2010 was a great year for ecommerce businesses, what with consumers spending nearly $70 billion on products and services bought over the Internet. All signs have shown that this trend will continue to improve in 2011, as more and more entrepreneurs have been setting up their businesses online.
Getting your ecommerce site up and running is much simpler today than it used to be, but it is very alarming how most online businesses focus more on visual aesthetics than on important things like how their customers will pay for products.
When customers buy from a store, the first thing they do is reach out for their wallet or credit card and hand it over to the cashier, who in turn will hand them a receipt and that’s the end of the purchase. Ideally, it should be just as straightforward with online shopping. But there are still plenty of clunky and unprofessional looking websites with multiple checkout pages that are confusing for the customers.
Research has shown that successful ecommerce businesses with an above the average rate of having completed online sales tend to have fewer checkout pages. The optimum number of pages in the checkout process should be 2, and anything more than this will result in declining sales.
Furthermore, nearly 100% of the high performing businesses have payment pages that include their own branding, or had pages that match the look and feel of the overall site. This promotes the idea that the payment process is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the website. Suddenly being forwarded to a payment page that looks completely different from the rest of the site can make consumers suspicious or doubtful of the reliability of the site.
As far as ecommerce is concerned, it is very important to understand the challenges and get the basics right in order to see some difference. It is also very important to choose the right payment service provider. Your first step should be to give your customers a more seamless and secure experience.
Getting your ecommerce site up and running is much simpler today than it used to be, but it is very alarming how most online businesses focus more on visual aesthetics than on important things like how their customers will pay for products.
When customers buy from a store, the first thing they do is reach out for their wallet or credit card and hand it over to the cashier, who in turn will hand them a receipt and that’s the end of the purchase. Ideally, it should be just as straightforward with online shopping. But there are still plenty of clunky and unprofessional looking websites with multiple checkout pages that are confusing for the customers.
Research has shown that successful ecommerce businesses with an above the average rate of having completed online sales tend to have fewer checkout pages. The optimum number of pages in the checkout process should be 2, and anything more than this will result in declining sales.
Furthermore, nearly 100% of the high performing businesses have payment pages that include their own branding, or had pages that match the look and feel of the overall site. This promotes the idea that the payment process is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the website. Suddenly being forwarded to a payment page that looks completely different from the rest of the site can make consumers suspicious or doubtful of the reliability of the site.
As far as ecommerce is concerned, it is very important to understand the challenges and get the basics right in order to see some difference. It is also very important to choose the right payment service provider. Your first step should be to give your customers a more seamless and secure experience.
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