In order to set priorities of your business, it is important to first define the primary objective of your online store. Most physical store owners bring their presence online to expand their reach to customers, locally, regionally and internationally depending on the type of products and services they are offering. While this is the case for a majority of the businesses, there are also other business owners who create e-commerce stores for diversifying their products which simply cannot be shelved or displayed behind glass. A company that sells cotton and woolen products in a small closed shop cannot display large carpets for customers to see, but even if it does manage to salvage some extra space the display would not be appealing enough for the consumer to gain interest. Under these circumstances, the necessity of an online store is inevitable.
Coverage Advantages of E-Commerce Stores
Similar to above, there are other reasons as well that necessitate the creation of an online store for a business. A business that sells its services may not be able to afford the budget of physical marketing such as flyers, posters, billboards and door to door service or even TV and radio advertisements. They all take a hefty sum of your precious money for results you most definitely find unsatisfactory, especially in the case of a small business entering the market. Creating a website or even a social media page is not only budget friendly but more effective than physical and digital marketing strategies. According to a survey, more than 74% of consumers make their purchase decision through the influence of social media networks, Facebook on top of the list.
Importance of Checkout Pages
There is always the fear of a consumer getting tangled into the lengthy inconvenient stages of purchasing a product that consequently causes loss of conversion for an e-commerce store. Conversion is a tough animal to wrangle and soon after you set up your online store, producing sales is directly proportional to a number of conversions your website is getting. If you are using Magento for your e-commerce store, you can add a Magento one page checkout extension that eliminates the six-page cart process and converts it into single checkout page. Such extensions can be used to enhance the customer checkout experience and strengthen conversions.
Checkout Solutions for your Website
Checkout page/form is no doubt the single most important milestone in the sale process of your product. If the customer gets past this then it’s a win-win. Here are some helpful angles for your website to retain customers and establish long lasting relations.
Design and Layout
This basically covers the appearance of the checkout page. The appealing design, essential boosting points, appropriate use of whitespace and neat delineation of order stages, all are involved in checkout phase.
Give users a visual checkout process – Provide the users an ideal spread of checkout experience through creative pages that give clear directions in the checkout process and how far they have gone.
Give users the option to continue shopping from the checkout page – Designing a well-calibrated page is nonsense without the presence of a carry-on function. Allow your customers to return to the shopping page they left to purchase more products they might be interested in.
Differentiate checkout/continue shopping button colors – Neglecting the separation of the visual identity of buttons can be an utter disaster. Separate the “continue” and “checkout” shopping buttons with colors to reduce the chance of customers miss clicking on the wrong button.
Optimizing Product Details
Have a checkout page with sufficient information about the products and their specifications regarding size, color and design etc. Incorporate these factors to grasp the maximum attention of the customer.
Include a product summary – The key to keep the customer interested is the adding variety in the product. Introduce size, color and custom options along with a brief summary of the product. Assure them of their choice.
Recommend related products before checkout – Before the final checkout, introduce related products that go well with the item the customer is willing to purchase. You don’t want a customer angry over a cell phone package that did not come with a phone charger.
Include product ratings and testimonials – Give your customer the confidence of buying. Show the reviews and testimonials of the product to assist in the decision-making process of the customer.
Payment and Shipping
Showing shipping and extra charges after checkout form queries are not only unethical but also a damaging play for brand integrity. Show your customers the right details and inform them about the option of payment gateways.
Provide multiple shipping and payment methods – Paypal and Google Checkout is a must. Give the customer the liberty to choose the payment gateway to their own convenience. This not only produces healthy conversions but also long lasting customers as well.
Put the latest promo codes directly on your website – Show the promo code present on the checkout page and retain customers for a longer period. No one likes surfing all the way to find a coupon code, so customers often prefer abandoning. Remove this from your checkout page at once.
Was $X, Now $Y and You Saved $Z – Never let your offers be underestimated. Keep a lookout on the price offers of competitors and devise an improved offer, better yet, show it on your cart page. Mention the previous price of the product for the customer to differentiate. Show the amount they have saved to create customer authority over the decision.
Rewards and Special Offers
Getting a customer to successfully finish a checkout is good, but getting the same customer to buy from you again is even better. Follow these guidelines to achieve customer loyalty and cart abandonment reduction.
Consider a loyalty program – Mix a coupon or point reward system to encourage customers to buy from your store every time. It might seem somewhat of a difficult task to pursue, but patience, regular feedback on reviews, purchases and ratings can give you a customer loyalty to a fault.
Provide 24/7 Customer Service, 365-Day Return Policy – Studies have shown that the greater the span of the return policy, less likely will be the chance of returning that product. Give the customers a 24/7 customer service to show gratitude for their support and choice. Investing in it is a long shot, but it absolutely does pay off.
Let customers set up notification alerts – You can set notification alerts for customers by custom programming as well purchasing extensions. This helps customers to stay in touch and receive news feed about new offers and products. Joomla users can benefit from paGO Commerce for creating a powerful e-commerce shopping cart. With an extensive package of supreme features, paGO Commerce facilitates customers fast and frictionless cart process through single page checkout. Purchasing products will be easy and faster once customers are informed by the retailers instead of browsing the internet themselves.
