Getting customer service right is one of the most crucial aspects of any successful retail business. Every time a consumer interacts with a business, they’re presented with an opportunity to impress them with a positive experience. While great customer service is made up of many factors, one area that has been a real challenge for online retailers is the checkout process.
In the physical retail space, checkout is an obsession. No one wants to stand in long lines, so innovations like contactless payment were quickly adopted.
It’s no secret that online sellers, which have no physical lines whatsoever, are still struggling with cart abandonment, which is when a potential customer starts the checkout process for an online order, but drops out before completing the purchase. Most estimates peg this abandonment rate at 80% of all potential online purchases, and the checkout process is the main culprit.E-commerce is almost 30 years old, yet the checkout process has barely changed in that time.
A bad checkout experience can look different for each buyer. Some people get tired of all the user names and passwords that they have to remember. For others, the endless need to fill out long forms and having to re-enter personal information can be enough to forego an entire purchase.
Smaller businesses and retailers are often at risk of being the most affected by complex checkout services. Customers know they can shop elsewhere if they are forced to jump through too many hoops to make a purchase. Amazon is always an alternative.
Thankfully, bad checkouts can now be a thing of the past.
When COVID-19 forced us all into lockdown, businesses had no choice but to adapt for the digital era. Consumers were turning to the internet for nearly every aspect of their lives; connecting with friends and family, work, healthcare consultations, and online shopping was no exception. Online sales are now fundamental to business success. Even when the pandemic is over, there is ample evidence to suggest that customers will continue to shop online. The retailers who flourish will have to meet the needs of this new era, and a fast and easy checkout is a crucial step in this process.
Online payments are naturally more complex than sales made in-store. There’s an added level of security needed when emails, payment card details, and customer identity becomes involved, but this doesn’t have to be complex – new technology can easily streamline and safeguard this process.
There are a number of ways in which retailers can improve their e-commerce checkout issues. Sellers can give customers a sense of security by reminding them of the refund policy, whether they offer free delivery, and testimonials of other customers who have loved the product and its fast and easy delivery. All of these things will complement a quick online login and checkout experience and ultimately lead to decreased cart abandonment.
But the problem is that although these techniques help, they don’t address the fundamental problem: checkout is slow and complex, so it loses sales. No single retailer can solve this: Even if you offer logins and save card details for next time, passwords and cards can be forgotten or changed.
To solve the bigger issues with online checkout, you’ve got to change the whole system. That’s why we made Fast Checkout. Here’s how it works: The first time buyers use Fast Checkout to purchase an item, they give just five pieces of information as part of the usual checkout process; name, email address, delivery address, payment card information, and phone number. No clunky redirects or other barriers in the way between the customer and their purchase. It’s what happens next that is exciting: they’ll then get one-click checkout to the entire internet, with no more passwords or filling in forms.
Also, with batching natively integrated into our system, we can change the digital shopping experience entirely. Right now, online shopping mimics a supermarket – filling your cart and paying at the end. There’s no need to do this online. With Fast Checkout, customers will be able to instantly buy whatever it is they’re looking to purchase directly from the product page, and then keep browsing and purchasing more items along the way. When the customer is done, the purchases will be grouped into delivery orders and processed as usual.
Businesses looking to increase online sales often put changing checkout into the “too hard” basket. This was one of the fundamental reasons Amazon grew to its giant status so quickly – it tackled checkout quickly.
There’s a huge need and economic opportunity for businesses to improve their digital offering. One-click checkout gives smaller businesses the chance to really compete with large-scale companies. Visit a site, click the button, buy the product. It really should, and can, be as easy as that.
Domm Holland is CEO and co-founder of Fast.