A crucial component of every online store is the checkout page. A poor checkout page can turn customers away, regardless of how well you sell your goods and draw them in. Customers who add products to their cart and continue to the checkout process often decide not to make a purchase. According to Bolt’s statistics, which may slightly differ from current trends, but over the previous ten years, the average checkout abandonment rate varied from 60% to 80%.
While being in this range isn’t necessarily a negative thing, you can optimize it to make it less than 50%, which is where it should be. Your checkout process should be immediately fixed if it has an abandonment rate of more than 90%.
Factors why customers abandon during the checkout process
When a customer reaches the checkout page, they frequently decide against making the planned purchase for a variety of reasons, such as;
Mandatory account creation
Customers may become irritated if you make them register an account on your store in order to finish a purchase. When making an online purchase, not everyone is willing to share their personal information, especially if they have not interacted with your store in the past.
Restrictions and unexpected shipping costs
Customers may be discouraged from buying your goods if the shipping cost is particularly expensive. The checkout process would be abandoned if customers were unable to select the shipping option they wanted.
Tedious checkout procedure
You need to remember that customers are impatient. They will become discouraged from finishing the checkout procedure if they have to clear many hurdles in your store.
Slow loading times
Impatient clients will quit the checkout process if your store isn’t optimized for quick load speeds.
An inadequate return policy
In order to be able to return the product if they are dissatisfied, customers frequently examine a store’s return policy throughout the checkout process. They will be discouraged from finishing the transaction if your store doesn’t have a reasonable return policy.
Lack of a variety of payment options
If the store doesn’t provide the payment option preferred by the customer, they won’t finish the transaction.
10 ways to improve the checkout process in your WooCommerce store
There are many things to take into account when using WooCommerce, as well as rules to optimize your checkout page for sales. Among them are;
1. Enable guest checkouts
Customers who want to purchase things from your store should not be forced to create an account.
Eliminate the need for customers to register for an account before making a purchase on your WooCommerce site. Customers can purchase goods without having to reveal their credentials in this way. It’s a decision that’s certain to boost the revenue of your business.
In addition, if customers register for your store, you can also offer them social networking registrations. Usually, using this approach is more straightforward than entering their login information again to make a new account.
2. Convenient one-touch checkout
Customers will be encouraged to buy from your WooCommerce store if you enable one-click checkout. One-click checkout is offered by a lot of WooCommerce payment gateways, including Stripe. Install those gateways on your WooCommerce store after locating them.
Customers are drawn to spend more since a one-touch checkout plugin saves them time and effort.
3. Increased sales and purchases
Upselling is a sales technique that urges customers to buy upgrades for the products they have chosen while introducing them to related goods they may not have previously considered. Your checkout page is a good place to use the marketing strategy of upselling. The phrase “customers frequently bought together” or “related products” is typically used in online retailers. It may encourage customers to purchase more goods.
4. Include a variety of payment methods
Customers today have access to a wide variety of payment methods. Having a variety of payment alternatives will significantly boost sales. Customers who like to use various payment systems will not use your business if you only accept traditional payment methods like VISA and Mastercard.
It’s a good thing that WooCommerce does a great job of offering a variety of payment choices in your business. Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Paypal gateway are just a few of the payment gateways that you may use with plugins. Try to decide which WooCommerce payment gateway best matches your business since each has advantages and disadvantages.
5. Use Buy Now, Pay Later options
A number of payment providers offer to buy now, pay later options that allow customers to pay for their purchases in installments over time. While they are relatively new, they are growing rapidly.
Customers may spend more on your WooCommerce store if you offer them to buy now, pay later payment options. Users of BNPL typically don’t mind spending more if they can spread out their payments over a longer period of time. Additionally, they typically spend more money on the internet shopping.
Similar to how you integrate a payment gateway, you may integrate a third-party BNPL provider on your WooCommerce store. Many times, using it is quick and simple. Affirm, Klarna payments, Afterpay and Paypal Pay Later payments are some typical BNPL providers. Usually, they charge between 2 to 5 % of the sales as transaction fees.
6. Create an Exit-Intent Popup
Exit-intent popups are a tactic to keep users on your website who are about to leave. By watching the visitor’s mouse movement, it can detect when they are ready to go by moving the pointer outside the upper page boundary, at which point a popup window will open. To encourage customers to spend more time perusing the products and possibly making purchases, this popup window can promote special offers, coupons, and discounts.
Your pop-up window ought to include a short, concise text. To give customers promotions, promote customer feedback, highlight limited-time specials, and other things, it can ask for their email addresses. About 10% to 15% of visitors with abandoned carts have been found to be saved by exit-intent popups.
7. Emphasize the return policy and customer service on the checkout page
Customers hesitate to finish the checkout procedure due to a weak return policy. Customers would be discouraged from purchasing from you if they weren’t confident that they could return a product. If you don’t already have one, you should implement one and make it clear on your checkout page.
On the checkout page, make sure to highlight any customer support contact information you have so that customers know how to get in touch with you if something goes wrong. Gaining a customer’s trust is essential for getting them to shop at your place and spend money.
8. Introduce loyalty programs
By providing special benefits when a consumer makes a purchase, loyalty programs are a type of marketing tactic used to encourage repeat business. Rewards points that can be converted into cash, discounts, membership upgrades, etc. are a few examples of the benefits. Loyalty programs aid in personalizing your consumers’ shopping experiences and entice them to make repeat purchases.
9. Provide subscription and recurring payment options
E-commerce subscriptions are a rapidly expanding industry. It will be beneficial to have a membership or subscription option in your WooCommerce store if you have customers in markets where subscription e-commerce is popular. Several techniques for doing this are as follows:
Access – Create a privileged membership club with benefits like special prices and early access to new products.
Replenishment – Offer subscription options for routinely replenishing goods like razors, dog food, and toiletries. Customers like it when they can quickly replenish these items so they don’t have to place new orders.
Curation – Provide paying subscribers with exclusive product bundles.
Payment options such as subscriptions and recurring payments are very effective marketing tools.
10. Display related products when checkout
Many major online retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, and many others, use the marketing strategy of displaying comparable products when customers are checking out. You can make recommendations for related products a customer might be interested in purchasing after they choose a product.
To raise the average order value at your WooCommerce store, displaying related products is a useful strategy.
Major WooCommerce Plugins for your WooCommerce Store
Subscriptions for WooCommerce
Keeping track of subscription-related details is challenging. Subscriptions for WooCommerce, provided by WebToffee, does everything you require in order for your customers to benefit from recurring purchases.
Variable subscriptions, free trial and signup charges, subscription synchronization queues, payment pro-ration, and discounts offered on recurrent payments are all included, and everything is presented stylishly. When you wish to be informed of any changes to any of your subscriptions, it also provides email notifications, which are useful.
Stripe Payment Plugin for WooCommerce
The Stripe WooCommerce Plugin is a freemium plugin that interacts with WooCommerce to allow Stripe payment processing. The plugin accepts payments with AliPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other methods in addition to credit and debit cards.
To collect payments from users, it functions with any WordPress website. You receive an easy-to-use overview page where you can manage, approve, and refund your payments with a few clicks.
To manage your payments and refunds, this plugin also offers an overview page for your Stripe transactions. Customers can also store their credit card details for future payments that are simpler. Customers can use the “buy now, pay later” feature using Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, thanks to the support of those three payment processors.
For speedy payment, the plugin accepts credit and debit cards from major international networks like Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Discover, JCB, and Diners Club.
PayPal Express Checkout Plugin for WooCommerce
Using WebToffee’s PayPal Express Checkout for WooCommerce plugin, you can add credit/debit card checkout in addition to PayPal payment choices in your business.
Both the WooCommerce PayPal Express Checkout and PayPal Smart checkout systems can be integrated with the plugin. With the PayPal plugin, you can even start the payment process from the items and cart page in addition to the checkout page.
You may fully process your payments from your website with the help of the PayPal Express Checkout plugin for WooCommerce. No redirect to another page will be required of customers to complete the checkout. Your sales figures may increase as a result of this.
Additionally, the plugin automatically determines the customer’s country and area, enabling them to pay using their preferred payment option. You can even put a hold on the card and capture payments at a later time using PayPal. The plugin offers both full and partial refund options.
Related Products for WooCommerce
The free Related Products for WooCommerce plugin lets you show the items you think are related to a certain item in your WooCommerce store. With the help of this plugin, you may even change WooCommerce’s default related products theme.
You can add both local and global related products for all items in your store using the free WebToffee plugin. Based on the product category, the tags, or both, you can relate products globally. A custom product can also be set up as a related product for a store item if you want.
Sliders can also be used to quickly attract customers’ attention to connected products. You can completely customize the slider’s appearance and products. Furthermore, WPML and the plugin work seamlessly together.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of other ways to improve the WooCommerce checkout page to increase sales. We have listed some of the most important ones above. Make sure you adhere to them to expand your WooCommerce business to greater heights.
Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Feel free to ask any questions below.