buying your products easily, quickly and without a doubt securely. You need to guarantee this to your customers. On the other hand, a good number of businesses are after gathering customers’ data besides just sell them their products.
A common mistake most businesses commit is that when it comes to gathering this data, they tend to do it at first point within their checkout forms. They do so at the expense of their customers by forcing them to create an account before even completing their purchase. To ensure that the checkout process is a success and reduce the cases of cart abandonment, do not force this on them. Most of the customers who purchase your products do not want to develop long term relationships with you, therefore, never force them to register.
The best way to approach this is to allow your customers to complete the checkout process and request them to register. You can ask them if they wish to save the information they’ve just given. If the entire process runs smoothly, the customer will be quite pleased to create an account.
2. Ensure that your form is compact with only the necessary fields
As mentioned earlier on, customers always want to make purchases quickly, easily and securely. No one likes providing a lot of information when making an online purchase because it can delay the process. Try as much as possible to create a checkout form requiring only minimum and relevant information. That way, your customers will be pleased to share bare minimum information.
A good number of online businesses have mastered this craft and have their address/registration forms with the least number of minimum fields to fill in. Ensure that your checkout form contains your product information. One way of doing this is adding a basket summary next to your checkout form. This can help to provide users with quick reminders to the products and prices.
Registration Form
3. Make sure that the back button remains functional
Keeping this option operational allows customers to go ‘Back’ and make adjustments in fields where they may not be contended with. On many occasions, customers feel the need to go back to checkout or better yet confirm something but they are not able to because some websites disable the back button. It is quite frustrating when you are filling out a checkout form and are forced to start all over again simply because you clicked on the ‘Back’ button only to be greeted by an error message.
It is only natural for customers to feel the need to confirm some of the information on their orders before submitting. The danger is that if you make the process exhausting, your customers are likely to leave before completing the forms. Always ensure that the back button remain functional all the time.
4. Trust factor must be included
The fact that E-commerce is a virtual business means that trust is a huge factor that needs to be considered. Without your customers’ trust, there is no way you are going to sell your products. The situation is not made any better with all the fraud and data leak cases that are ever evidently present online. All these cases paint a negative picture and impacts negatively on the customers’ confidence levels thereby affecting conversion. Since your potential customers always find it hard to establish trust with most online sites, it is your duty as the owner to convince them to build trust.
Make it your priority to inject the sense of security into your customers so that it makes it easier for them to overcome the fear associated with online transactions. To achieve this, ensure you have security icons on all your payment or transaction pages. Include texts such as ”100% secure shopping” to help instil some confidence in your customers.
Payment Verification Sign
5. Avoid repetition
6. Provide progress indicators
7. Get rid of Unnecessary distractors
8. Make the most of in-line validation
9. Side by side captions can help
10. Error messages should be easy to understand
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