If you run an ecommerce business, you’ll know that it doesn’t matter how many clicks your website is getting if your website visitors aren’t buying. Getting more website visitors than your competitors is great, but at the crux of it, what really matters is how many sales you’re getting.

If losing customers on your payment page sounds all too familiar for your ecommerce business, read on to find out how to stop customers from disappearing at the checkout.

Ask fewer questions

One thing that drives customers to abandon their cart is a business coming on too strong. Once customers reach a payment page, the last thing you want to do (if you want to make a sale) is ask them a million questions. Ditch unnecessary questions and stick to the essentials like their name, mailing address and phone number. Once they are a customer, you’ll have more opportunities to learn more about them and ask follow up questions – for example, via welcome emails. So our advice is to keep it simple.

Don’t make customers jump through hoops

Along with culling the amount of questions you ask on the payment page, cutting down the amount of time customers have to spend to actually get to the end of the checkout process will make going through with the purchase a whole lot more appealing. This means you need to speed it up. Think about how you can make the process easier and faster. Anything that makes the checkout simple and hassle-free, like offering to save credit card details for return customers, or a simple checkbox to auto-fill your postal and delivery addresses will help with conversions.

Stay social

Never underestimate the power of social media. Shoppers and your competitors are all over social media, so you should be too. Simplify the path to purchase on your social media channels by using features like Instagram’s ‘Shop Now’ button or direct links to your product pages in your Facebook Ads.

Optimise your website for mobile

If your website isn’t optimised for mobile, not only will you be punished by Google by ranking lower in search results, but the usability of your site will suffer (and therefore so will your conversion rate at the checkout). Not to mention the fact that most people these days walk around with a smartphone in their hand, so you’ll be missing out on customers that aren’t glued to a desktop. To optimise your website, think mobile-friendly text and easy-to-navigate buttons and menus.

Make it local

Have you ever gone to make an online purchase and found out that the price you initially saw the product listed for was not in Australian dollars? The realisation that the incorrect currency is listed can be quite disappointing and can result in shopping cart abandonment (and it’s even worse if you find out after the fact, on your credit card statement). To avoid customers ditching their cart at checkout, ensure your website has the ability to show prices in local currencies.

Need a hand getting visitors to your site? We can help with that. Get in touch.