Through the years, businesses have been forced to change their sales and marketing strategies. Consumers are still shopping in stores for goods and products—but with technology advances, consumers have become savvier and are more engaged in e-shopping.
According to Statista, more than 40 percent of Internet users purchased products online last year, and it is projected that this will continue to grow to 46 percent by 2017. With this expected shift of focus among consumers, marketers are also putting more focus on e-commerce lead conversion.
Although more and more marketers are using e-commerce websites, only a few of them have actually been successful in converting visitors to leads. Why is that?
Here are some reasons why your visitors do not proceed to checkout.
Why would you force your prospective customers to log in when they can purchase products from your websites as guests? You are, in effect, rejecting possible lead conversions. In fact, 23 percent of users will abandon your website if you require them to log in before they can purchase your product. Most users don’t want to waste their time creating a username and password only to forget it later on.
Guest checkout in Apple Store
It is best to offer customers a guest checkout option where they can process payment without signing in. The time to ask consumers if they want to create an account for future transactions is after the payment process.
No matter how well you have tuned up your website’s checkout process, errors still happen. When consumers encounter unexpected errors, they must reload the page. Once they realize they have to repeat the process, inevitably they will lose interest and leave the page.
To prevent this situation, consider the use of cookies. A cookie is just a piece or pieces of information stored as text strings. Cookies are harmless and can recall information set by consumers so the next time they go back to the page, they are brought to their customized page with all the essential information.
Kipling.com uses cookies to give users a personalized experience
Not all users want to use a credit card to purchase products. Some people prefer to use PayPal, direct bank transfers or other payment methods. It may not sound practical, but you can increase your reach to a wider audience by giving consumers a chance to pick the method they find most convenient.
Walmart offers consumers several payment methods
Your costumers want the checkout process to be easy and fast; they will be more likely to lose interest in purchasing your products once they realize they need to fill in a form with a long list of required information. Asking for too much information can kill lead conversion. It is a waste of time and it impedes smooth and quick checkout.
Another reason consumers leave checkout is shipping fees. Unexpected shipping costs on top of the purchase can drive customers away.
If you can’t avoid shipping charges, you may add a short disclaimer opposite the price. Some companies offer free shipping once consumers arrive at a set amount of purchase. You can also minimize charges by offering other types of delivery or pickup.
Macys.com delivery options
It is normal for consumers to worry about security and privacy when they go to e-commerce sites. That is why, you, as a marketer, must showcase your website’s security measures. This will help you gain the trust of users.
Consumers who are particular about security tend to look for the “s” in http and the padlock symbol to measure the website’s security. To provide your consumer with a secure checkout, make sure your website has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
So many users could be your customers, but why aren’t they buying? Maybe you lack on-page optimization, which makes your checkout process user-friendly and increases your page visibility in search engines.
Your main goal in creating a checkout page is to make it easy and convenient for users to pay for purchases. To do this, you need proper on-page optimization. Although there are several elements in optimizing web pages like meta tagging and text vs. html ratio, the main purpose of on-page optimization of your checkout page is to provide the best shopping experience for consumers.
Your checkout page plays a critical role in lead conversion. There is no secret sauce for encouraging visitors to purchase from your website. If you want to increase conversion and sales on your website, you need to make the checkout process as easy and as simple as possible without compromising security.
Image Sources: store.apple.com; www.kipling.com/int; www.walmart.com; www.macys.com
Key Acanto is an editor of Scoopfed. She writes about business and related topics. She also contributes lifestyle and health-related content. Connect with her through LinkedIn or Twitter.
