At this point your customers have come a long way – they’ve invested significant time evaluating products offered by you and competing brands, weighed up their budget flex and whittled down a large product catalogue to identify the right product for their needs. They’ve scrutinised the product images in detail, read customer reviews and specifications while ensuring the delivery and returns costs are convenient. It’s quite a journey!
It’s now crucial your brand provides an effortless path through the purchase process that is unimpeded by distractions or frustrations.
To do this requires an optimised checkout flow tuned to the needs of your customer: Do you provide a persistent editable order summary throughout the checkout? Do you offer rapid checkout or digital wallet options? Is your checkout form streamlined to 8 fields or less? Do you allow customers to email themselves their basket so they can continue on another device?And just as importantly, do you follow up with a purchase confirmation experience that is a memorable, delightful or helpful moment?
Check list – Does your site perform in this way?
• Automatically update cart summary when item quantity is altered –avoiding ‘update cart’ buttons
• Reduce exit points once the user is in checkout
• Place labels above fields not as field placeholder text
• On forms use inline validation and autofill and consider including postcode lookup
• Consider running an address validator to verify information format and spelling supplied by users