How to improve the cart & checkout page of your ecommerce store

On average nearly 70% of your customers will abandon your sites' shopping cart, failing to complete a purchase. How can your make sure you lose less customers at this stage?

At Made Simple Media, a leading web design agency, the websites we build are designed to improve the conversion of leads. The buyers journey often begins on the cart page. This is similar to a basket that potential customers can make use of when browsing your ecommerce store to add whatever they desire. When they decide to pay for the items they add, they may decide to remove or replace some of the items.

Their decision could be influenced by a variety of factors. Price plays a significant role in whether or not they will favor one product over another. Users should have a positive shopping experience on the cart page. You can save your customers' time by providing them with quick access to their cart, a pop-up, or a mini cart. Using these, your customers can easily view and compare the items that correspond to their needs and budget.

Checkout pages are continuations of the cart pages, which are even more crucial to converting visitors. This means they provide the same ease as the previous steps. Throughout this article, I will discuss the different methods you may employ to enhance the user experience of your checkout and cart pages.

How can carts and checkout pages be improved?

When it comes to online shopping, a user may encounter several problems. Merchants or webmasters can help customers better if they understand the common problems that their customers face. Following are some of the most common issues encountered by customers during the checkout process:

• The entire cart cannot be viewed
• Mandatory registration
• Additional Charges
• Required fields that are irrelevant
• Slow checkout process
• Security issues
• Missing CTAs (Call To Action)
• Incorrect address entry

How to improve cart and checkout pages?

Making changes to the shopping cart in order to improve the user experience is a common practice in any web design service. To begin, you may want to reconsider the layout and design of the checkout, then make a few adjustments, and finally increase its functionality. Let's analyze some effective strategies for improving the cart and checkout pages of your online store.

1. Create a mini cart

Customers may not have access to the total amount, the quantity, and items they add to the cart without clicking and visiting the cart page. It is possible to enhance their shopping experience by adding a mini cart so that they can view items quickly.

Mini carts always display the amount and number of products in the cart in order to allow customers to add more products mindfully. It appears as a pop-up window and displays a cart summary on top of the current web page.

2. Make it possible for guests to check out

To require your customers to register and create an account is equivalent to asking them to depart your website. Most users will not bother to register on your site and may not want to keep their personal information for long.

Give them the same level of courtesy and convenience that they would find at a brick-and-mortar establishment. All that is required is to display the products, describe them in detail, and collect payment. You do not need to make them fill out a long registration form. A better way is to convert guest to customer after he completes the purchase. Providing the highest quality products and/or services will assure their return if you offer them what they want.

3. Make signing up and logging in easier

It is also possible to improve the sign-up process as well as guest checkouts. Sign-up can be streamlined by allowing users to register using their preferred social media profiles. Customer accounts can be registered using Google, Facebook, or Twitter, for instance.

This will make it easier for your potential customers to establish an account without creating a username and password. The only thing they need to do is to ensure that their social accounts are logged in.

4. Ensure transparency regarding additional charges

Customers have voiced that displaying additional charges to order is one of the most problematic aspects of the checkout process. You may find layaway charges, excess shipping charges due to long-distance deliveries, value-added tax, insurance charges, etc.

Enhance the user experience by highlighting any additional costs during the checkout process rather than displaying them on the final payment page. Make sure that you are fair when charging your customers, whether it is an extra shipping charge or a tax of some kind. Ensure that they are aware of the total amount due so that they can check out while keeping that in mind. This will improve your credibility in the eyes of your customers, thereby resulting in increased loyalty.

5. Configure custom checkout fields

There may be a number of fields that you are unable to find on the default checkout page. Depending on the type of shop you own, you may want to ask your customers their age and gender for your gift shops and a gardening shop may need to know their other interests and hobbies.

In this regard, the default personal details page may not meet all users' requirements. Use checkout field customization tools to remove the unnecessary options and add the relevant fields. Online stores powered by Magento can add the Magento 2 custom checkout fields extension to add any custom field to the checkout page. In order to obtain the data that is relevant to the question you ask, you must choose a plugin that allows you to create a variety of field types.

6. Examine different types of checkouts

The checkout process consists of several stages that appear sequentially. The process can be time-consuming and distracting, which can lead to a high abandonment rate. Various checkout options may be able to reduce this time. The following examples are provided:

• Checkout On One Page - This requires that the customer complete all the necessary details and complete the transaction on the same page. We do not need to wait for each page to load in order to provide the data.
• Checkout With One Click - This enables customers to complete their purchases without distraction. Users who are signed in can place orders directly from the product or cart pages without having to visit the checkout process.
• Checkout In Accordion Style - This is among the best alternatives for providing mobile shoppers with an improved checkout experience. As a result, the remaining phases are streamlined, and users have the opportunity to fill out their information at their own pace.

7. Using graphics to display the checkout progress

During the checkout process for a product, customers like to know how many steps remain. Your customers may be turned off if you make them complete their personal details and take them towards billing and shipping details without showing them a progress bar.

It may occur to them to consider how much data is still required for simple checkout. Using a graphical progress bar can ease their concerns and encourage them to complete their order. This visual reminder keeps them going as they understand that you will need more information to complete the task.

8. Provide a confirmation of successful checkout

How would you feel if you purchased a wallet from a shop and the seller did not thank you or greet you in any other manner before leaving? Would you return to the shop? The answer is obviously no. Every time a customer makes a purchase, whether online or offline, you should bid them a friendly goodbye.

You may wish to create a checkout success page for customers on your online store that will not only affirm their order placement but also ensure that they will return to your store in the future. For those users who have recently converted into customers, you can easily create a custom checkout success page.

9. Maintain and communicate security

The security of the platform on which buyers will be submitting their personal and financial data is one of the greatest concerns that online buyers have. Ensure that the checkout and cart pages are safe for the end-users by taking multiple security measures. This should include obtaining an SSL certificate and complying with PCI regulations.

This combination of security measures makes your store a safe place to shop - however, your customers must be aware of it. Ensure that your web store displays secure trust logos to demonstrate that it is a reliable place to make online payments.

You should inform your customers about the security measures you have taken to ensure that their purchases are made in a secure, encrypted environment.

10. Consider changing the call to action

There is no question that a call to action button or CTA is crucial to a user's ability to understand the action they need to take. Depending on your industry standards, the font style, color, and size of the call to action button must be customized according to industry standards and your specific business niche.

It is possible, for example, that your competitors are using a variation of CTA buttons on their checkout pages. While a yellow button may be effective for some, a blue or green button will be more effective for others.

A/B testing can be used to determine which types of CTA buttons work best with your customers. Ultimately, you may discover the best option.

11. Use an address suggestion tool

Entering personal information is a cumbersome process, especially when completing a shipping address. This process can be simplified by installing an address suggestion tool that predicts the customer's street address or city based on the house number or office number they enter.

If customers prefer, you can allow them to provide only the house number and postcode and then automatically begin searching for the rest of the address. Users can choose from three to four results retrieved by the tool to determine which one is most relevant to them. This saves a great deal of time as well as ensures addresses are accurate and free of errors.

Conclusion

Your customers will appreciate your assistance in making an easy purchase decision and in quickly completing the payment process. Your shopping cart can be improved in many ways to increase conversions and customer loyalty. Despite this, keep in mind that certain things may work for another business but not for yours. Take the time to experiment with various options and find out what works best for your business.

We have designed and built various e-commerce websites after being approached by the client asking for assistance in improving their online success. In addition to improving conversions, we also increase the quality and quantity of organic visitors to our clients website via our SEO agency team. 

For any enquiries, do not hesitate to contact us here.