Improve your Magento checkout

5 ways you can improve your Magento checkout experience!

Nowadays there are millions of online retailers jumping at the chance to steal your customers. Why wouldn’t they, after all if your site isn’t providing it’s users with a good checkout experience they’ll just “drop the shopping cart” and go elsewhere. Business is vicious, and if you haven’t learned that by now then you should probably be in a classroom with a group secondary school kids. Bearing this in mind, I’m going to show you how and where you can improve the Magento checkout experience in order to obtain more conversions.

1)     Consider it from a user’s point of view

Let’s say you wanted to purchase a skateboard online. Would you want to go through a lengthy or complicated shopping process? Of course you wouldn’t…and if you wouldn’t, then your customers most definitely aren’t going to. Figure out ways to simplify your overall checkout experience, maybe remove some unnecessary steps between starting and completing the transaction. The ideal number of steps (for Magento) when completing a transaction is 3, however there are some who prefer to use a “one step checkout”.

2)     Eliminate unnecessary information entry

Customers don’t want to enter boatloads of their information before making a purchase. Why? Because it just prolongs the whole process, and well, who can really be bothered when sometimes people just want to make a quick purchase? Sometimes it’s best to just keep it simple. Of course having an e-mail can prove useful, but it may hinder a sale. Only ask for necessary information, like their address and payment information.

3)     Don’t ask users to register

If a customer is ready and willing to pay at the end of a checkout, for the sake of dignity (and a sale) don’t ask them to register to your site. Sure, after the sale has been completed and you’ve received the £££ maybe it’s okay then. But when they’re just about to pay, your priority is receiving the cash. Asking them to register before checking out will risk shopping cart abandonment, and nobody wants that! However, if they’re already a user on your site, and they do drop their cart, you can use Copernica to email the user offers specific to the items they’ve been viewing. Copernica is located on the Magento connect store and can be installed as a plug-in.

4)     Try using Google suggest

Google suggest is a very useful shopping cart tool. Whilst the user enters their location, it automatically narrows down options for their address. This may only shave a few seconds off the overall checkout process, however seconds really do matter. The more convenient it is for the customer the more likely they are to convert. The best part about it is it can be integrated on to your Magento site with ease!

5)     Offer multiple payment methods

Don’t just limit your customer to one or two payment methods. By limiting the customer, you’re only limiting yourself from potential sales. Not everyone uses the same payment method so having multiple payment options available increases your chance of securing a sale. The most common payment methods can easily be integrated into Magento.

So there you have it folks, just a few ways you can improve the shopping experience for your site users! If you think I’ve missed something out, or want to give your input, feel free to comment below! 🙂