Creating an e-commerce website and getting on the rocketship of selling products online has considerably improved over the years. There are abundant CMS (content management system) platforms and web-hosting companies to help you get your e-commerce portal up and running.
It’s no longer a privilege enjoyed only by a few large e-commerce companies.
Yet, only a handful of online businesses get to reap the benefits even remotely close to the major e-commerce brands. According to a RedSeer report, Amazon and Flipkart grabbed 88% market share during their festive season sales in 2021.
So, what could be the reason for this duopoly when there are hundreds of e-commerce businesses selling quality products?
We have a three-word answer for you: Broken checkout process.
An inefficient checkout flow is the reason why you have not been able to convert visitors into buyers. Customers tend to abandon their carts at the checkout page if they feel the payment process is too complicated or not transparent.
Cart abandonment has been a big menace for e-commerce businesses. The rate of cart abandonment in India is reported at 51 percent according to a research by Indian Marketers.
Reasons customers leave the checkout page
It is very crucial for your online business that you design your checkout flow in a way that enhances customers’ buying experience. The time between them clicking on “buy now” and them reading the golden words “payment successful” on the last page should be minimal.
If you have created a smooth checkout experience for your customers, chances are you have converted them into repeat customers.
Also Read: How Can Customized Checkout Solutions Prove Revolutionary For Your Brand?
However, if this experience becomes tedious and buggy, they will not only abandon the cart, they are going to share their horror story on social media.
Customers tend to leave their cart at the checkout page for the following reasons:
- Complex payment process: As an online business it is imperative that you offer your customers a simple payment procedure. Paying online should not feel like tedious work where customers have to look for the right payment options on the checkout page.
- Limited payment options: More is better. Your payment gateway should have an array of payment options. This is a must to cater to all your customers and not just a small cluster of buyers. Choose a payment gateway that is adept with different payment modes such as credit and debit cards, UPI, net banking and digital wallets. If your online store sells high-value products like furniture, electronics, jewelry, etc, it would be best if you can offer an EMI-based payments option as well.
- Compulsory sign-up: A detailed sign-up form is a sure-shot way to lose your customer. Nothing demotivates a buyer from purchasing online than compulsorily requiring to fill in zillions of information on the checkout page. If you really want them to create an account, tell them they get discounts or free shipping once they sign up. Even then don’t ask them to fill an excessively detailed form.
- Additional charges: If you have listed a product at X price, don’t surprise your customers by charging X+1 on the billing page. It’s unlikely that a customer would make the payment if they see other charges like delivery or convenience fee added to the original price. Clearly mention all the additional charges right where the product is listed.
- Multiple redirections and payment failures: Even though online buyers have gotten used to paying online, the worry of payment declining at the last minute still looms. Reduce the chances of payment failures by choosing a payment gateway that doesn’t require your customers to get redirected to an external website multiple times.
5 ideal checkout practices to follow
When e-commerce was just picking up in India, online businesses spent a lot of time improving the user interface and user experience for better product discovery.
In e-commerce 2.0, you are expected to make the checkout and payment interface smooth. Your customers don’t expect anything less than this.
Here are a few best industry practices that make for a hassle-free checkout experience:
- Allow guest checkout: Don’t force your customers to create an account before they can purchase a product. This can be the single biggest reason for them to leave your website on the checkout page. Instead, offer them a guest checkout alternative with an OTP-based mobile number verification. It’s quick and does the job.
- Mobile-friendly payment page: Smartphones are increasingly becoming the preferred device of netizens for online shopping. To keep up with this trend, your website must be optimized for all kinds of mobile devices. Choose a payment gateway that can create a sleek and efficient checkout page for your website.
- Auto-save details: In case your customers face a patchy internet connection or any other technical issues, enable your checkout page to auto-save information that the user has put. This will increase the probability of your customers continuing with the checkout process as they won’t have to fill in those details again.
- Provide progress bar: Just like while reading an e-book one wants to know how much they have read, ease your customer’s payment anxiety by showing them the progress of the checkout process.
- Be social: Allow customers to sign-up on your website using their social media accounts. This simplifies the sign-up process for your customers and you get a registered customer. Now everyone’s happy.
Seamless checkout with Paytm Payment Gateway
Paytm Payment Gateway has carefully taken care of all the payment and checkout-related glitches. It comes with a simple checkout flow that makes the payment process extremely easy for your customers.
These features of Paytm Payment Gateway will decrease your cart abandonment rate:
- Secure payments: When customers come to the checkout page they do that because they trust you with their crucial payment details. Don’t let them down. Partner with a payment gateway that can handle your customers’ sensitive payment information without compromising with it. Paytm Payment Gateway is compliant with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) rules, which means it encrypts all the cardholders’ data making it totally safe for online payments.
- No redirections: Multiple redirections to a third-party page might make customers feel uneasy about the safety of their card details. That is why our checkout flow ensures your customers complete the payment on your website itself. There are no redirections involved with Paytm Payment Gateway.
- Customized checkout: With Paytm Payment Gateway, you get to own the whole checkout process as we enable you to design and customize the look and feel of the payment page. Use Paytm JavaScript Checkout to create the checkout page so that it aligns with the design elements of your e-commerce portal. This will ensure your customers don’t feel they are paying money to some other company if they see a different colour and design scheme on the checkout page.
- No checkout errors: It’s always frustrating for buyers when they learn after filling the form that there was an error in the details they just put in. We use tools like form validation and error notifications so that customers immediately get to know there has been an error and rectify it on the same page. This will save your customers valuable time and ensure the payment goes through in the first attempt.
- All payment modes enabled: This is a no-brainer feature, but many payment gateways fail when it comes to integrating all the available payment options. Be it credit and debit cards, netbanking, UPI, digital wallets like Paytm Wallet, or EMI-based payments like Paytm Postpaid, Paytm Payment Gateway has covered it all.
As a business, you have already spent a crazy amount of money in getting quality products, making a website and ensuring the supply chain is robust. Don’t let all these efforts go to waste because of an inferior checkout page. Create a simple-to-navigate and safe checkout experience for your customers with Paytm Payment Gateway.
