English
Shopify is a free worldwide well-known eCommerce solution. To help its customers, the platform has written many guidelines on how to start an eCommerce business, how to advertise it so it would be as easy as possible to get satisfied with performing the business.
However, the traffic that was driven into the website should convert. This is somehow missed by most businesses. They think that the biggest challenge is to bring people to the website. No, it is not. The biggest hurdle is to make them buy a product. Therefore, we want to help Shopify stores owners with often dismissed as part of the shop - checkout process.
Guest or signed account? Both!
Let’s start with a low-hanging fruit! According to a recent study by Baymard institute, 35% of website users abandon their checkout because they were forced to create an account. This is a quick fix - just offer a guest checkout.
We all know that you want to have a database of signed users, understand their behaviour, create a loyal community, and increase your sales. Well, it works in a perfect world. However, the primary goal of any shop should be to increase sales, only increased sales can increase customer loyalty.
In your Shopify admin, you can easily change Customer accounts settings and select “Accounts are optional”. Customers will be able to checkout as guests. It lets them save their personal information for the next time. Surprisingly, the conversion rate increases 200% when businesses allow customers to autofill information on social media. Could it be ideal for your website too? ;)
Free delivery! Oh wait…
The Baymard Institute found that reason #1 for abandoned shopping carts was... extra costs. People simply dislike surprise costs. Sometimes websites misguide customers by having a few steps in the checkout process and providing different information in them. Firstly you can select delivery options, but the price of delivery will be visible only in the next step. That is a critical point for your conversion. Stay transparent as possible and provide all related information so that a customer could decide smoother.
How to make shipping free?
Once SitePoint increased their conversion rate by 50% overnight by providing free shipping. Seems easy to do, but it can be financially painful for any business to take over shipping costs of increased sales. Happily, there are options to make shipping free.
- Free shipping after a certain amount spent. One of the most popular options - offer free delivery once the customer’s basket size exceeds the minimum amount. It will help to raise the average basket size and thus, fresh profit will cover costs of shipping.
- Free shipping for signed users only. As mentioned earlier, customers love to buy using guest accounts and ecommerce stores would love to get their data. Give the incentive - free shipping - to get data and create motivation for a person to buy more frequently.
- Limited time promotion. Free shipping option can increase conversion rate overnight as shown by SitePoint, so use it wisely :) Usually, ecommerce stores offer free shipping only during low seasons to catch up with forecasted revenue plans in a fast manner.
- Split shipping costs with the provider. Many providers would agree to share shipping costs so that an increased number of deliveries would cover them. Mass economy comes handy when you want to please your customers and strengthen relationships with partners. It can all be wrapped into a collaborative marketing campaign to remind users what kind of delivery options are available.
- Increase product prices to cover the costs of shipping. Such a sudden change can disturb your loyal customers and it won’t be fair from their point of view. However, new clients will see prices for the first time, so they would enjoy free shipping.
- Split shipping costs with the clients. Increase product prices slightly to cover part of the cost of shipping.
- Combination of them all! There is no option to out rule the others, all options can be valuable and a proper mix of them all gives the best results for your business. Mix and match! :)
Let me choose my delivery!
Even so, customers like free things a lot, but the second most important thing is convenience. According to our recent survey of e.commerce users, they would select a different delivery method if all of them would cost the same.
If you would remove delivery costs from your customers’ shoulders, the next possible reason people drop at the checkout process - missing delivery options. Facebook commissioned an online survey to get to know how consumers behave during pandemics. 60% of surveyed UK consumers mark the importance of e.commerce stores to offer various delivery options. It is seconded by Oasis Commerce data stating that 59% of online customers abandon their checkout process if they do not find a suitable delivery option.
Each of the delivery options has different advantages and you will never know what the customer needs for each different buying process. Sometimes it is a present, and a customer needs it right away. Sometimes it is a present for the birthday in 3 months and a customer can wait so he would choose another delivery option. Let your customers choose their delivery options!
Return policies, refund policies… Policies… Yes, I agree.
Once the product is bought, it gets delivered; the process is not yet finished!
Imagine waiting for a long time for a product that you dreamed of… and it does not fit. You start thinking of returning it, but then remember how difficult it can get, how tiring the process usually is. Properly handled return experience can be another point for a one-time shopper to become your loyal customer.
Shopify itself has created a Refund Policy Generator to create a refund policy for your store. Once life is easier for you, you can take customers’ experience even further. Make a return process as smooth as possible.
One famous footwear company in Lithuania took a return policy and made its competitive advantage by letting customers try shoes at home and return them for free if they did not fit.
If you cannot afford a free return, you still can make the return convenient for a customer - send a courier to pick the returned item from them. Return, refund, privacy policies are the ones that do not get enough attention and are agreed easily. However, you can use better return policy conditions as the factor why a customer chooses you over competitors.
