Optimizing your Shopify store checkout can’t get any smarter!
People shop online for many reasons, but the first and foremost – it makes life easy! 83% of customers say ease and convenience are the biggest factors they choose to shop online.
Imagine you want to buy something online and face a complicated and long checkout process. You’ll probably leave the store and move to another one. Or you’ll go through the frustrating process anyway, making a mental note of finding a better store next time.
97% of shoppers abandon carts because of inconvenient checkout processes.
But you can optimize your checkout (Shopify speed optimization). So that you can stop worrying about ‘my Shopify store is slow’ and tap into the power of Shopify fast checkout.
Shopify store checkout and how to make it more efficient
In the following few sections, we’re going to talk about Shopify fast checkout – starting with why the current scenario does not work and what you can do to fix the problem.
The current state of eCommerce checkout on Shopify
30 seconds! 50% of US shoppers abandon carts if the checkout process takes more than half a minute. According to Shopify, checkout problems are one of the top reasons shoppers fail to complete transactions.
Having to re-enter address or credit card details are some of the common checkout problems. These things prevent friction in the checkout process. Moreover, a delay in processing payments makes shoppers doubtful of the site’s authenticity.
And that’s why it’s important to improve your Shopify and Shopify Plus site’s checkout experience.
So, how do you do that?
How to optimize your Shopify Plus store for faster checkout
1. Demonstrate trustworthiness
Safety is a critical factor for eCommerce stores. The number of phishing incidents during online shopping transactions is quite high. And hence, your Shopify and Shopify Plus stores have to ensure shoppers feel safe to make purchases from your store.
One of the main reasons shoppers abandon carts is because they’re not sure if they should share their payment details. Especially when they’re shopping from the site for the first time.
But how does trust speed up the checkout process?
It’s simple.
When you trust someone or something, you don’t have to think twice before giving them your money or sharing personal details. It’s human psychology.
Here are some ways you can demonstrate trustworthiness:
- Include credit card logos, badges and certifications on your checkout page
- Include privacy policy, returns & exchange policy, shipping details, etc
- Have a comprehensive FAQs page to answer common questions
- Have a customer account page so shoppers know where they can go in case they have any problems
- Share customer support contacts and help options
- Allow different payment options; this way, shoppers can choose a mode they’re comfortable with
- When customers are leaving your store without buying anything, ask them the reason through a web push pop-up; then address their problem
2. Use a Shopify customer account page
A customer account page is the go-to space for customers for almost all the information. This page holds customers’ personal details, delivery addresses, saved payment methods, among other details.
Here’s how customer account page helps speed up the checkout process:
- When customers create an account on your Shopify Plus store, they enter their details for registration – this is a one-time process and in the future, when these customers want to make purchases, they simply need to log in. This makes the checkout process faster as they need not share all their details again!
- A customer account page makes repeat purchases easier and faster; the customer just needs to log in, go to the order history, click on the product to buy it or click on the ‘Reorder’ button to buy it from the customer account page itself
- The customer account page has delivery addresses saved and hence, customers do not need to re-enter address details every time they want to make purchases; this makes the checkout process faster
- Customers can purchase items from the wishlist or recently viewed products sections easily without having to browse through the entire site again
3. Reduce the number of forms on your store
No one likes to waste time filling in information when shopping online. It’s time consuming and quite complex. More so, if you’re shopping on a mobile phone.
On average, shoppers are made to fill 10 to 15 blanks during the process of checkout. And 18% of shoppers leave the site in an instant when this happens.
And hence, it’s better to avoid making shoppers fill too much information. Keep it to the minimum.
Here again, having a customer account page helps, as all the information is already saved. For new customers, sites can also use the autofill option based on their social accounts. This saves a lot of time and makes the checkout process much faster. You can use Shopify social login features for the same.
4. Allow different modes of payment
Today, consumers have many options to make payments – online banking, credit and debit cards, e-wallets, etc. Moreover, they are tech savvy and prefer digital options. Research shows that by 2024, 50% of the global population will use digital wallets.
Now, imagine this: a shopper adds many items to their shopping cart on your site. After reaching almost the end of the checkout process, they realize that your store doesn’t support the payment method they prefer. Frustrating, isn’t it?
That’s why it’s important to make your shoppers’ experience as easy as possible. And providing options of payment methods is a part of enabling faster checkout processes.
For example, Shopify and Shopify Plus stores that use Shop Pay have seen 40% faster checkouts.
Here are a few things to remember:
- It’s important that you accommodate as many different types of payment options as possible; it will help shoppers checkout efficiently
- Apart from cards and online payments, they can use mobile payment, e-payment options, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, etc
- Make sure you save their preferred payment options for their next purchase so that they do not have to enter all the details again
Here’s an example of the same:
5. Autofill as much information as possible
As an online store, you want to give users the most pleasant experience. But a checkout process that requires your customers to fill in a lot of details can slow down their shopping experience. This process becomes extra slow when customers shop from their mobile phones. We know how difficult it is to type on small screens. Don’t we?
That’s where autofill comes in.
When there’s autofill, users complete forms 30% faster. It can save time, reduce errors, and increase conversions. Thus, speeding up the checkout process.
Consider these autofill factors:
- Save information provided by users when they sign up to your online store
- Allow users to sign up through various social channels so that their details can be autofilled in this process
- Save address details and autofill it as it is one of the more tedious details to fill in forms
- You can also use AI and data to make the autofill process error-free and successful
6. Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS)
BOPIS is when shoppers can buy items online and choose to pick them up from the store. This process decreases the checkout time because all that shoppers need to do is choose BOPIS and checkout. They do not need to fill in details such as delivery address. This makes checkout faster.
Here’s an example of how this works:
7. Have a mobile app for your Shopify & Shopify Plus store
In the last six months, 75% of shoppers that use mobile devices have made a purchase through their phone. That’s how popular mobile shopping has become. And the number of people getting comfortable shopping from their mobiles is increasing.
So what should you do?
Figure out how many of your shoppers visit your store from mobile devices. If you have a large number of mobile shoppers, a mobile app for your Shopify and Shopify Plus store would be a good investment.
And how does it help?
Some benefits of having a mobile app for your store:
- It can increase your sales because shoppers can shop from your app on the go
- It makes their shopping experience easier than that of your mobile responsive site as the app will make it easier for shoppers to explore products
- It makes the checkout process faster and conversion rate higher as you can engage your customers through notifications, discounts and deals and nudge them to make instant purchases
You can also take some tips from Shopify here.
Check your average Shopify store speed
Once you do implement Shopify speed optimization strategies on your store, we recommend keeping a close watch on your Shopify store speed.
A very effective way to keep a watch on your checkout process and store speed performance is to leverage Shopify analytics and reports on your dashboard. While there are a number of websites and online tools you can use to measure the speed, using native data is your best bet!
What strategies are you using to make your store’s checkout process faster?
Since you’re reading this section, it means you’ve read through the entire article. Thank you for that. Now imagine your customers doing the same on your site. They explore all products, make selections, add them to the cart, and proceed to checkout.
The checkout on your site is the make of break.
A smooth, fast and easy checkout will ensure conversions. And so, it’s important you optimize your checkout process; continually run Shopify page speed tests to stay ahead!
Take the first step to making your Shopify store checkout faster with Flits.
Additional reads
Best checkout apps for Shopify stores:
In addition to the above tips and strategies, we do recommend installing a few checkout apps for Shopify on your online store. These can further help you optimize the checkout process, enhance the shopping experience you offer and at the same time, unlock more sales and revenue for your business.
- One-click checkout by SpurIT: This enables you to show products added to the cart in a window when someone clicks on the ‘add to cart’ button, leading them towards purchase completion faster.
- Product warnings on checkout: From pre-order notices, location-specific alerts, shipment delays, delivery information, declarations, and more, this app lets you keep customers updated.
- Checkout comments: Collect comments and remarks from your customers at the point of checkout. Gather insights on customer expectations and their purchase preferences.
- Video on checkout: Add a thank you at checkout to thank your customers for trusting your brand and making a purchase from your online store.
PS. We will continue to update this list of Shopify apps for checkout as our team evaluates their use case and the value they bring to your online business.
