From: www.addthis.com Dated: 01-17-2019 Blog from Adam Enfroy

Full Article: https://www.addthis.com/academy/5-tips-we-can-learn-from-successful-online-stores-to-increase-ecommerce-conversion-rates/

Ditch the Three-Step Checkout Model
BestSelf Co is an ecommerce store that sells everything from letterpress manifestos to self journals and wall roadmaps.


The owners of the store have received personal advice and mentorship from powerhouses like Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, and Daymond John.

Additionally, they’ve rung the much-desired bell on the NYSE. Needless to say, they’re a bit of an expert in the world of online retail.

But their success didn’t just come about because of expert advice and distinguished awards.

It came about with copious testing, iterating, and development of their conversion optimization.



But what’s so amazing about their online shopping cart and checkout process? How are they generating such big sales for a notebook?

For starters, the entire checkout process happens on a single page.

With most e-commerce stores, you have to click through at least three different pages to reach the end of checkout.

Shipping, payment, and, eventually, confirmation.



Unfortunately, some merchants use that fact to conceal hidden shipping costs, shipping times, and tax amount.

That means the buyer reaches the end of the process feeling like they’ve been nickel and dimed. They then lose motivation and wander off to some other website. Obviously, that’s not a recipe for increasing revenue.

With a one-page checkout process, users see everything all at once. They can tell you’re not trying to hide anything, which builds trust and increases conversion rates.

Here’s what BestSelf Co’s checkout page looks like.

https://www.badmanbullets.com/OnlineStore/bestself-checkout.png


The results? A 68% increase in conversions.

As you can tell, that’s a wildly simple checkout page compared to most ecommerce stores. Just consider the difference between that and Amazon.


Amazon has a three-step checkout process. Shipping, payment, and confirmation. This is similar to many e-commerce stores.

The problem is that each button click adds time for the customer to think. And customers are quite practiced at talking themselves out of purchasing products.

Which is why the average cart abandonment rate hovers around 60% to 80%.

That’s the last thing you want your customers to do.

Of course, you’re probably thinking, “But Amazon definitely isn’t suffering the repercussions of a long checkout process? Plenty of people buy from them.”

And you’d be right.

But ask yourself this. Why doesn’t this long checkout process hurt Amazon’s conversion rate when it does hurt other online merchants?

Part of that question can be answered by the fact that Amazon is so large they aren’t wildly concerned with losing a few conversions.

But, more importantly, Amazon is already a massively trusted retailer. They don’t need to build more trust. Everyone knows who they are and that, if they order something, they are going to get exactly what they expect.

Your store, on the other hand, doesn’t have such automatic trust.

And that means you need to build trust with visitors as quickly a possible, and the checkout process needs to do that as well.

I'm curious as to when the article was written you are quoting.
Over the years, this has been highly debated. For a long time, one page checkout seemed to be the way, but in recent years, I have heard otherwise.

Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, and Daymond John are great mentors and speakers, but I am not convinced they are an authority on e-commerce (checkout) specifically.

Article is dated: 01-17-2019

https://www.addthis.com/academy/5-tips-we-can-learn-from-successful-online-stores-to-increase-ecommerce-conversion-rates/

Here is a good counterpoint. https://wemakewebsites.com/blog/why-one-page-checkout-is-overrated

Personally, I don't think it make a huge difference in conversion. I might be wrong, but I shop online all the time and I do not have problems with making a buying decision with either style checkout.

This has come up here before in the forum in the past.

I would be interesting to hear the thoughts from other forum members here.

dbdave wrote:

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I would be interesting to hear the thoughts from other forum members here

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I find long drawn out web pages a complete turn off. I also see the attraction of a single page checkout but in reality real life shopping is a multi step process of the five P's - Peruse, Pick It, Pack It, Pay for it and Push off

This is an interesting read from Moz https://moz.com/blog/checkout-page-optimization-just-follow-the-facts with an emphasis on the following five factors on conversion - Focus, Assurance, Clarity, Time, and Social proof.

My preference is a multi step checkout.

Steve
Using ECT PHP versions since 2004 / 5

If my cart abandonment rate was 60-80% I would know something is wrong with my cart.
And I would do something about it. Amazon would too.
Mine is about 1-2% max so I am not in favor of an overhaul.

Dean
ecomwebstore.com
[img]http://www.ecomwebstore.com/images/ecw_sm.jpg[/img]

The biggest issue that customers grapple with is the convenience of the checkout process. Making it ever more easier for customers is simply a no brainer and there is absolutely without question a big opportunity to streamline the checkout process.

Customers still find adding their details such as billing address, shipping address, email, telephone and payment information a cumbersome, awkward and tedious thing to do, especially in an accurate way and some of the biggest uptakes in incremental orders has occurred when a new "Express Checkout" Payment Method was introduced that bypasses having to add these details. When PayPal Express was introduced this increased orders by 25% and the exact same thing happened when Amazon Pay was introduced.

Both of these Payment methods uses the customers stored details and makes the checkout process so so so much more simple and convenient. Apple are introducing later this year "Sign in with Apple" but there is also other Sign Options such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft which would also be a huge win win for the customer and would bypass having to re-enter there details during the checkout process and virtually reduces the checkout process to 2 steps and significantly increases the accuracy of their details.

There are also further opportunities to provide more streamlined and different check-out options that could take advantage of different screen sizes and present things in a more holistic way and clearer way for customers. This would allow store owners to make their own choices rather than the current "one size fits all approach" and would allow them to further streamline the checkout process and make it even easier for customers should they choose.

At a minimum I would like to see all of the "Sign in Options" presented together, preferably on Step 1, where currently there is only the PayPal Express Option, so that customers can easily select their preferred checkout method... at the least this would allow all the stored addresses, email, telephone information to be used and presented which would eliminate most of the friction points for the customer.

In addition we get many calls from customers when they are on Step 2 of the Checkout process where they are expecting to be able to choose their delivery option and do not see a good reason why Step 2 and Step 3 can not necessarily be combined or at least parts of it.

John

About PayPal Express Payments (ECT Payment Provider ID: 19)

The "Checkout with PayPal" button appears at "ECT Checkout Step 1" and takes the customer directly to the PayPal website Login where they then enter payment details.

That method bypasses "ECT Checkout Step 2" where the delivery address and postcode is entered, essential for calculating the correct $Delivery charge and thus the accurate $Total Payable, omitted if the PayPal Express method is used.

Therefore, the current Ecommerce Templates checkout configuration for PayPal Express is a fail.

Gary

I'm not a fan of the way PayPal Express works, either. You can "disable" it by setting the Login Level high (5 I think)... then it doesn't show on the 1st cart page for customers.

I'm also in favor of a 2 step checkout.... I personally perfer sites that show all on one screen.

Julie
Owned & loved by 7 German Shepherds

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Therefore, the current Ecommerce Templates checkout configuration for PayPal Express is a fail.

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Hi Gary, I'm not sure I follow you here. What should we be doing so that this is a pass rather than a fail?

Vince

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Hi Vince,

I am not sure on the issue that Gary describes but we do see many customer issues with the PayPal Express and BrainTree Express Checkout.

We receive many customer calls due to errors here and had to add a message for Express Checkout above and below the PayPal button on Step 1, which certainly helped cut down on the number of calls but does not solve the issues.

I assume, but with little evidence, it is a data alignment issue where the fields don't always match correctly to the customer data being sent from PayPal, since it works fine for some customer and not others.

John

If the site is using Paypal Pro then disabling Paypal Express goes against their terms and conditions, I've had a client get caught and he was instructed by Paypal to re-enable so all customers had the option of using Express checkout.

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8. Required Use of Express Checkout, PayPal Credit

a. If you use Payments Advanced, Payments Pro, or Payments Pro Payflow, you must use Express Checkout in the following manner: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/provt-preview2

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Now if you use Paypal Standard then you can disable Express. I would recommend always check with the Payment provider agreements first.

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You can "disable" it by setting the Login Level high (5 I think).

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Winners never quit, quitters never win
CSS and Responsive Designs
User Manual for Ecommerce Templates

Sinbad is correct (great to see you here posting BTW ).
However, I guess there are exceptions because I have had them ask me about it (more than once), and I told them I do not like how it bypasses part of our checkout process, particularly agreeing to our terms, so I have it disabled.
They never pushed the issue, but I do process a high volume of transactions, so I guess they don't want to lose my business by forcing me to use it.

There was a problem fixed with PayPal Express in this release...
https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/support/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=111656&SearchTerms=express

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PayPal Express transactions could have a problem when Email Address Verification was turned on as the customer would be redirected back to the Customer Details page to add the verification email and this has now been fixed.

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Sinbad is correct (great to see you here posting BTW Smile).

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And I second that.

Vince

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Hi Vince,
This is why I describe the current Ecommerce Templates checkout configuration for "PayPal Express ID: 19" payment method as a fail.

Ecommerce Templates Store Config:
Main Settings ... Shipping = Australia Post API
Orders Admin ... Payment Providers = Email ID: 4 (EFT Bank Transfer) and PayPal Express Payments ID: 19
// DELIVERY ESTIMATOR on CART.PHP
$estimateshipping=TRUE;
$xxEstimatorTitle="Calculate Delivery";
$xxZip='Your Postcode';
$nodefaultzip=TRUE; // Do not set a default postcode for the shipping estimator

And this is what now becomes possible:

> Customer does not Login or Create New Account.
> Simply adds item to Cart.
> At Checkout Step 1, ignores the "Please enter To postcode" message, so no Delivery Charge is calculated.
> Total charge displayed by Cart remains as the Item Price only.
> Customer clicks the "Check out with PayPal" button.



> The customer is then diverted to the PayPal website where a Credit Card payment can be processed for the Item Price Only, without any Delivery Charge added.



So that creates a real problem for the Store Owner Seller.

The PayPal Express button is misplaced at Checkout Step 1, which makes a good case for combining the Step 1 and Step 2 (delivery address) pages together, forcing all essential details to be entered before proceeding to the final Payment Processor.

I mean no offence, but have raised this issue some time back, although I can't find the thread now.

The "PayPal Payments Standard ID: 1" method works faultlessly, which is what I have always used in the past.

Regards,

Gary

A separate "One Step Checkout" cart module that people can purchase separately might be a good option???

John

Hi Gary
I didn't reply to this thread at the time, however...

quote:

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The PayPal Express button is misplaced at Checkout Step 1, which makes a good case for combining the Step 1 and Step 2 (delivery address) pages together, forcing all essential details to be entered before proceeding to the final Payment Processor.

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This really is firstly, out of our control and secondly, exactly as PayPal want this to work, (and required us to implement the process as part of their certification system.)
The whole idea of PayPal Express is that you get the customer details for the customers account and save them the trouble of entering them manually. If I have taken the customer details before heading to PayPal then I've effectively implemented the Standard checkout flow and not Express.
Also, when buying online I know there are going to be differences in price and obviously I'm going to choose the cheapest. But I also know that while some companies are going to have cheaper products they may boost the price charging more for shipping / handling so what I hate is having to go through the whole checkout process just to find out that the $20 I thought I was saving is consumed by the $30 shipping. As long as I can quickly enter my zip / postal code to see what shipping may be I'm a happy camper. I do regularly leave stores that don't provide a shipping estimator so my advice to all is make sure you have the estimator enabled.

quote:

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A separate "One Step Checkout" cart module that people can purchase separately might be a good option???

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Sure thing, that sounds like a good idea. I have to say that in the end you see the cart contents, enter the billing / shipping details and check the totals before getting to put in your payment details. The "1 step checkout" systems that I've seen still require you to go through these steps, even if this is done via ajax. However, it's quite possible a makeover is in order so I'll certainly give this some thought.

Vince

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If you do venture into cart revisions Vince, I have had a number of customers ask/complain about not being able to review cart contents one last time before the final click.

Hummm not so sure that is the whole or main idea, its more like lets get them before they have an opportunity to select a different payment provider. Catching the consumer at first opportunity is probably top with priority Paypal

quote:

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The whole idea of PayPal Express is that you get the customer details for the customers account and save them the trouble of entering them manually

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Winners never quit, quitters never win
CSS and Responsive Designs
User Manual for Ecommerce Templates

Quote from dbdave:

If you do venture into cart revisions Vince, I have had a number of customers ask/complain about not being able to review cart contents one last time before the final click.

I Second this idea.

quote:

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If you do venture into cart revisions Vince, I have had a number of customers ask/complain about not being able to review cart contents one last time before the final click.

I Second this idea.

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And I third that idea so we now have something ready for the next release.

Vince

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