How to Double Sales with Checkout UX

One of the most common reasons ecommerce sites lose out on sales is due to problems with the user experience on their checkout pages. When users want to complete a purchase, they don’t want to be hampered by complicated checkout processes, restrictive payment options, or unclear pricing. Unfortunately, many ecommerce sites don’t invest in optimizing their checkout UX, causing many customers to abandon their carts and look for the product or service they want elsewhere.

If you want to double your sales and increase customer retention, you’ll likely want to know more about checkout UX and how optimizing it can increase your sales. 

What Is Checkout UX?

UX stands for user experience, and, as you might expect, it’s an essential component of online stores and websites. On a website, UX can refer to several elements, such as the site’s features, functionality, design, checkout process, and speed. When your website has a solid UX that keeps users engaged and allows them to navigate your site quickly,  people are more likely to stay on your site and not leave for a competitor.

While UX refers to several elements, checkout UX specifically measures how optimized the user experience is for your online purchase process. The three main elements you’ll want to consider when optimizing your checkout UX are checkout form fields, accessibility/site structure, and payment flexibility. When all three elements come together to provide a seamless user experience, you can expect more customers to complete the purchase process and have a more positive view of your company.

How Can An Optimized Checkout UX Double Your Sales?

As you consider optimizing your website for a better checkout process, it’s critical to understand how helpful a great checkout UX can be for your sales. In fact, researchers from Baymard found that 68.8% of users end up abandoning their online shopping carts. While some of these abandoned carts are due to users browsing a site before they’re ready to actually make a purchase, many don’t complete the buying process because of checkout UX issues.

For example, Baymard found that 24% of users abandoned their cart because the site wanted them to create an account, while 18% did so because the checkout process was too long or complicated. Besides these issues, 16% said they couldn’t calculate or see the total order cost up-front, 13% of users stated that the website crashed or had errors, and 9% said there weren’t enough payment methods. 

Based on these commonly reported checkout UX issues, Baymard estimates that average large-sized ecommerce sites can increase their conversion rate by 35.26% with design improvements to their checkout process. With an optimized checkout UX, you can eliminate lost sales due to complicated processes, too-restrictive payment options, errors on the page, and other inconveniences that disincentivize users to make a purchase. 

Alongside helping to boost your sales in the short term, an improved UX may also help you turn new customers into loyal ones. When you give users a fast and easy-to-understand checkout UX, they’ll be more likely to return in the future, especially when your competitors’ sites aren’t optimized. Over time, checkout UX improvements can potentially double your sales by increasing conversions and inspiring customer loyalty.

How to Improve Your Checkout UX

If you’re ready to harness the benefits of checkout optimization, you can start by following a few ecommerce checkout UX best practices. From offering multiple payment options and eliminating extra forms to automating the checkout process and optimizing your site structure, there are multiple ways you can improve your checkout UX to increase conversions. Learn more about some of our key checkout page optimization tips below:

• Offer multiple payment options: Since customers have gotten used to having multiple ways to pay online, payment flexibility is an important element of any online checkout process. By offering greater payment flexibility, you can eliminate customers leaving your site after they find out you don’t accept their preferred payment method. A payment processor like SamPay (SamCart’s proprietary processor) can help you accept payments through mobile wallets and popular debit and credit cards. SamPay also gives you the opportunity to add Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and Pay What You Want (PWYW) options. 
• Optimize your site structure: Whether a customer leaves your site due to stability issues, problems finding a checkout page, or worries about your site’s security in handling payment information, it all comes down to your site’s structure. By using an ecommerce platform like SamCart, you can use various features to improve your site structure and increase your site’s credibility with consumers. 
• Customize your checkout fields and eliminate extra form fields: Since so many users abandon their carts due to too-long or complicated checkout processes, ecommerce sites can benefit from eliminating extra form fields and customizing their checkout fields for a better user experience. For example, SamCart allows you to choose from checkout forms with custom checkboxes, drop-down lists, or text inputs, making it easy to create a checkout form perfect for your customer base. SamCart also allows you to eliminate extra form fields and boost conversions. 
• Automate the checkout process: When a user is making a purchase, they want the process to be simple and fast. Successfully automating the checkout process will often include adding upsell and downsell logic, optimizing offer bundles with split testing, leveraging order bumps, customizing checkout forms, and minimizing the number of clicks. SamCart’s many features, integrations, and tools make it easy to implement all these elements to automate your checkout process and improve your checkout flow UX.

Try SamCart for Free to See How It Can Optimize Your Checkout UX

As a leading ecommerce platform, SamCart is committed to boosting your website’s conversions and helping you maximize customer value. With SamCart in your corner, you can instantly unlock cutting-edge checkout UX features that will take your website to the next level. Some of the key features SamCart offers for checkout optimization include checkout form customization, checkout redirects, widgets, checkout templates, custom fields, and site security optimization. SamCart also uses SamPay as its default payment processor, meaning you can give customers the payment flexibility they’ve come to expect.

Start maximizing your conversions by signing up for our free SamCart trial today. You can also download our free mini-book, The Checkout Automation Blueprint, to learn more about how you can improve your checkout UX and give customers an unparalleled buying experience.