Boost Your Sales With a Frictionless Checkout Process
Boost Your Sales With a Frictionless Checkout Process

By on in Design & Experience, Ecommerce

Boost Your Sales With a Frictionless Checkout Process

Make the most out of ecommerce by re-evaluating your checkout usability.

It’s clear that ecommerce sales are the dominant force of transactions, especially with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The move, whether deliberate or forced, from brick and mortar to online shopping has had the significant benefit of allowing businesses to reach customers far beyond their local community. The downside? Simple hiccups like a bad checkout experience can divert even the most loyal of customers from purchasing from you. Studies show that 21% of US online shoppers have abandoned an order in the past quarter solely due to a “too long/complicated checkout process”—which is troublesome, to say the least. While there are many facets of a checkout process, one that can be easily overlooked by merchants to drive sales is the humble payment processor.

The slightest bit of difficulty with the checkout process—which could easily be smoothed over during in-person transactions—means that shoppers may not only abandon their cart, but they’re likely to abandon the entire transaction. A study done by Sale Cycle states that retailers with checkout processes that are smooth and easy to use may have lower abandonment rates.


This slightest bit of-difficulty with the checkout process—which can easily be avoided during in-person transactions—means that shoppers may not only abandon their cart, but they’re likely to abandon the entire transaction.

Combatting abandonment by optimizing your payment processor is simple: create the least amount of friction to as many customers as possible, whether you’re using Stripe, Square, or something else.

Here are some things you should be looking at to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck during checkout.

 

All Forms of Payment Accepted Here

Payment gateways are what connect your merchant account to the credit or debit card companies of your customer’s financial account. The payment gateway is what sends off the secure transaction to the processor.

Say you only accept Visa or Mastercard; well you would be missing out on American Express, PayPal, and much more. The more payment gateways you allow for, the more customers with specific preferences for those gateways will purchase.

The process boils down to stacking multiple gateways on your ecommerce platform to maximize how many options your customers have. Pretty soon you’ll be able to monitor your customer’s behaviors and favorite ways to pay, and you’ll be able to fine-tune the most convenient ways to facilitate these preferences.

As an ecommerce retailer, your best bet is to accommodate these options so customers can make secure purchases in any way they prefer and in turn, boost your sales.

 

Don’t Forget Security

Ok, so you are going to open the gates and offer all forms of payment. Now you need to make sure these gateways are PCI compliant because much like people, sketchy checkouts can be just as bad as complicated ones. Focus on brand recognition when it comes to large gateway providers such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Amazon Pay.

 

Offer Financing

Whether it be with Affirm, Klarna, or Afterpay, working with a third-party financing company offers a way for customers to pay now, rather than abandoning their cart to think about it—especially when it comes to large purchases. Easier ways to pay may even improve customer retention, as smooth checkouts can lead to returning customers.

 

Don’t Sleep on Your Statements

Reading your business’s credit card processing statement regularly ensures that you’re getting the maximum return on each sale you make. Evaluating gateway partnerships and monitoring per-transaction prices will help you see what’s working, and what’s not.

 

Is It Time to Switch Payment Processors?

When you first signed up for a payment processor you might not have considered all of the options, or your business may have grown out of your initial choice or, by re-evaluating your statements you realize you could be saving money elsewhere. Whatever it may be, it’s never too late to find what’s best suited for your business needs for the here and now. Merchant Maverick lays out all of the pros and cons of today’s top companies here.

 

…Or Is It Time for an Upgrade?

Would your company benefit from using a POS (point of sale) system instead? You will pay less for a simple payment processor that just runs credit cards, but as a result, you may have fewer features available to you. POS systems can offer a multitude of features—of course at a cost. A POS system is not a payment processor, but a payment processor is often included with the POS as part of its offerings. Transaction management, inventory management, and reporting are just some of the services that a POS can offer, and the extra cost might be worth the investment in the long run.

 

Use Data and In-Depth Customer Insights to Increase Revenue

Data is such an essential resource to small businesses, and many payment processors and POS systems can provide such data with sales figures, product profitability, and more. But potentially the most valuable of this data is analytics that will aid in keeping your customer in the conversion cycle.

If you’re unable to gain valuable data from your current system, then it certainly is time to reconsider your software and shop UX. And if you do have access to this data, but aren’t sure what to do with it—well FATFREE can help with that.