For ecommerce marketers and merchants, the checkout page is gold. Shoppers are ideally located, right? The purchase is in the bag.
Not quite. Customers must make the purchase and cross the finish line. Until then, they can and do exit the checkout page – empty handed.
Scoff not at this possibility. Checkout abandonment has scuttled many an ecommerce sale. Fortunately, these hasty departures can be minimized through the implementation of a simple and effective solution -- checkout optimization.
Kick off the optimization process by ensuring complete compatibility with mobile devices. Unless you’ve been roaming the wilderness, you’ve probably heard about the rising prevalence of mobile shopping. If your checkout page doesn’t accommodate this consumer preference, you’re setting the stage for a frustrating shopping experience. You might as well flash an exit sign.
Ecommerce marketers and merchants also should ease up on the nosiness. Request minimal information in the checkout chamber – maybe an email address for the purpose of conducting follow-up marketing outreach. But no more. Info requests not only raise privacy concerns, they create an intrusive extra step in a process that should be delightfully simple and streamlined.
Take note: Simplicity applies to all aspects of the checkout experience, including visual presentation. Design, therefore, must be clean and crisp, offering zero diversions from the primary objective – the purchase. The objective will be reached much more readily if visual obstructions are mercifully excluded.
Finally, ecommerce marketers and merchants should promote comfort and confidence by providing secure payment options to shoppers. Established services such as PayPal and Apple Pay can go a long way to ensuring safe transactions.
If you have questions or comments about checkout page optimization, or any other brand-related topic, feel free to send them our way. You can connect with the Young Company team at 949-376-8404 or bart@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest brand marketing news and tips.