Abandonment rates range from 60 to 80 percent, Some of this is “window shopping” on the part of visitors. Some of it is due to the complexity of your checkout process.
Thus optimizing your checkout will likely increase sales. In this post, I’ll review methods to streamline and simplify a checkout process. I’ll cite examples from the WooCommerce platform. But the broader points apply to all merchants, on all platforms.
A fundamental rule is to only require the fields you must have to complete the transaction. If you’re selling digital products, don’t ask for someone’s physical address (unless you need it for tax reasons). If you need only a zip or postal code, don’t ask for a street address.
Second, make sure your fields are in the correct order. For example, I often encounter checkout forms that have the country choice as the last item in the form. Since I live in Canada, when I get to the state field (for U.S. shoppers) no options apply to me. I must scroll down and change the country to Canada. I then return to the province field and make my selection.
Third, realize that shoppers make mistakes. Many carts don’t provide useful error messages. If someone missed entering his last name, make sure that field is highlighted and obvious. Even better is having your checkout form scroll to the error, so the shopper doesn’t have to hunt for it.
Importantly, save the information as the user completes the form. This prevents the user from having to re-enter it all if there is an error, which could lead to abandonment.
Fourth, offer customer accounts, so that repeat buyers do not have to complete the checkout fields each time. An account system will save customer information and automatically fill it in during checkout.