• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
NetBlazon

NetBlazon

Helping Online Businesses Achieve Greater Success

  • About
  • Work With Us
  • Our Portfolio
  • Blog
You are here: Home / E-commerce / Improving Your E-commerce Checkout Process

Improving Your E-commerce Checkout Process

March 29, 2010Susan Petracco32 Comments

Once you’ve gotten a shopper to add a product or two to their cart, you have a reasonable chance of converting them into a buyer. The process of moving them from the cart or basket page through the checkout steps to the final receipt page is known as the checkout process. There are a number of usability best practices for checkout screens. We recently performed a cleanup of the checkout screens for one of our clients that followed these guidelines, and I want to present some of these ideas with screenshots from the redesign. Read on to find out what we did and the results we’ve seen.

Contents hide
Provide “Breadcrumbs”
Ask for as Much Information as You Need…
Required and Optional Fields
Scrub Addresses
Use Trust Marks
Indicate Processing and Shipping Times
Provide a Printable Receipt
Send an Automatic Receipt by Email
Use the Receipt Page for Merchandising and Engagement
What about you?

Provide “Breadcrumbs”

Many shopping carts don’t provide a single-page checkout, and the jury is still out on whether they are more user-friendly than checkout processes that span multiple pages. If your checkout process includes more than one page, make it simpler by reminding your customer where they are in the overall process with a clear graphic. Think of it as the sign near the entrance to your local shopping mall with the “You are Here” pointer, except it’s a map for your website. As an added bonus, you can also reinforce the concept of security with your choice of words and graphics in the image.

Checkout Breadcrumbs
Checkout Breadcrumbs

Ask for as Much Information as You Need…

…but not a single field more. A customer’s sense of dread increases dramatically with every field you add to a form on a page. For some, it’s just a matter of the time it takes to type in all their information; for others, their worry about identity theft and fraud grows with each piece of information they need to provide. Even if your shopping cart software has a default field, you likely don’t need to use it. For example, if you don’t use a customer’s fax number for anything, why ask for it? Most e-commerce communications are handled by email and phone, not fax, so many companies can omit this field. If you only ship within your own country, don’t ask customers to choose a country. Simply put a small statement at the bottom that reminds people of your policy, instead of a dropdown with a single country in it. (Or even worse, a dropdown filled with countries that generate an error when the form is submitted!)

Required and Optional Fields

A corollary to the above rule: don’t make a field required unless it needs to be. Visually, the customer address forms need to have an indicator that shows which fields are required and which ones are optional, and they need to align well vertically. The most common indicator is an asterisk. However, if every field is required, don’t put an asterisk by each one. A single statement at the top that says “All fields are required” will suffice and clear some of the visual clutter – and customer confusion over why every field has the asterisk.

Customer Address Form
Customer Address Form

Scrub Addresses

Scrubbing addresses is becoming more widespread on e-commerce sites. The idea is that there’s a layer of technology on the back-end that takes the addresses (especially the shipping address) and compares it against a known set of addresses, such as the US Postal Service address database, and returns a scrubbed address – one that has been verified as a real address, and formatted according to carrier preferences.

This concept has a number of benefits. First, it can reduce address-correction fees with your shipping carriers (UPS, FedEx, and the postal service). Second, it can reduce costs associated with returned packages due to undeliverable addresses. Third, it can improve the accuracy of sales tax calculations in destination-based tax states. The USPS provides this service, but under very limited circumstances (for example, you must be an active USPS shipper). Our own AccurateTax service offers address scrubbing as a stand-alone service or as part of our sales tax solutions. And there are other options for various carts.

Use Trust Marks

Recognized trust marks are a simple way to remind customers of the protection you place on their personal information and payment details. Trust marks come in a variety of forms. The simplest one to include, that usually doesn’t add any additional cost to your overhead, is the security badge offered as part of your SSL certificate. All of the major SSL certificate providers offer such badges – you’ve likely seen Verisign, GeoTrust, Thawte, and other security badges on major e-commerce sites.

A second form of trust marks includes those from companies that scan your site for security holes and PCI violations. These became well-known several years ago when the HackerSafe logo become prominent, and MarketingSherpa reported amazing increases in conversion rates for PetCo when displaying the logo in the site’s header. Today, HackerSafe has become McafeeSecure and is still a leader in this type of service. While the McafeeSecure logo can still be seen on many e-commerce sites, they’ve been joined by a number of competitors, including ControlScan.

On checkout pages, particularly the page where customers enter their credit card details, it’s especially important to show it high on the page. On our redesign, we grouped the trust marks into a bar along with the customer service phone number and provided it near the top of every page in the checkout process for consistency.

We’ll be exploring other trust marks in an upcoming article.

Trust Marks
Trust Marks

Indicate Processing and Shipping Times

Customers want to know when they will receive their order. In most cases, this depends on two factors:

  1. Processing time: how long it takes your warehouse to pack the order for shipment, and
  2. Shipping time: how long it takes the package to reach the destination.

Explain both to the customer as early as possible in the checkout process, and repeat the information as needed and in the confirmation email.

Shipping Times
Shipping Times

Provide a Printable Receipt

A printable invoice or receipt is necessary because a) emails don’t always reach their destination, and b) customers don’t always remember their orders. Offering customers the ability to print a black-and-white, bare bones receipt once their order is complete allows them to get hard copy proof that they did indeed order X, Y, and Z from you. It also helps them find discrepancies and call to have them corrected earlier in the process.

Printable Receipt
Printable Receipt

Send an Automatic Receipt by Email

You should automatically send a receipt by email immediately after the order is placed. Some customers won’t use the printable receipt, but will expect the emailed receipt to arrive in their inbox within a minute or two of the order being completed. The email should provide a copy of the billing and shipping addresses, the cart contents (including any discounts, tax, and shipping charges), and a phone number to call in case of errors. If you can’t send out an email immediately, state the expected delay time boldly somewhere on your web-based receipt page.

Use the Receipt Page for Merchandising and Engagement

The receipt page is an often-overlooked place to ask the customer for additional sales, feedback, and participation. Here are a few ideas to include on your receipt page:

  • Link to your Facebook page
  • Link to your Twitter account
  • A form to sign up for your email newsletter or paper catalog
  • The chance to add a popular accessory to their order
  • An offer to upgrade their shipping for a special price

What about you?

Have you tried any of these already on your site or your customers’ stores? What kind of difference did you see? In our particular case, we’ve noted a 1.5% improvement in conversion rates inside the funnel since implementing many of these changes, and we still have two pages left to tackle (the login page and the receipt page) – not to mention the receipt email itself! Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. [email protected] Forex Robot says

    March 30, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    I like the breadcrumb idea. I’m going to have to start implementing that into my current checkout.

    Reply
  2. Jacob says

    March 30, 2010 at 8:56 pm

    Great article, great advice. You raise some really good points and increasing conversions. This is what usability testing is all about!

    Reply
  3. Josh says

    March 31, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Thank you for the excellent article I will keep these ideas in mind with future checkout redesigns.

    Reply
  4. Martyn @ D2P says

    March 31, 2010 at 3:30 pm

    Some good points but I think it’s also important to mention you dont need many trust marks as sometimes I find it off putting.

    Reply
  5. Robert Brady says

    April 1, 2010 at 9:33 am

    Solid points that a majority of online forms don’t follow.

    Reply
  6. Redspell says

    April 3, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    Your suggestions are top quality, the best has to be the single page checkout. So many ecommerce stores make you trawl through so many pages just to purchase a $2.00 item.

    Reply
  7. SEO says

    April 5, 2010 at 6:12 am

    Nice suggestions for checkout process.
    I liked the most are:
    1. Breadcrumbs for Checkout
    2. Processing and Shipping Times

    Reply
  8. Laptop Carrying Case says

    April 6, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    All very good tips. I definitely agree that you need to simplify the checkout process as much as possible. You don’t want to lose sales as a result of asking for too much extra customer information or making other similar mistakes. I am going to reanalyze our website’s checkout process to see if we can apply any of these tips.

    Reply
  9. Laptop Carrying Case says

    April 6, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    I don’t know if I would recommend the address scrubbing though. When trying to verify addresses through automated software, it is easy to run into problems. People enter addresses in a variety of ways, but shipping to wrong addresses is not a big problem. I could see this being more frustrating for customers and lowering conversion rates.

    Reply
  10. beach clog says

    April 7, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    I’ll implement Breadcrumbs for Checkout
    and Processing and Shipping Times on my next project

    Reply
  11. Talking Ava says

    April 8, 2010 at 12:07 am

    Great tips! I’ve been reading up on several suggestions on improving my checkout process, and this has got to be one of the more enlightening ones! Thanks for this!

    Reply
  12. Blooming Artificial says

    April 8, 2010 at 1:45 am

    I have implemented all these on my site except Checkout Breadcrumbs, i missed this one.

    Reply
  13. mike says

    April 15, 2010 at 10:26 am

    Hey, great information.

    I’m definitely going to implement some of these tips on my site. Especially adding shipping times.

    thanks.

    Reply
  14. migraine causes says

    April 16, 2010 at 4:23 am

    I will embed Breadcrumbs looks like a good idea for me.

    Reply
  15. Water Filtration says

    April 21, 2010 at 6:08 am

    Good written post about improve checkout method. I newbie in ecommerce site, this information really helpful for me. Thanks.

    Reply
  16. used tires says

    April 28, 2010 at 5:29 am

    Yea, the checkout process is very important. I find the checkout process at Amazon is quite good and a nice example for many sites to follow.

    Till then,

    Jean

    Reply
  17. bangladesh ecommerce says

    April 28, 2010 at 10:36 am

    Nice post!

    Customer’s security should be one of the prime concerns of any online vendor.

    Gesture!

    bangladesh e-commerce training

    Reply
  18. Bitkisel Tedavi says

    May 2, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Solid points that a majority of online forms don’t follow.

    Reply
  19. Banner Design says

    May 6, 2010 at 7:22 am

    A really informative article. The checkout phase over the net is very important indeed because many people could even place orders for the products to purchase but may stop finalizing the deals for a number of reasons.

    I believe installing the SSL scripts on websites and simplifying the whole process could also be nice to mention in this respect.

    Reply
  20. Joseph A'Deo says

    May 10, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    Thanks for the note about trust marks! And even sites that don’t need ssl — ones that, for example, use a third-party shopping cart — can now get one of these with the VeriSign Trust Seal, which also provides daily malware scanning for the sites in question. Otherwise, you’d of course want both a trust mark and encryption of some kind — ssl or EV SSL. Feel free to shoot me any questions about VeriSign’s trust marks as well, at [email protected].

    Reply
  21. Umbro England says

    May 11, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    I’ve switched to paypal pro this weekend, to hopefully help convert more sales with a seamless checkout process. I’d like to bring up the topic again about the need to provide more information and clearer directions in the shopify controlled checkout process so customers understand what the direct checkout buttons like “pay with paypal” do, and that filling out the form below them will allow them to checkout on-site with their credit card. I know there are requirements from paypal on showing the button.

    Reply
  22. cheap college books says

    June 9, 2010 at 11:23 am

    The bread crumb idea is great i need to find a way to implement it.

    Reply
  23. Harvey @ PS3 says

    June 22, 2010 at 6:47 am

    I like the idea of scrubbing addresses. Will need to find one for the UK. Got any ideas on where to find a list for the UK?

    Reply
  24. Catering says

    June 25, 2010 at 5:53 am

    Good tips about check-out process. Customer don’t like lengthy process. Optional fields are really good for usability.

    Reply
  25. car battery starter says

    August 5, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    I have to say I start getting a bit suspicious also when the number of information fields goes up. My e-mail and phone number along with the the address is all they should be needing so when they ask for more info, it raises a flag.

    Reply
  26. Filter Coffee says

    August 19, 2010 at 7:43 am

    This is a really excellent read for me. Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw. You raise some really good points and increasing conversions. This is what usability testing is all about! keep it up.

    Reply
  27. Printable Coupons says

    November 5, 2010 at 9:58 am

    I help my father run his ecommerce site. Its really just a product he sells that I set up a site for. It was a huge learning curve trying to set one up. I did it with wordpress and a plugin. It definitely doesn’t look as professional as all the options you have here. I’ll have to see what we can install on our site as we look pretty amateurish compared to this.

    Reply
  28. DNS Server Hosting says

    December 10, 2010 at 10:26 am

    The breadcrumb idea is right. I am a frequent online shopper, and I get annoyed when I don’t know how long before I am done placing my order. The easier my process is, then the more likely I am to return to site for another order.

    Reply
  29. Komodo Dragon says

    December 15, 2010 at 2:06 am

    I’m not too sure about address scrubbing as well. It seems like despite it being possible for human error to creep in occasionally, it’s still by and large more accurate a process for listing address. Especially the more unique addresses that might not exist in databases.

    Reply
  30. Giovanni Adcock says

    December 16, 2010 at 10:31 pm

    Grand poteau peut I à traduire Tchèque pour mon blogs visionneuses ? Merci

    Reply
  31. Susan Petracco says

    December 17, 2010 at 8:24 am

    Giovanni – Yes you may, as long as you link back to the original source (here on my blog). Thanks for asking.

    Reply
  32. Veronica [email protected] beach fl waterfront condos says

    August 2, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    Hi Susan. These are some good tips you provided here. Each and every tip is essential. However, not many e-commerce sites are practicing them. There are people who put things in their cart with the intent to buy, but due to poor navigation and search and some other complexities, these potential sales are lost. I think it’s really important to make them feel that once they have the item in the cart, they already have obtained the item. Complexities tend to take this feeling away from them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Recent Posts

  • 8 Ways To Freshen Your Blog Without Doing A Major Overhaul
  • Does Your Business Spark Joy?
  • 6 Reasons it Sucks to be a Solopreneur
  • How Your E-commerce Business can Survive a Tough Economy
  • Make Extra Money with a Side Hustle
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Footer

Social

Follow along on social media.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Blog Categories

  • Blogging
  • Digital Marketing
  • E-commerce
  • Small Business

Navigation

  • Work With Us
  • About NetBlazon
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
© 1999-2020 NetBlazon LLC, All Rights Reserved.