Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges an online retailer will face, and overcoming it is largely a question of improving the online shopping experience. Internet shoppers ultimately seek maximum convenience and utmost security, so ensuring your ecommerce site ticks both of these boxes is essential to securing a purchase. Here are some steps you can take to simplify the checkout process and gain the trust of your customers, minimizing the likelihood of last-minute shopping cart desertion.

Demonstrate Security

Buying products online more often than not requires shoppers to part with sensitive information, be it their personal address or credit card details. If customers are in any doubt about the security of your website, chances are they’ll decide against going through with that purchase. Applying for security certificates and displaying badges, especially throughout the checkout process, is a clear way of telling users that you take security seriously and that their data is in safe hands. Safety conscious shoppers will also be on the lookout for the tell-tale “https” and padlock symbol in the browser, indicating the necessary SSL authentication which ensures secure communication with your server. Find out more about ecommerce security here.

Add a Personal Touch

Security is as much about gut feeling as it is about technical barriers. It is therefore extremely beneficial to make your site less anonymous and more personal, showing users that there are indeed people – not just a machine – behind your online shop. Simple touches, such as an “About us” page with genuine photos, go a long way in putting customers at ease, as do a contact number and a physical address. Shoppers will be happier to buy from your site confident in the knowledge that they can contact you should anything go wrong.

Accept More Payment Options

Having proved that your site can be trusted, the last thing you want is to lose out on a sale due to a lack of available payment options. The more payment types your ecommerce site supports, the easier it is for consumers to make a purchase, so it’s important to cover a broad range of possibilities. As well as the more well-known payment types, it’s also essential to keep up with alternative methods, such as paysafecard, a prepaid card which enables shoppers to pay online without entering any credit or debit card details.

Keep It Simple

Finally, in addition to security and ease of payment, it is essential to make the checkout process as simple and hassle-free as possible. An effective way to reduce shopping cart abandonment is to give users the option of making a purchase without creating an account, as this greatly minimizes the number of hurdles between product selection and payment. Whilst collecting customer information is undoubtedly useful for understanding your audience, shoppers will appreciate having a choice. Loyalty schemes are a great way of encouraging people to sign up without interfering with the purchase process.

For further tips on boosting your ecommerce business, see our other Ecommerce articles in our news section

by: Endri Hasanaj | Tech.co