Proven tactics to reduce checkout abandonment
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:03 am
Make sure all your payment systems are PCI compliant , meaning all customer data is kept encrypted and only shared with members of your company when strictly necessary. Follow PCI compliant payment systems and make this clear to customers in small but easy-to-read print somewhere on the checkout page so they feel more secure buying from you. Cybercrime targeting online customers has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, which is why people are much more aware of who they buy from. If they don’t trust that they can buy from you safely, they’ll take their business elsewhere.
There are certainly more reasons than these why checkout abandonment occurs. But the culprits mentioned above are among the top reasons why customers choose to click on their carts at the last minute.
Now that we’ve covered some of the common reasons cmo email lists cart abandonment occurs, let’s dive into some of the proven tactics you can use to keep cart abandonment to a minimum.
1 – Keep the checkout process as simple as possible
As a rule of thumb, a customer should follow a maximum of five steps to complete the checkout process on your site. If you have ever made online purchases on different websites, you should be very familiar with how tiring it can be to have to complete a long and arduous checkout process.
Go through your checkout process and be honest about how you feel about it. Did you feel it was easy and simple, or did you feel frustrated at all? And if there were moments during the checkout process that made you feel tired or frustrated, what were they? These are the elements of your checkout process you'll want to eliminate.
An example of a simple checkout process that truly fits the five-step rule of thumb would be:
Require customer name
Require an email address
Require a physical address (only if necessary to ship a physical item)
Require financial information (ensure PCI-DSS compliance)
2 – Do not order the creation of accounts
Don't require customers to create an account on your site in order to purchase from you. Make it an option if you want, but always have a guest checkout option available as well.
In the case of the guest checkout option, no additional information should be required for the customer as would be the case if they created an account.
3 – Offer different payment options
Here you have the challenge of needing to offer the customer with more than one payment option while keeping things simple. Don't overload your checkout page with a multitude of payment options.
Instead, offer customers options, but also limit things to the essentials, such as a credit or debit card option, mobile payments, or a PayPal address. This will cover the bases for most customers.
There are certainly more reasons than these why checkout abandonment occurs. But the culprits mentioned above are among the top reasons why customers choose to click on their carts at the last minute.
Now that we’ve covered some of the common reasons cmo email lists cart abandonment occurs, let’s dive into some of the proven tactics you can use to keep cart abandonment to a minimum.
1 – Keep the checkout process as simple as possible
As a rule of thumb, a customer should follow a maximum of five steps to complete the checkout process on your site. If you have ever made online purchases on different websites, you should be very familiar with how tiring it can be to have to complete a long and arduous checkout process.
Go through your checkout process and be honest about how you feel about it. Did you feel it was easy and simple, or did you feel frustrated at all? And if there were moments during the checkout process that made you feel tired or frustrated, what were they? These are the elements of your checkout process you'll want to eliminate.
An example of a simple checkout process that truly fits the five-step rule of thumb would be:
Require customer name
Require an email address
Require a physical address (only if necessary to ship a physical item)
Require financial information (ensure PCI-DSS compliance)
2 – Do not order the creation of accounts
Don't require customers to create an account on your site in order to purchase from you. Make it an option if you want, but always have a guest checkout option available as well.
In the case of the guest checkout option, no additional information should be required for the customer as would be the case if they created an account.
3 – Offer different payment options
Here you have the challenge of needing to offer the customer with more than one payment option while keeping things simple. Don't overload your checkout page with a multitude of payment options.
Instead, offer customers options, but also limit things to the essentials, such as a credit or debit card option, mobile payments, or a PayPal address. This will cover the bases for most customers.