eCommerce checkout design is an incredibly important part of the eCommerce journey. It can be the single reason you’re conversion rates increase or decrease.
The key is quickness and convenience. These are the two main ingredients of a successful checkout that will push through those sought after-sales.
As well as quickness and convenience, simplicity is also a key element you must add into the mix. It is so important to mitigate any convoluted spiel from the check out section, or you will, unfortunately, discourage consumers from completing their transactions.
Some might argue that stripping things down to the bare essentials and only offering one page of check out space, demonstrates a skill and an ability to simplify that will almost guarantee increased conversions.
In creating a simple and straightforward checkout, you are focusing solely on the user experience and selfishly shunning the push for data capture, something your customers will thank you for, and reward you for with increased sales.
A quick glimpse at what’s out there online shows that the single page checks out is not just a fad, but an effective strategy, which is being adopted across the board.
Here are some examples and insights into what some eCommerce sites are getting right and what could help some of them improve:
Olympics website
The Olympic Association’s eCommerce store is hugely untidy, complicated and confusing. It is however an example of a single page checkout.
To make a purchase you only have to enter an email address, password and address. They have certainly got the ease and simplicity central to a positive eCommerce experience correct.
Unfortunately, all this good work is undone by the poor copywriting and tangled nonsensical script that forms the backdrop of the page. The navigation is poor and customers are rendered confused about how to make their transactions.
Honey Badger
Clothing retailer Honey Badger is head and shoulders above its contemporaries in terms of providing an effective eCommerce site. This is because users only have to fill in around 10 fields before their purchase is complete, thus the quickness mantra of all good eCommerce stores is adhered to.
You are not forced to create an account just to complete a purchase and the site is mobile optimised.
Sephora
Sephora uses a staged checkout, however, it all appears on a single page- an interesting concept.
The different stages of the checkout, such as card type and username, are all listed below the current form so that when the user clicks ‘continue’ the next form appears.
This could be seen as slightly cheating, as what we have is essentially a multi-stage check out masquerading as a multi-stage checkout.
Checkouts must be simple and easy if you are going to cling on to those sales and achieve repeat transactions too. Single-page checkouts may well be the way to go in order to provide a pleasant user experience, for your ever distracted busy customers.
Whether you opt for a single page check out or not, what is undeniable is that eCommerce check-outs must be user friendly and they must not slow the transaction process down at any point.
