Checkout сonversions are the holy grail of any ecommerce business. With the highest median conversion rate across the eCommerce industries at a mere 6.0%, a site that managed to get a double digit number of its users to actually complete checkout after filling their virtual baskets with goodies would have the rest of the internet green with envy, not to mention a spike in revenues big enough to cause vertigo. But ratcheting up conversion numbers requires smart tech and smarter people; making the wrong move with your checkout process carries the potential of displeasing otherwise loyal customers and cratering conversion. Luckily, there are plenty of payment magicians out there with the know-how to send your checkout conversion rates sky-high.
Check your tech
Like so much else in the payments realm, problems with checkout conversion are partially tech-based. Nothing will drive customers away quicker than a clunky old site filled with incompatibilities and technical errors. 87% of customers think businesses need to put more thought into seamless experiences, so in 2018 ecommerce storefronts need to be smoother than smooth, with a completely seamless experience between a frankly gargantuan number of devices. That can be a big ask, especially for companies on the smaller side, but thankfully there are technologies out there that can bring your site into the 21st century with a minimum of hassle. With its native mobile development SDK, for example, ECOMMPAY’s GATE2025 payment gateway can have customers flitting between desktop, laptop and mobile without a blip of disruption. Even better, whether those customers want to pay with debit card, mobile payments, or interpretive dance, GATE2025 can probably handle it (dance integration pending). That kind of tech can be integrated with your storefront without putting a hair out of place, gearing you up with everything necessary to provide your clients with a checkout experience that’s as buttery smooth on iOS and Android as it is on Windows and Linux.
Stick to your style
But ‘integration’ is an easy way to describe a hard process. If you’ve made the choice to modernise your payment interface, what’s the best way to do it? There’s a thousand different kinds of tech and a million ways to integrate them, ranging from a hard redirect, to an embedded iFrame, to lightboxes, to direct API integration. Well, no merchant wants a checkout page that marks a hard diversion from the standard aesthetics and layout of their actual site, and no customer wants to be suddenly confronted with a completely alien interface at the most important stage of their checkout journey — payment. That means a redirect — a process by which the customer is diverted from the merchant’s website to an external payment portal — is out immediately, but it likely means iFrames and lightboxes aren’t up to snuff, either. You need a payment page with the right security credentials and the most efficient possible experience, but you also need to be able to exert control over what that page looks like and how it works. That’s why partnerships with payment service providers who can tailor the checkout experience to your needs is so important, and it’s why the most desirable method is probably the most complete — direct API integration.
If you are safe and you know it, why not show it
So you’ve decided to modernise your payment interface, and you’ve settled on how you’re going to do it. Now you’ve gotta flaunt it. There’s reams of advice on checkout page design, ranging from useful tips to a kind of design voodoo, but what’s guaranteed to work is making sure your customer knows they’re in safe hands. In the first place, that means making sure your checkout page is visibly yours . Planting your logo on it and making sure it follows the same basic aesthetic layout as the rest of your site, like we said earlier, is key to ensuring your customers don’t think they’re handing over their card details to some sketchy hacker. But equally important is showcasing your security credentials right there on the page. Nothing will send conversion, and particularly checkout conversion, plummeting like customers feeling that their money isn’t safe, and they shouldn’t have to navigate to your ‘About’ page to find out whether or not you’re qualified to handle their most sensitive data. Put those security certificates and accreditations right under their noses and preserve their peace of mind throughout the entire payment journey. After all, you put in the work to make the right partnerships with the smartest people, so you’ve earned the right to show it off!
Partner with the smart ones and let the rest be envious
So what’s the best way to drive those checkout conversion stats skyward? It’s a mixture of tech, the smarts to back it up, and the experience to deploy it where it’ll be most effective. That’s a lot to ask of any company shifting online (or even just modernising a pre-existing online presence), which is why it’s crucial to make the right partnerships, with people who have the knowledge and talent to tailor their solutions to your needs. Find the right people, and you’ll be preaching to the converted in no time (sorry).
