Loading ...Shopping cart abandonment is a terribly frustrating thing for online retailers. After going to all the trouble of creating a site, laying out all sorts of interesting products, and promoting the site through search marketing and SEO, the internet user slips off the hook at the last moment. Without the sale, all that hard work has gone to waste.
A checkout can make sales, but it can also kill them off. Here are some of the worst things you can do with your checkout process:
- Home addresses. All you really need is a delivery address. Asking for the customer’s home address as well may scare people off.
- Nasty surprises. Providing financial details requires trust. Springing nasty surprises through postage fees or bad payment systems puts your trustworthiness into question. It’s good to talk to your SEO company about methods to increase trust at this stage. You can talk to us at SEO Consult Australia about how trustworthiness affects sales and search engine optimisation.
- Forced registrations. Non-retail sites know how hard it is to get internet users to register or subscribe, which is why calls to action, lead paths and other enticements are major focus points during search engine optimisation. For some reason, though, retail sites seem to take customer registration at the checkout as a given.
- Although you gain extra information through registrations, you’re losing sales by forcing customers to log in or register. Registration takes time customers don’t want to give. Let it go.
- Greed for information. Many retail sites lose customers through asking for too much information. Internet users are wary of sharing private information, so asking anything more than their name, delivery address and contact details for confirmation is really pushing it. Adding extra questions means testing their desire for your product. Are you willing to risk it?
Some handy tips
A lot of the trouble with the checkout process can be avoided at the design stage. It’s a good idea to consult a professional designer when first setting up your retail site. That is not an option for every site owner, however. If professional help is beyond your budget, it’s absolutely vital to research the program you’re going to use.
There are plenty of out-of-the-box solutions, but many of these concentrate on creating a pretty shop front, leaving the checkout side of things full of clutter. These programs usually have a limited number of options for your checkout, so it is essential to review their checkouts before buying.
Another issue to think about in terms of design is your form design. Obviously, some personal information has to be taken from the customer. The rule with internet forms is the more fields you have, the fewer customers you’ll attract. Try to keep all forms simple, and make sure their design is clean and easy to use. It’s a good idea to idiot-test them with non-technical friends before launching.
For such an important part of a site, it’s important to get your checkout right. Design a good checkout, and avoid trouble in the future.
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Tags: Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consult, SEO Consult Australia
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