Goodbye Abandoned Baskets, Hello Higher Checkout Conversion with Optimisation

Did you know that nearly 69% of baskets are abandoned? As an ecommerce retailer, it’s essential to improve this in order to improve customer experience, turning those abandoned baskets into sales. The ecommerce experts at ShipStation provide a comprehensive list of how you can optimise your checkout experience to ensure you’re turning those visitors into sales.

Why do online shoppers abandon their baskets? 

According to a 2022 study by the Baymard Institute, up to 69.82% of customers abandon their baskets at checkout. The study found that customers abandon their purchases at checkout for a variety of reasons, including: 

• Delivery, taxes or extra fees were too expensive (48%)
• Customers were required to create an account to complete their purchase (24%)
• Delivery was slower than they’d like (22%)
• Distrust around personal or payment information (18%)
• Checkout process was too long or complicated (17%)
• Returns policy wasn’t satisfactory (12%)
• There weren’t enough payment methods (9%)

You’ve done all the work to get visitors to your website. The last thing you want them to do is leave before making their purchase. By optimising their checkout experience and providing an exceptional customer experience on your website, you can negate most if not all of these reasons for checkout abandonment. 

How to Improve Your Checkout Experience

Your ecommerce checkout is arguably the most important part of your website. Fully optimising your checkout process will enable you to increase sales and boost customer satisfaction. Here are eight easy ways you can enhance the checkout experience, decreasing checkout abandonment in the process: 

Provide clear product descriptions.

Your customer’s checkout experience begins long before they get to the basket. Ensure product descriptions are as clear as possible, displaying all important product details, such as size, colours and the total price (including delivery for their specific location, if available). Providing all the relevant details will reduce the number of customers abandoning checkout because of unanswered questions.

Use easy-to-spot CTAs.

Customers won’t make it to the checkout if they’re unable to figure out how to proceed with their purchase. Providing clear action buttons will encourage customers to add their chosen products to their cart and proceed to the checkout when they are ready. 

Be transparent about delivery.

Nothing is worse for a customer than unclear delivery timelines and costs. We suggest providing customers with several options (including free) and informing them of the specific delivery dates for each type. An excellent example of this is Amazon, which provides several delivery options with the estimated arrival date and costs associated with each delivery method.

Make payments easier.

If purchasing on your website is laborious, customers aren’t going to commit. There are a few things you can do to ensure customers have a seamless payment experience, including:

• Offer payments in the local currency if doing business internationally
• Offer several payment methods, including debit/credit card, PayPal or others, including locally trusted methods
• Investigate offering spread the cost payment methods like Klarna

Allow guest checkouts.

According to the aforementioned Baymard study, 24% of customers abandoned the checkout because they were required to create an account to complete their purchase. Customers are much savvier about providing personal details to purchase products online and conversion rates could go up significantly if you allow guest checkout.

Simplify the checkout process.

Long or complex checkout processes are tiresome for customers. If you have a multi-step checkout process, consider adding numbers to each of your checkout stages. This will provide customers much more transparency into the process and inevitably give them the confidence to continue purchasing.

Make returning to purchase easier.

If a customer has abandoned their basket, make it easier for them to return to complete the purchase by saving the contents of their cart. Accompanying this, it’s also worth having a basket icon or pop-up notifying them that they’ve left something in their basket.

Cover all their favourite devices.

The worst thing you can do to shoppers is limit their ability to purchase to desktop only. For the best customer experience, ensure that your website is mobile responsive so they can purchase from desktop, mobile or tablet at a time that is convenient for them. 

Improve customer buying experiences by partnering with an expert ecommerce company. ShipStation’s software instantly connects to a multitude of selling channels with over 100 stores, carts and marketplaces. With automatic order importing and a range of carriers, ShipStation can help streamline your eCommerce business. Contact our team of experts for more information.