In June 2020, we asked consumers about their intended shopping behavior following COVID-19; 60% of the respondents in the UK and 48% of the respondents in the US indicated they will probably do more online shopping than they are doing presently.
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of ecommerce when it comes to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. It has become essential to optimize digital experiences, particularly in the final steps of the customer’s journey. If businesses want to grow and improve conversion on a regular basis, they need to focus on improving the final steps of the checkout funnel.
According to a research study published in the Harvard Business Review, companies that create an easy buying process are 62% more likely to win a high-quality sale. It comes as no surprise that improving the checkout funnel and increasing conversion rates is a top priority for almost half (46%) of the respondents in Forrester’s State of Retailing 2020 report.
Using best practices to address any flaws in your checkout funnel helps you meet your online sales goals. Consider implementing the following seven best practices, as outlined by Forrester’s Report on Retail Checkout Page Best Practices, to enhance your digital checkout funnel:
7 best practices for designing a checkout funnel
1. One-page checkout: boost efficiency and enable a seamless shopping experience by using a one-page format. Measure the reduction in effort using a Customer Effort Score (CES) survey, and measure your return on investment by looking at shopping cart abandonment rates.
2. Autofill enablement: Retailers like ASOS automatically fill in their customer’s information if they’ve shopped with them before. The customer only needs to fill in their credit card verification information to complete the purchase. Autofill makes checking out effortless for repeat customers.
3. Guest checkout options: Offering customers the chance to checkout without signing in or creating an account can reduce friction, but it also limits your opportunities to encourage return shopping. Consider offering guest checkout while still encouraging customers to save their information by creating an account.
4. Automatically transfer abandoned carts to saved items: To help with recovering abandoned carts, automatically save items that were left in the cart for a certain amount of time. When customers return, they can pick up where they left off, rather than needing to browse again.
5. Weave your loyalty program sign-up/ tracker into the checkout stage: Keep customers up to date on their loyalty status by including a points tracker on the checkout page. This can encourage them to spend more to reach certain tiers, and also prompt them to redeem their benefits and rewards, leading to a more rewarding checkout experience.
6. Consider an “email my cart to me” option as an alternative to “save for later”: If you’re noticing a number of customers not completing the checkout process because they aren’t ready to buy yet, it might be because they need more input from family members or colleagues. Offering an “email my cart to me” option allows them to share their purchase options with other people.
7. Continuously collect feedback in purchasing funnel: There are always opportunities to optimize the purchasing funnel for your specific group of shoppers. But without continuously collecting feedback, you’ll miss those opportunities. That’s why collecting feedback at each step of your checkout process is a key best practice. For more information on which survey to send at different stages of the funnel, check out this article.
Conclusion
The convenience and safety of online shopping offers alluring reasons to opt online. This means B2C brands have to put focused energy into improving their checkout funnel so that they don’t miss out or lose valuable business. If your checkout funnel is confusing or buggy, customers will go elsewhere. These 7 tips are a great place to start to optimize your checkout funnel.
Check out our full guide, How to improve online sales using digital feedback, for a more in-depth exploration into improving your checkout funnel.
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