Frictionless Conversion strategy for your checkout process Part 1 of 2

By 2025, global retail sales are projected to be 25% of total purchases, where the key element in eCommerce has easy frictionless conversions. Achieving high conversion rates requires conversion optimization, A/B testing, case studies, and ample payment methods to drive your online sales. While the penetration of online stores is spreading worldwide due to smartphone penetration, shopping carts get abandoned often. To reduce friction at the checkout there are several user experience considerations to take for the customer journey for both new customers and returning customers. It all starts with your digital marketing strategy all the way through to the checkout pages.

Frictionless online shopping

A good conversion rate is a reflection of having ball bearings in brand, product offering, pricing, social media engagement, quality/reliability, solid service, and various options in acquiring the product. This expands into various marketplaces, several payment options, and ease of checkout (guest checkout or loyalty logged-in checkout). Variation is key to accommodating every type and walk of life customer, which increases the percentage of purchasers and improves the number of conversions. Having many more options in your store and channels, website visitors will be funneled to their preferences on engaging with your brand/product and focus on the acquisition rather than feeling stuck or dissatisfied with the funnel you are offering them.

Making purchases easy

The average cart abandonment rate based on statistical reports reaches almost 70% for online stores. Sliding friction in making it easy to complete the purchase takes on an activity called "Conversion Rate Optimization" (CRO). To make it easy for users to engage with your site, and not have an abandoned cart, focusing on their desired action in acquiring the product is a must.

Prime your site for purchasing

Having a solid theme for your site that is capable, fast, illustrates your offerings with ease, and has the ability to promote your brand and products in an exciting and communicative way should be the first goal for the online store - both on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Responsiveness is by default a key requirement to adapt to the audiences' devices.

Make it personal

Profile your audience to various categories such as new customers, returning customers, customers needing to exchange products, loyalty customers, and every other type of customer that might be relevant. Follow the call to action from landing pages and the funnel you provide and ensure it is personal to their needs. Everything should be clear on what steps to take and make it easy to communicate and serve them in a timely fashion. Even when it comes to creating an account, use information already captured if possible, and give options to personalize their accounts with wishlist features, Loyalty point tracking, and offers. When messaging and keeping your audience informed, make the Email marketing specific to their profile so you can get a higher engagement.

The checkout experience

Up to 17% in the USA abandon their carts due to a complicated checkout process. Adding digital wallets as an option for a quick checkout is an easy way to reduce friction. From your flyout cart, you can add Google Pay, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets to instantly checkout. Better yet, allow coupon codes to be entered into your flyout cart for a higher conversion rate. Not everyone might need to have an account with your brand, but might return and start one if they enjoyed the first purchase experience.

Payment Methods as options

Long ago, credit cards were the main online transaction experience, since then flexible payments have emerged with Buy-no-pay-later, PayPal with its "Pay in 3" and "PayPal Credit", Klarna's payment plans, and finally the evolution of Shop Pay which is a hybrid of payment, shipping, and tracking. When considering what users are comfortable with when it comes to payment and adapting to their personal financial situations, payment methods are crucial to offering the user the right deal to checkout with. Some are better at finances than others, however, with the variation of payment, you get a higher conversion rate and therefore your can then combine marketing promotion, pricing, seasonality, and other event-based marketing to attract your audience and convert them.

Finding what they need

This isn't rocket science when it comes to the marketing funnel. Allowing customers to find their products and services should be a no-brainer - yet, some sites don't make it easy and frustrate customers mid-basket and leave them abandoned. Using the right content architecture allows search functions to identify the products easily. Categories, Tags, and Filters are all part of the toolset to help customers to find their products. Keep making the shopping experience simple and frictionless to push through to the checkout and you have happy customers with orders stacking up.

Persuasion and commitment to purchase

Incentives to purchase fall under tools and promotion. Tools such as discount codes, countdown timers, bundles/sets, and other ways to combine value that helps you to commit to adding them to your basket. While the tools motivate the audience to engage and commit, taking the basket through to a purchase confirmation page is where some of the tools mentioned earlier take place. Each product has to have a clear value proposition, reviews, FAQs, and good SEO for search engines to bring that audience in outside of advertising. Additional tools to re-market to customers that have left their baskets to then re-engage later are worth following up on. These abandoned basket tools will assist in raising your conversions for those that got interrupted or distracted.

Conclusion

This concludes part 1 of 2 on frictionless conversion tips and part 2 will cover additional tips and angles to consider further. Conversion optimization is a continuous improvement exercise of applying the best practices the industry can offer as well as being differentiated by your brand and unique customer experience for the market and sector you serve. Being able to get customers to your site is hard enough, but once they get there having them purchase lowers your customer acquisition costs, and makes your marketing effective. If you have questions about the tools, the process, and your digital strategy, feel free to reach out at wish@thegenielab.com