This isn’t exactly a huge revelation, but no business should punish customers for wanting to buy from them. You might not think you’re doing just that, but it’s surprising how many online businesses fail to consider their customers’ viewpoints when designing their e-commerce websites. Even in today’s crowded e-commerce landscape, poor checkout flows and a lack of concern for payment experiences continue to drive potential customers away from otherwise legitimate online businesses.
Thankfully, when optimizing payment experiences for your customers, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Over the decades, several proven checkout design best practices have emerged that offer repeatable paths to success. These design practices not only drive customer loyalty and conversions but can do so across the various markets catered to e-commerce entrepreneurs. Let’s look at meaningful design choices online businesses can make to improve their payments and drive up their revenues:
1) Build On a Widely Supported E-Commerce Platform
Web development and design problems are exceptionally commonplace on bespoke website frameworks. If you want to effectively streamline payments, using a widely supported e-commerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce is usually the better option. By leveraging woocommerce development services, businesses can take full advantage of this platform’s capabilities, ensuring a seamless integration and optimization process. These platforms are popular with businesses for good reason— they all promise a robust website infrastructure as well as fewer development issues to worry about.
Because these platforms are so popular, there is a plethora of plugins, themes, and support options available to suit any business goal. For instance, if you need a gateway for online payment Philippines-based customers can use, you can set up a tried-and-tested solution like that of Maya Checkout in minutes. In contrast, providing this same functionality with a custom framework may take weeks of trial and error.
Leading e-commerce platforms are also continuously updated by larger user communities. That means you’ll also enjoy cutting-edge security and other features that will positively impact your website’s experience.
2) Enable Multiple Payment Options
Providing a variety of payment methods is a must for rapidly developing markets. In digitally transforming retail markets like the Philippines, a vast selection of digital wallets, credit cards, and QR Ph codes is fast supplanting cash as a preferred payment method. Accommodating all these payments means you are no longer leaving any money on the table, in the process better accommodating the expanding payment needs of your target market.
3) Use Intuitive, Proven Checkout Flows
Generally speaking, customers don’t want to learn a new checkout process every time they buy something online. For that reason, it’s a good idea to use a checkout flow that mirrors well-established e-commerce practices. Following established conventions keeps your customers from having to second-guess your processes, in turn keeping their buying journey on track and maximizing your site’s conversions.
4) Consistently Optimize for Mobile
In certain consumer markets, mobile phones are used for an overwhelming proportion of product discoveries and purchases. However, in online shopping journeys, there remains a strong bias favoring the desktop experience, which may be the case because most site development is done on desktop devices.
Regardless, it’s important to make sure that your site elements are mobile-responsive, and that the checkout form fields are easy to fill in on a smaller screen. This will keep more of your customers on your site and increase the odds that they will successfully purchase something.
5) Maintain Good Site Speeds
A slow checkout process will frustrate even loyal customers and lead to abandoned carts. Keep your site’s performance speedy by using a reliable hosting service, applying image compression, and minimizing the use of fancy, resource-heavy scripts on your site’s back end.
6) Provide an Option for Local Languages
Depending on your target market, you may want to provide an option for languages other than English. If you’re a retailer targeting Philippine customers, for example, a Tagalog or Taglish option will make sense, depending on your branding and other business goals.
Similarly, if you’re targeting foreign non-English speaking customers, it probably makes sense to offer key resources in the languages of your markets as well as automatic local currency conversions.
7) Display Trust Signals
You should constantly be asking yourself what your site needs to develop trust among its visitors. After all, without trust, your site won’t get conversions, making any discussion on improving payment experiences moot.
Knowing this, you need to understand what site elements convey trust to customers. Elements like security badges, customer reviews, and even genuine influencer endorsements can reassure customers that your e-commerce operations can be trusted. You should also maintain this trust throughout the entire customer journey by employing security best practices and ensuring on-point branding throughout the checkout process.
8) Consider Implementing One-Click Checkout
Enabling a one-click checkout process can significantly speed up payments for returning customers. The key to this is to securely store payment and shipping information so that customers won’t have to re-enter all their details. Again, make sure to employ strong security measures to avoid data theft and earn your customers’ continued loyalty.
An Empathetic Approach to Better Payment Processes
Contrary to what you might expect, checkout design choices are less about exciting visuals and more about applying empathy. There should be ongoing conscious decisions to create a smoother, more efficient, and more enjoyable experience throughout your customers’ payment journeys, using their perspectives as your ultimate guide. Employing this empathy-based approach to payments should eventually reward your site with higher conversion rates and iron-clad loyalty to your brand.
