How to Improve Checkout and Shopping Cart to Boost Conversion Rates

Shopping Cart Conversion Rate

If you want to make the maximum possible impact on conversion rates by improving only one part of your ecommerce site, it would perhaps be the shopping cart and checkout section. The checkout is the most vital step in the process of purchasing, and minor improvements here can reduce cart abandonment considerably. However, you need to know what kind of improvements would truly fetch higher conversion rates for you.

Shopping Cart Conversion Rate

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Here are some of the most effective ways in which you can improve checkout and shopping cart of your site to get higher ecommerce conversion rates.

1. Add a timer to give a sense of urgency

Once a customer has added an item to his shopping cart, your intention is to make him purchase it as soon as possible. To ensure fast purchase, consider adding a timer to show the customer the time until which the item can be reserved for him. This creates a sense of urgency that motivates buyers to make the purchases immediately, rather than risk missing out the product.  For example, in your shopping cart page, you can mention that the items are reserved for 30 minutes only. You can even put an active timer on the page, which counts down the time.

2. Display all shopping cart items

Make sure that your customers can see all the items for which they are paying. This becomes more important if you provide offers like express shipping during the process of checkout. If a customer doesn’t know the amount for which he has purchased until present, he may become stressed and abandon the checkout process. Showing all the cart items during the checkout process not only helps one to keep a track of his purchases, but also assures him that there are no hidden charges involved.

Shopping Cart Items

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3. Use closed checkouts to remove distractions

The efficiency of closed checkout has always been a topic for debate. Well, in a closed checkout the customer is moved to a checkout process in which the only way of exiting is making the purchase or closing the window. Most checkout processes have the footer links and the navigation bar at the top, which may distract buyers and tempt them to visit other pages, abandoning the purchase. Therefore, it’s a good idea to remove everything other than what’s needed to complete the buying process, to help the customer focus entirely on making the purchase.

4. Include live chat

Very few online shops have a live chat in the shopping cart purchase page. Including a live chat in your purchase page can significantly heighten the conversion rate. In the absence of this element, your customers, when in the shopping cart page, may move out from the purchasing process to read your FAQs, in case of any doubts. So, have a live chat support in your site to clarify the doubts and questions of your customers.

5. Have a single page for checkout or a progress bar

A single page checkout is becoming an industry standard quite fast. In general, checkout processes contain multiple pages for different steps like payment details, discount codes, delivery address and others. Research shows that more are the pages needed to be visited by customers; more is the rate of shopping cart abandonment by them. To eliminate this problem, you can have a single page for checkout flow. In that single page, the customer should be able to fill in all the details and make the purchase right there. An alternative is to provide a clearly visible progress bar. Customers always want to know the steps involved in the purchase process. With a progress bar, you can help them know where they are now, and what is next. This will also help them feel more secure while making the purchase.

Single Page Checkout

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6. Display guarantees and trust signals   

In the shopping cart page, display clearly all the guarantees you offer with the products added to the cart by the buyer. This builds customer trust. Trust plays an important role when it comes to buying online. If a customer doesn’t trust you much, he will certainly not provide you, an unknown person, his credit card information and other details. A great way to help customers trust you is to include many trust signals in your shopping cart/checkout page. Trust signals are not only credit card logos, but also badges and symbols showing free returns or free delivery guarantee.

By implementing these techniques to improve checkout and shopping cart of your website, you can dramatically heighten the conversion rates. Implement these changes and see how your sales figures rise.

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