Few Checkout tips to increase your online sales

“Checkout” page is the final stop on your website from where your “window shoppers” will turn into actual, paying customers. Therefore, if something goes wrong or if the customers finds the process too complicated, chances are they will leave your site, lowering your online sales. This is why the checkout page of your site is critical. If you want to increase your sales and conversion rates, you need to make sure that it is as easy as possible for your customers to check out.

The following are few checkout tips that will help you do this – optimize the checkout process, leading to more conversions and higher sales.

One-page checkout

This is not something new, as many site owners implement it, but there still plenty of sites who do not follow one-page checkout. One-page checkout will avoid:

1. Loading time taken from one page to another.
2. Error page that shows up when page time-session expires.

Therefore, offering a one-page checkout, customers will not face any of the above mentioned problems and complete the purchase, happily. This way a one-page checkout will surely reduce abandonment rates, increasing sales for your site.

Eliminate registration

Registration is no doubt a potential source for your re targeting campaigns, but making it a compulsion at the checkout page will drag away potential customers, on-the-go. Today, customers like to shop from sites that are quick. So, it is suggested to eliminate the site’s registration process on the checkout page. Instead you can shoot a “thank you” email adding a discount coupon that can be redeemed immediately after they complete the registration. This way you entice them to complete the registration in their spare time.

Display related products on checkout-page

One of the best technique to drive-in more sales or to increase an order-value, is to display related products on checkout page. For example, if a shopper has added a mobile phone to the shopping cart, then you can entice them with related products – charger, memory card, phone cover, etc. Displaying helpful related products on the check-out page will entice the customer to add them too, in the cart.           

Allow back button use 

One of the major drawback seen in many site’s check-out page, is they do not allow customer to use the back button. This, way if the customers want to go back to the previous landing page or a page of the site to add some more products to their cart, they are unable to do it. And, even if they use the back button it will direct them to a page with an error message, which can lead customers to abandon the purchase. So, it is always suggested to allow back button use and ensure that all data is saved.

Offer several payment options

Another factor that influences a customer to discontinue the checkout page is lack of payment options available. Offering customers with alternate payment options like “PayPal” rather than credit or debit cards will increase the number of customers who are willing to make a purchase from your site.

Add trust seal

Online shopping world entirely works on trust. So, customers shopping online are highly influenced how secure they feel about the transaction. It is mandatory that you add trust seal – provide relevant security and encryption information that will ensure customers that their data is safe while shopping from your site.

Display final price before checkout

It becomes frustrating when a customer is charged for the shipping and delivery after the checkout process. And, in the end they cancel the order. So, in order to avoid surprises, it is always suggested to display final price (including shipping and delivery charge) before checkout process. This will reduce cancellation and increase sales, drastically.

Offer a live chat

When you walk in a store and are confused in making a purchase decision, there is always a sales representative available immediately who will help you make a purchase decision, on-the-go. So, why not follow the same concept online. Many customers discontinue the checkout page, just because they needed some assistance and your site did not provide them one. Offering a live chat facility will help you address and retain those lost customers to complete the purchase.This way providing assistance to shoppers on-the-go will increase sale, abruptly.

Allow social sharing

The more your brand gets visible in the world of online, the more you increase sales opportunities. Your checkout page can increase your brand visibility by allowing social sharing buttons. So, if a shoppers likes the shopping experience they can share it within their social networking sites. This way it can increase the chances of your brand visibility in a wider platform and bring in more sales.

In closing

The above checkout tips will surely help you drive-in more sales opportunity, but that does mean the same ideas will always work for you site – it’s worth testing. You never know when your customers can surprise you, therefore split testing different effective ideas and tailoring them as per consumers need will help you offer easy and quick checkout process, which in turn will increase sales.