Making the checkout process easier could increase your level of sales and conversions. Never underestimate the checkout page. It’s the final gateway for buyers to pay for what they want to buy finally. It could also be a place where window shoppers changed into loyal customers.
If you want to put the work on growing your business more seriously, it’s time to start making the payment process more accessible than before. Here are the nine steps you can do to make the whole process easier:
1. Have Various Payment Methods
Limited payments are always hated. There are many cases when buyers stop their check out process due to this limitation. Ensure that you have a wide variety of payments available on the checkout page.
Although it isn’t a must, offering more than one payment method could give buyers a sense of relief to pay in the way they want. You may want to use the famous payment platforms, including Paypal or Pay.com. Pay.com allows you to accept payments online safely and securely.
2. Allow Payments without Login Process
What’s the need to put a wall in between the payment process? It’s none. Forcing people to do sign up or log in before making the payment is actually alarming. It’s a known conversion killer; avoid it as possible.
Since many customers don’t get an idea of why they should log in for the payment, you can get rid of it as soon as possible. It may prolong the payment process, which everyone hates.
3. Adopt Seamless Design
Keeping the website in uniform is essential to keep everything consistent. The way you use the same colors, design, and fonts can make people easier to identify your brand. However, various payment gateway providers may have an already-made format for you. But, this could limit the freedom in designing and creating a simple and effective checkout page.
4. Don’t Redirect People.
As the brand owner, surely you want to keep the visitors within your website. So why redirect them away?
If you’re buying a product through a marketplace, the checkout process will be on the same website, not redirected anywhere. It’s different if you use other payment portals, like Paypal, for example. After checking out, you’ll be directed to a Paypal checkout page, which is an entirely different thing.
Since it has a totally different design than your site, most people would feel feared as if they’re paying to another business rather than the one they’re buying from.
5. Make An Easy Fix for Errors
Mistakes are inevitable. Sometimes people make mistakes, from simple things like including “.com” to incorrectly inputting their passwords. Your task is to highlight the errors and provide a way that’s easy to follow.
When an error happens, the page will display an error message on the top or middle of the page. Buyers don’t need to specifically find what was wrong by scrolling up and down endlessly. Another option is to make input automation, saving the username and passwords automatically after submission.
It’s a convenience feature you can easily find on most search engines, allowing you to access a website quicker. This feature lets users save more time to do a quicker payment process rather than inputting extended information all over again.
6. Ask Important Information Only
See this in the similar way you build an email list. Asking for information could be double-edged swords. It could gain you the specific data of the users, while it could make people go away once you go too far.
That’s why only limit the information request to the essentials. Make sure not to annoy the buyers with unimportant requests since it’s an instant conversion killer.
7. Offer Security and Privacy
Whenever you ask for personal information, make sure to show the features that may guarantee safety and security. Simple ways to do it is by offering a consistent design and not redirecting buyers to another place.
Guaranteeing their private information is mandatory. Usually, you want an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to ensure that your website is compliant to offer a secure connection and better protection through encryption.
If that’s not enough, you may add compliance with PCI SSC standards. If you do have these badges, make sure to display them to make people more relaxed about the cybersecurity risks.
8. Keep Minimal Distractions
Remember, the checkout page is the final destination. After choosing any products they want to buy, buyers will end up on the page, continuing to make the payment. Indeed, any sellers wish the buyers to do the transaction as quickly as they can. So, make sure the page has fewer distractions to make the process more straightforward and not confusing.
9. Don’t Forget to Add a Call to Action.
After doing all the steps above, make sure to add a call to action. Don’t leave them hanging. Add something to encourage them to do the transactions, like “Continue to checkout”,” check out here”, or simply “Click here!”
