5 Checkout Mistakes Damaging Your ROI

You may have an excellent product and website, but the checkout experience could be the one thing letting your company down, and you might not even realise it. There’s nothing worse than an abandoned shopping cart on your website, because you will start to wonder what’s gone wrong – and you should, because it is essential you identify the problem so you can boost your company’s profits. Let’s look at some of the mistakes your business could be guilty of making…

1. Unresponsive Design

You may have designed the perfect website, but is it mobile friendly? If it isn’t, it should be. Now more than ever, people are using their mobiles to shop online, whether in the comfort of their own homes, on public transport or walking from A to B.

In today’s mobile driven world, you must offer a mobile-friendly checkout experience, which means designing a responsive website that can be used on mobile phones, desktops or tablets. A mobile optimised checkout area should be simple and efficient, allowing customers to purchase a product or service in just a few quick steps – and you may find your profits increase at a much faster rate, too.

2. Load Times

If you run an ecommerce website on a shared hosting plan, your website could suffer from slow load times during seasonal holidays or peak times. You will share a server with other websites, who may also offer ecommerce services, so you will each have to form an orderly queue for power. Your customers may be forced to endure slow load times, so they will leave their shopping cart out of frustration and head elsewhere. Bestwebhosting.co.uk could help you find a complementary hosting plan for your website.

3. Promotional Codes

Promotional codes can be a great way to entice people to shop with you, however, they could also be the one thing leading to abandoned shopping carts. Many visitors will add an item to their shopping basket, hoping to find a voucher code on your website. If a customer spots a promotional code area at the checkout, they may feel cheated that they must pay full price for an item they now believe they could find cheaper elsewhere. So, what do they do? They abandon their shopping and visit a competitor to discover a better deal. It therefore could be a good idea to banish coupon codes altogether from your website, so your customers won’t feel cheated at the checkout.

4. Hidden Charges

No-one likes to feel they have been duped, but you can guarantee you will only anger your customers with hidden charges at the checkout. Expensive shipping payments are not part of the deal, so your customers will not want to pay the additional price. Don’t jeopardise the custom and avoid extra fees, if possible.

5. Lack of Security

You might know you run a safe and secure website, but do your customers know that? If they don’t, you must incorporate trust signals that provide them with confidence in your company and services. Visitors will not want to add their payment details to a website they believe could be unsecure. Ensure your website offers a customer support service, verification logos, or you could even offer PayPal as a third-party payment option for peace of mind.