[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/08\/18\/improve-online-checkout\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/08\/18\/improve-online-checkout\/","headline":"How to improve online checkout for better CX and more conversions","name":"How to improve online checkout for better CX and more conversions","description":"If your online checkout doesn't work, your customers will check out \u2013 and not in a good way. Learn how to reduce abandoned carts.","datePublished":"2023-08-18","dateModified":"2024-04-18","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/t-j-won\/#Person","name":"T.J. Won","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/t-j-won\/","identifier":766,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/842718b3d38586c5673deecb14c064833cece67f6f636792cf3c1ad6c4a2be7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/842718b3d38586c5673deecb14c064833cece67f6f636792cf3c1ad6c4a2be7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/improve-online-checkout-FTR-2-1.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/improve-online-checkout-FTR-2-1.jpg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/08\/18\/improve-online-checkout\/","about":["B2C Commerce",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/customer-experience-general\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/e-commerce\/","name":"E-Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E-commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q484847"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/e-commerce-solution\/e-commerce-general\/","name":"E-Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E-commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q484847"]},"Retail Industry"],"wordCount":1120,"keywords":["Bolt","Consumer Trust","E-commerce Customer Experience","Online Shopping","SAP Partners","Shopping Cart Abandonment"],"articleBody":"For the modern e-commerce retailer, the world can seem like an endless series of choices and adjustments. Do you focus on new customer acquisition or conversion? Do you grow your email list or your social media accounts? Do you partner or build?All of those questions exist in an environment of round-the-clock change and pressure. No matter the size of your business, shoppers expect speed and convenience throughout their buying journey.A useful way to cut through the noise is to improve online checkout by exploring the ideas of identity and simplicity:Personalized: Do you know your customers, and how easy is it for them to navigate your site?Build trust + loyalty: Do you know enough about them to keep them coming back?Great CX: And when they come back, is their next visit even simpler than the first?If your online checkout doesn’t work, your customers will check out \u2013 and not in a good way. A better experience starts HERE.You really get me: Personalized online shoppingMany of us have had the experience of arriving at a website, adding some items to a cart and then promptly hitting a wall of frustration at online checkout.Instead of the retailer knowing the inputs to fields we\u2019ve filled out dozens of times\u2014street address, zip code, credit card information\u2014we\u2019re forced to complete these checkout forms yet again. In many cases, the mere appearance of an unfilled form leads us to abandon the website altogether.Whether they know it or not, those snap judgments have a powerful effect on shoppers, and by extension, on retailers. Thus, understanding who your shopper is can help you pre-populate pages, recommend the products and services that they\u2019ll love, and curate a shopping experience that feels boutique and custom-made.Understanding shopper identity is what makes a retailer distinct from the big, monolithic websites of our day. By understanding who your shopper is, you give them the feeling of being understood, and not another number in a database.When you know and have the trust of that shopper, you can feed them personalized recommendations to keep them coming back to your website again and again\u2014increasing the amount they spend at your store in each order and over their lifetimes.Tech tools can help establish identity, at a level that feels both respectful of people\u2019s privacy and personal information and useful to retailers looking to create a welcoming experience. Advanced tools help merchants help identify shoppers right when they arrive on their websites\u2014which then helps shoppers throughout the buying journey and improves online checkout.      How top brands deliver personalized retail experiences                Personalized retail experiences drive customer loyalty, brand engagement, and the bottom line. See what brands are getting it right.      Build customer lifetime value with improved online checkoutThe work doesn\u2019t end once they\u2019ve purchased, of course. Most digital-first retailers know the value of customer accounts. By having someone register with you, you\u2019ve built trust and longevity\u2014you\u2019ve given yourself the chance to showcase products they might like and smooth out their purchases in the future.This results in increasing conversion, soaring shopper lifetime value, and higher average order values.When retailers talk about lifetime value, they tend to focus on a dollar amount. But it\u2019s worth focusing on the input, not the output: Have you taken the steps necessary to help customers build accounts, so that you can start to build lifetime value? Have you made it as simple as possible to stay in touch with the people who have already given you their business?Account creation is the first step in building lifetime value\u2014and it\u2019s one that many retailers overlook.Alas, on the long to-do list most retailers face, the idea of designing a tech platform for accounts is a lot to ask, especially at a time of tight budgets and cost pressures. Technology can help here, too. The best tools out there feel like they’re tailor-made for you and your customers\u2014but in fact, they exist as networks, bringing groups of shoppers together so that account creation on one site benefits all sites. Those networks grow over time and become more precise, which increases the value of accounts even more.      3 retail marketing strategies to grow engagement, loyalty, and sales                With a treasure trove of first-party data after the COVID-driven online shopping surge, retailers need to find ways to keep customers coming back. Here's what they can do for the best results.      Simplify online checkout, reduce abandoned cartsBroken online checkout systems still plague many retailers. The numbers here are self-evident: Almost three-quarters of people will add items to cart, then leave in frustration.Oftentimes, this happens when checkout is too cumbersome, takes too long, or requires too much information from them. That adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars every year in lost sales.Don’t think of it as a failure on the part of the customer to complete the final task. Instead, think of it as a chance for retailers to make things easier for customers. It\u2019s rare in digital retail to find a solution that can provide immediate returns, but improving online checkout is one of those rare fixes.Virtually overnight, ROI can increase; customer satisfaction can go up. There are millions of dollars and thousands of hours devoted to perfect every other part of the funnel. But it\u2019s in that last stage\u2014checking out\u2014that a retailer can often obtain the most return on their time and investment.      18 Billion reasons ($$) to focus on abandoned shopping carts                Abandoned shopping carts account for $18 billion in lost revenue annually. Learn the top strategies to convert consumers and drive revenue.      Renovation, not reinventionToo often, improvements to the online customer experience are treated as expensive reinventions when they should in fact be renovations. There are obvious areas of improvement\u2014like checkout, or account creation\u2014that don\u2019t require months- or years-long overhauls.The process for improving the online checkout experience is about using technology to make improvements today, not in some distant future.It means using tools that the biggest retailers in the world have known about for years, but that would be impossible to build for one-time use.Ultimately, it means working with partners who know the difficulties that retailers face, and that want to be in the business of helping them focus on identity and simplicity\u2014on knowing customers better and making their lives simpler. In the cacophony of hacks and techniques, taking action on these two ideas pays dividends, both now and in the future.  Flexible. Agile. Future-proofed.The power of hybrid, composable commerce is real.Discover real-life examples of success HERE.\u00a0"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2023","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"08","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/\/08\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"18","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/\/08\/\/18\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"How to improve online checkout for better CX and more conversions","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2023\/08\/18\/improve-online-checkout\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]