Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce platforms in the world, because of its many benefits to store owners and their customers. It's easy to set up and customize your Shopify store, there's a little overhead cost involved, and the platform is growing at an amazing rate, with an annual revenue of $3.231 billion in 2021, a total that has grown by 86% over the last two years.
Table of Contents
1. Remove Friction to Make Shopify Checkout Faster
2. Offer Better Shipping Experience to Customers
3. BUKU’s IntelliRate – Best Shopify Shipping Solution
4. Allow For Multiple Payment Options
5. Improve Checkout Process With A Great Reputation
6. Saving Customer Information for Easy Checkout
7. Make Checkout as Mobile Friendly as Possible
8. Why Consider Loading Speed During Checkout
Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce platforms in the world, because of its many benefits to store owners and their customers. It's easy to set up and customize your Shopify store, there's a little overhead cost involved, and the platform is growing at an amazing rate, with an annual revenue of $3.231 billion in 2021, a total that has grown by 86% over the last two years.
However, it takes more than just setting up a basic Shopify store and hoping that customers buy your products. In eCommerce, it only takes seconds for a potential customer to change their mind and walk, or click away from your site, which is why making your Shopify checkout faster can have a huge impact.
There are lots of factors that need to be set up just right to keep your customers happy and ensure they make it all the way to the purchase confirmation screen. Many retailers in the eCommerce market struggle with this, and studies show just under 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts before making a purchase.
Finding ways to make Shopify checkout faster is one of the best ways to reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts, which will add up to more profits.
This article will explain how small changes in how you set up your Shopify store’s checkout process can make a big difference to your total number of successful sales.
Clearly, there is a reason why, on average, only three out of every ten shoppers make it through the purchase process.
With most Shopify stores, there are several thresholds that buyers must move past to reach the finish line and purchase the product.
The typical buyer’s journey goes something like this:
Every one of the steps can cause friction in the buyer’s journey.
You want your customers' shopping and buying experience to be as smooth as possible – frictionless.
Friction slows down the process, distracts your customer, or causes uncertainty, which gives them a reason to back out of a purchase before it's completed.
The checkout experience is one of the most common causes of friction for your customer. Many Shopify store owners focus on optimizing their checkout experience.
That’s because 17% of shoppers will abandon their purchase if they feel the checkout process is too complicated. Making your Shopify checkout faster can recover some of those lost sales.
Let's look at some of the most common causes of friction that might be preventing your customers from making it through the buying process.
Some other common causes of friction for online shoppers are distractions at the checkout page, lack of payment options, and inefficient search tools.
Removing friction from your customer’s buying journey will lead to higher conversions, greater brand awareness, improved customer loyalty, and more repeat business.
Once a customer reaches the end of the buying journey and decides to buy a product, you must ensure that they will receive that product when and how they want it. Offering multiple shipping options is a requirement for stores that want to increase the number of purchases.
Successful eCommerce stores truly understand cart psychology, and setting up this process correctly is an important step in using cart psychology to improve the buyer’s shipping experience.
57% of customers say flexible shipping options influence their decision to shop online.
Here are our best tips for keeping customers happy through the shipping process:
The online shopper comes from many different locations around the globe, and if you don’t offer to ship your products internationally you are ignoring a large percentage of your potential customer base.
Customers need to see exactly how much shipping fees will be added to their total, with full transparency. If a customer is purchasing a three-dollar item and selects a shipping method that adds an additional $10.99 to the cost, they will be more likely to abandon the purchase altogether than to hit the back button and amend their choice.
Using upfront language such as "two-day shipping" can eliminate the guesswork from the customer's selection process, allowing them detailed information about when to expect delivery before they make a choice.
Due to large online retailers like Amazon, free shipping is something online shoppers have come to expect. 75% of global shoppers expect a free shipping option, and 58% expect free next-day delivery.
To reduce the cost of offering free shipping, you can set a minimum spend threshold that buyers must hit to trigger the availability of the option. This not only keeps customers happy, but allows you to upsell buyers by suggesting they bundle sales to save money on shipping. You may also consider raising the price of the products slightly to cover the cost.
A free shipping option is a powerful marketing tool. You can advertise that buyers can access free shipping on your site and offer limited-time offers where shipping is free for everyone.
Shopify store owners can also incentivize customers to offer their contact information rather than offering a flat discount. One study found that 70% of customers would share at least one piece of personal information for a $20 discount, but were happy to offer both their name and email address in exchange for free shipping.
Shopify stores that prioritize their customer’s satisfaction at the checkout must offer the best mix of shipping options at the right price, along with offering transparency throughout the process.
BUKU's app, IntelliRate, is the best tool for Shopify store owners to do exactly that. It seamlessly integrates into your Shopify store and is designed to make life easier for both you and your customers.
Customers will also be able to see upfront pricing, including optimized rates for every zip code, multiple carrier options for each shipping lane, and instantly displayed lowest rate options. Not to mention an automatic tax and duty calculator for international shipping customers.
IntelliRate can not only create an optimized and frictionless checkout experience. But, it also allows brands the ability to turn their shipping losses into a profit center. Use IntelliRate's monetization feature to start earning a shipping profit.
Shopify store owners who fail to offer customers their favorite payment option are certain to lose those customers. Studies show that as many as 28% of online shoppers will abandon a purchase if their preferred payment method is not available.
Customers are comfortable using a particular kind of payment – whether it's online or in-store. To make the Shopify checkout faster and more convenient for shoppers, you must cater to their needs. And that includes letting them pay the way they want to.
The way that consumers choose to pay for online purchases is shifting from straight credit card purchases, and retailers must shift their available options to match.
In 2021, 49% of total eCommerce expenditure worldwide was paid using digital currency or mobile wallets. That percentage trumps old-fashioned credit and debit card payments, which came in at 21% and 13% respectively. The most popular payment methods for online purchases are:
The use of alternative payment options is quickly becoming more popular. Customers feel these methods are safer and more secure than offering their credit or debit card numbers online. Offering multiple payment options improves your customer satisfaction rate and can increase your conversion rate significantly. It also gives your store a professional feel, which will make customers more comfortable and at ease making a purchase.
The way your Shopify store looks visually has a lot of impact on a potential customer’s decision to buy or not.
The most common contributing factors are how your product pages are set up, how easy it is to navigate pages on your site, and how professional your branding and images are.
Of course, it also affects how shoppers judge your overall trustworthiness.
A study by the University of Stanford found that most online shoppers judge a website’s trustworthiness simply based on how it looks.
Ensuring every aspect of your store’s design is visually appealing and operates correctly will improve conversions and make Shopify checkout faster, because shoppers won’t be left wondering whether you can be trusted with their sensitive financial information. 17% of shoppers admit to abandoning a purchase because they didn’t trust the site with their credit card information.
One of the most important inclusions on your checkout page is security badges. Customers need to clearly see that you have taken the necessary steps to protect their data during online transactions. These security badges might include:
Online shoppers have a major concern regarding their privacy and the security of their financial information. 91% of online shoppers are concerned about privacy, 76% worry about theft, and 75% about the misuse of their personal data. Shopify store owners must prove to shoppers that they are looking out for their security or face lost sales as a result.
Another way to increase trustworthiness is to communicate refund and return policies or money-back guarantees. Customers need to know you are willing to back your products and refund their money in the event they're not happy with their purchase.
The truth is that shoppers will trust the advice from other customers more than they will trust your word. Offer your customers reviews from past customers who were satisfied with their shopping experience, so they can read and make a decision based on the feedback of actual customers.
Another way to make Shopify checkout faster is to allow shoppers to create an account. This enables them to offer their personal information only once, instead of needing to reenter that information every time they return to make a purchase. Enabling this feature for shoppers is a great way to get repeat business and improve customer loyalty.
Offering customers the ability to create an account means they will have access to:
It’s important to navigate this process the right way because you don’t want to scare away first-time shoppers by forcing them to create an account.
Not only does this slow down the checkout process, which could cause shoppers to click off your site altogether, but it leads to a sense of mistrust when customers feel forced to offer more personal information than is necessary.
A better option is to offer the option of either signing in with an already created account or proceeding with “guest” checkout. This proves to the customer that servicing their shopping needs is more important to you than fishing for their personal information.
Once a sale is completed, store owners can follow up with targeted emails or messaging designed to prompt them to set up an account. Letting customers know they can save time with their next purchase by creating an account will motivate them to do so and create a smoother shopping experience the next time.
You can also incentivize customers to create an account by offering them exclusive perks such as instant savings, free shipping, or a one-time discount.
It allows you to create personalized offers to your customers, something that 80% of customers say will make them more likely to purchase a product. This gives your customers an extra reason to return to your store for more purchases in the future.
If you are truly looking for ways to make Shopify checkout faster for your customers, there is no better way to do it than by making sure your site is mobile-friendly.
The majority of internet shoppers browse online stores from a mobile device, so your Shopify store must be optimized for viewing and operability on a variety of devices.
Over 230 million U.S. consumers own a smartphone, and 79% of them have made a purchase using that mobile device in the last six months. Many shoppers even use their mobile devices while shopping in a physical store to compare prices and check product availability.
Those shoppers have no problem going elsewhere if they have a hard time shopping on their mobile devices. The truth is – 40% of online shoppers won't return to your site after a single bad experience on a mobile device.
Here’s how to make sure your site looks and works great on your customer’s mobile device:
Since a large percentage of your customers will access your Shopify store from a mobile device, it only makes sense that you ensure your site is optimized for use from any device.
Test the operability of your site from multiple devices so you can see for yourself what the shopping experience is like for mobile device customers.
How long are you willing to wait for a website to load before you give up and click away? Thirty seconds? 15 seconds? Less than ten seconds?
The average online shopper expects a website to load or a checkout process to finalize in less than three seconds.
That's right, you only have a three-second window to hook that customer before they get antsy and are gone for good!
Any experience that takes longer than that will mean a loss of 40% of your traffic and conversions. Research shows that your percentage of sales conversions drops by 4.42% with each additional second of load time.
Your Shopify website’s loading speed is directly related to how to make Shopify checkouts faster, and there are a lot of factors that can slow that process down. Here’s a list of the things you can alter to speed up your page loading time, so you don’t repel your customers by making them wait.
To check the load speed of your homepage, product, and collection pages, you can use the built-in Shopify speed report. To measure the load speed of other pages, check out PageSpeed Insights from Google.
Every one of these things listed above adds precious time to your load speed and increases the risk that customers will tire of waiting for you. Optimize your site to load as quickly as possible to increase the number of sales conversions and reduce your bounce rate. Doing so will lead to happier, more satisfied customers and more successful sales for you!
Making Shopify checkouts faster is an important part of creating a successful eCommerce store. Everything you do in your business should focus on the needs and habits of your customers. That means every single interaction they make with your site needs to be carefully crafted and monitored, so they have no reason not to follow through with a purchase.
Online shoppers are not limited in their options of where to take their business. On the contrary, they are inundated with offers from online retailers, including your competitors who are more than willing to pick up your lost business. That’s why optimizing the shopping and checkout experience for every customer is so important.
Checkout optimization can increase your return on investments by as much as 35%. When it comes to the retail business, which often sees smaller margins, that’s a pretty big boost that can’t be overlooked.
The good news is that you, as the Shopify store owner, have complete control of the experience your customers will get when they choose your business. You decide how your store looks and how your products are displayed. You set up the checkout experience and decide what shipping and payment options are offered. You can optimize your website for mobile device users. Also, you can ensure customers feel safe and secure doing business with you time and again.
Apply the tips discussed in this article and you will see more conversions, greater profits, and happier customers!