How to increase checkout conversions with these 8 simple strategies

Statistics show that shopping cart abandonment rates can reach as much as 70% at checkout. That’s a huge amount of shoppers who don’t follow through with a purchase.

Whether you’re above or below this figure there’s a number of optimizations you can make to reduce friction and achieve better checkout conversion rates.

If you're a business looking for ways to boost conversions, adding different payment methods can increase revenue by 10%. Contact us at Pomelo Pay to find out how we can help your business.

Table of contents

1. Allow gueue checkouts
2. Don’t surprise customers with delivery costs
3. Make shopping easy
4. Contact abandoned cart shoppers
5. Retarget customers
6. Add exit-intent popups
7. Offer a range of payment options
8. Promise speedy delivery

1. Allow guest checkouts

One of the advantages a brick and mortar retailer has over an e-commerce website is the checkout process. When you walk into a shop you find your product, go to the checkout and pay for it.

Purchasing something online requires some attention. You need to fill in credit card details, remember passwords and check emails. When you add obstacles to the purchasing process this increases the rate of carts being abandoned.

According to Statista around 22% of digital buyers abandoned their carts because they were asked to create a new account. Baymard Institute surveyed online shoppers and a massive 37% said they had abandoned their shopping carts for the same reason.

There may be a number of factors at play. Your customer may be making a one-off purchase and never returning, they may be worried about spam newsletters, or perhaps they’re just terrible at remembering passwords.

Of course, guest accounts have their drawbacks. It becomes harder for you to find the order if there is an issue to resolve. Customers may also have trouble tracking their items if they have no account to log in to.

If you can’t decide whether to have guest purchasing or account purchasing, have both and keep all your customers happy. Or, if you really want to make customers create an account, give them a discount for signing up.

2. Don’t surprise customers with delivery costs

Customers with products in their carts can be very sensitive. If you startle them with extra costs at the end of the checkout page, around 58% may decide to abandon their cart.

If you have any unexpected costs such as shipping costs, you should add these into the cost of the item and present them on the product page or cart page.

However, if that’s just not feasible for your business, offer customers free postage if they purchase a certain order value.

Research suggests that nowadays, many customers don’t even consider free shipping as a perk, and actually expect it as standard. With 80% of customers valuing free shipping, it’s essential that you don’t disappoint them.

If you have a Pomelo Pay shop and need to add any custom fees, you can easily do this in your merchant account.

Find out how to add custom fees to your shop.

3. Make shopping easy

Online shopping customers are not only sensitive, but they are also quick to irritate. Figures suggest that around 30% of customers will abandon their cart if they are asked to re-enter their postage address or credit card details.

You want to create the best e-commerce site experience possible. When you have multiple steps and forms to complete this increases the pain and hassle of shopping, which in turn increases the likelihood of carts being abandoned.

Are you asking for mobile phone numbers and work phone numbers? Or do you make customers fill in billing addresses and shipping addresses, even when they’re the same? Unnecessary form fields need to be removed from the checkout process.

Baymard found that checkouts had an average of 14 form fields. This could be reduced to as few as 6 to 8 form fields.

Test your own checkout process and note the number of forms you have to fill in. If you find yourself repeating yourself or filling in unnecessary information, look at ways to get rid of these fields.

Here at Pomelo Pay, we want to make online store checkouts absolutely seamless. Our digital payment systems integrate platforms, reduces friction and provides immediate business insights.

Find out more about the importance of digitalisation.

4. Contact abandoned cart shoppers

When shoppers abandon their cart they are typically some way through the checkout process. So you will have some of their personal information such as their phone number or email address.

Figures suggest that 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened, whilst the average click-through e-commerce conversion rate of those emails was around 8%. You can get a number of conversions from just a simple email.

Your email must be compelling. Simply reminding the customer about a product is less likely to convert. Offer the customer a discount or free shipping and add an expiration date to give your offer urgency.

Likewise, if you're sending a text message you want to give the customer a reason to return to your store. Make your email short but provide everything they need to quickly purchase your product.

5. Retarget customers

It’s a fact that whatever you do, some customers will just not click the checkout button after adding to cart. Some customers are merely browsing or comparing prices and products. You may have the best shopping user experience available, but you won’t be able to convert every potential customer.

Make sure the window shoppers and price comparers don’t forget about your business by retargeting them with ads.

Whenever someone visits a website, a cookie can track the visitor’s browsing behaviour. These cookies can be used to create targeted ads that remind the browser of the website they recently visited and offer incentives such as discount coupons or free returns.

With retargeted ads, the customer doesn't have to search for your shop or any related keywords. They will see your shop naturally when browsing unrelated pages on the internet. Research says that retargeting can increase online sales by as much as 20%.

If you're wondering where to retarget your ads Google Display Network reaches 90% of all internet users. You can also retarget users on Faceboo where you will be able to connect with over 50% of internet users.

6. Add exit-intent popups

Popups are generally considered annoying and create a negative customer experience. However if you employ popups in a strategic way you can boost the conversion metrics on your website.

Exit-intent popups can appear on the screen when your customer moves towards an exit point such as the address bar or back button. They are a great way to prevent people from leaving your landing page or e-commerce store so quickly.

You need to have an irresistible message if you wish to bother your customer with a popup notification. They have shown an intention to leave your website, so something in your e-commerce checkout process has turned them off.

When creating your exit-intent popup use creative language that grabs the customer's attention. Then craft a great offer that will draw the customer in such as a first-time discount. You can also add an expiration date to the offer to create added urgency.

Although you might find them a turn-off, popups can increase conversions by 3%. Add them the right way to your marketing strategy and you may even be able to boost your bottom line by as much as 10%.

7. Offer a range of payment options

Every customer is different and has their own preferred method for paying for things. There are a range of possible payment methods from crypto to QR codes. Customers can even purchase products and pay a month later using buy now, pay later apps.

At Pomelo Pay we offer over twenty five ways to pay from established payment providers such as Apple Pay to local payment methods like iDEAL. This provides flexibility and gives customers the choice to pay how they want.

According to one survey, 8% of 1799 respondents said they abandoned a cart because there weren’t enough payment options. A wide range of payment methods will ensure your checkout experience is frictionless.

More payment methods can also increase your revenue. In our own case study, Phoreal added contactless card payments to their systems and were able to increase revenues by 10%. This was achieved by just giving customers more options to pay.

8. Promise speedy delivery

One of the biggest advantages of shopping inside a brick and mortar store is that you have your item immediately. Shop online and you will have to wait at least a day before you get your hands on your purchased item.

If customers get all the way to the end of the checkout then find out that their item will arrive in 5 to 7 days, a good portion will leave without paying. Baymard estimates that nearly a fifth of customers will cancel purchases over slow delivery.

Amazon lead the way in delivery information. At the checkout screen customers know the precise days for delivery. With Amazon Prime, customers can even get their items the next day.

77% of customers are also happy to pay for faster delivery. So even though you may have to charge extra for speedier delivery, just the fact that you have that option is much better than having slow delivery.

We make deliveries fast by processing transactions as fast as possible. Our next day pay outs mean that businesses get their funds quicker and send out products faster.

Conclusions

What works for you, will all depend on your business and your target customers. If you sell high-quality luxury products for example, providing free shipping may not make much of a difference to your conversion rates.

However, a lot of these strategies such as guest purchasing and fewer form fields are suitable for all businesses and can make a real difference to sales. A/B test each conversion strategy and find the right one for your business.

If you want to learn how to improve conversions and increase revenue by 10%. Contact us at Pomelo Pay to find out how we can help your business.