Minimizing Customer Frustration at Checkout

A good thing to think about is what a user has to do in order to checkout.  Is your checkout process 10 steps long, are you asking for intrusive and unecessary information, is the language used misleading?  These are all important things to think about when setting up your checkout process.

It may be a good idea to limit your checkout to be about 1 - 4 steps, this has been proven to decrease cart abandonment.

Another good idea is to only ask for the information you truly need ( do you really need their date of birth or gender? )

A good tip is to not force the user to sign up an account to purchase, this brings frustration to a customer and may lead to an abandonment.  You can have them checkout as a guest, use paypal, google checkout or you can make their checkout process in sync with signing up an account so it is less invasive.

It is also extremely important to use concise wording, use continue and confirm for buttons instead of long phrases like "continue to step 3"

Make sure that the last page a customer sees and states for them to confirm the purchase make sure they actually confirmed it on the previous page, the confirmation page is just to show what they have just purchased.  Studies have shown that when users see a page like this they assume that the item has been purchased and will abandon the cart.

Feel free to add to this post because there are many more great ideas and you can go so deep into checkout theory ( eye tracking, language, process, etc...)

Hi John,

While I have worked on an e-commerce product in the past this is always something that has generated great conversations.  It is sort of like the chicken or the egg question for your shopping cart, how many steps should I have in checkout?  In my own studies I have seen them all, supposed 1 step checkouts where everything is listed on one page and is extremely long and confusing, to 5-6 page checkouts that ask for everything including the kitchen sink.  In the end I have felt that the 3 step checkout process is the best.  This basically involves gathering customers address/account information (step 1) , any options for the order (shipping, discounts, random questions like gift wrapping on step 2), and then payment information to process the order (step 3).  With this process everything is organized neatly and is as short as possible when it comes to many logistics like trying to let your customers choose shipping easily to confirming and paying for their orders.

In addition to the discussions you have posed, I was currious to what other people truely thing is the best way to configure checkout?

I like Joseph's 3 step checkout - that seems to balance security for the merchant with minimizing hassle for the customer.

Having worked on the same eCom product that Joseph worked on, I would definitely agree that there have been many fine conversations regarding the best way to handle checkout. It really is a very critical and perhaps underrated part of the online purchasing equation. If you frustrate people during the checkout process, even if they have selected numerous products, they will leave (been there, done that).

It definitely seems like 3 is the magic number (we offer the option to do a one-step or three-step process)... it strikes a good balance. We also offer the option of requiring the person to log in, but in our experience, that requirement is not the best choice. Offering the OPTION to log in (not requiring it) is good, and offering the potential customer the option to save their information for future visits. Offering the customer the option to do these things, rather than forcing them to, is good online business sense.