One step Checkout vs normal checkout

[inspironbattery]

I recently launched a big e-commerce site: batteryworld dot com and wanted to get some opinions/feedback on checkout:

Do you use one step checkout or the normal check out and why?

I have seen some threads where people say they have seen better conversion rates with the normal check out (maybe because people are already committed and by the time they see shipping costs or taxes or something, they have already been through 2 steps and just go with it?)

One thing I am noticing with one step check out is a have a lot of "not completed" orders, but they don't help me because I don't know the persons name or email address. If they give me that information in the first step and then abandon at step 3, at least I can email them to ask why and see if I can offer them a discount.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks!

[maksum]

I'm just getting ready to launch myself, and planning on one-page. I'd be interested in responses as well (from people with real-world experience.)

I tried to do some research but all I really found were some sites stating that one-page checkout increases conversions by up to 40% blah blah... but guess what: I'd click on it and every time it was a site promoting shopping cart software that happened to have this feature :)

so who knows. please do respond if you have experience.

[GonzaloGil]

You will always have a high number of incomplete orders, its a sign your store is ALIVE, it means customers are adding items to the basket.

Normally at this point 3 things happen:

1) They proceed, and want to see shipping costs. On the 1 page checkout they fill out the shipping/billing and most likely email, although its not necessary.

If they bail here, chances are they didn't like the shipping costs, or options, some people hate certain carriers for different reasons.


2) They select shipping method but never enter a credit card or pay. Usually they either don't like the payment options, ie some people hate paypal and if that's all you have they may decide to stop there. Or, perhaps they are just shopping around and now they have the full price with shipping, tax, etc to compare with other stores.

2b) they go through and pay but card is not valid, or never end up the paypal/2checkout transaction.


3) They just bail out after adding to cart. Could be a variety of reasons, from getting side tracked with another window, the fact that some people hit add to cart at it does, they are simply price shopping adding a few items to see what the total may be, etc. They don't continue to checkout because they never planned on buying.


Chances are you are going to see many #3, perhaps more than 75% of your open carts are going to be those that add to cart but never even wonder into the checkout.

Assuming that you already get quality traffic to your store, some things you can do to help with conversions:

1) Shipping costs: If you do some volume of packages, you can probably apply with usps or fedex to get a discount, passing that down to the customer will mean they get much lower shipping rates that they would see from some of your competitors. Depending on the products you sell, the size/weight, etc, you may look into the usps flat rate boxes to ship your products and work the price into the item, then being able to advertise free shipping.

2) Make sure that you list your store policies clearly and easy to find, the last thing you want is a shopper with a common question like "is an item returnable" get tired of looking around for the answer.

3) Make sure you offer as many payment options as you can. Paypal , Google Checkout, and now Amazon are very popular and some customers look for those logos at checkout.

4) In the case that you do get information on the customer, call them, email them, etc, ask them if they had any difficulties on the store and if there is something you can help them with. I've seen spelling mistakes on checkout questions cause shoppers to get uneasy and stop purchases, and while you may proof read your own work, until someone else looks at it, you may never know things like these.

5) If you do not offer coupons, hide the coupons box, (there is a setting in the admin), some shoppers will stop during checkout when they see a coupon box is available to look for coupons on the internet (as there is tons of coupon type websites out there), which could then get easily side tracked.

6) Use a rewards system to give your customers some sort of reward for their purchases that can be redeemable for either gift certificates or gifts, etc. You may sell an item for the same price as your competitor, but if you give 100 bonus cool points, even if takes 10000 points to get a 10$ gift certificate, you are giving your customer another reason to buy from you.

7) Use the view_cart and checkout header/footer areas to include content to help close the sale, such as "Orders are shipped within 24 hours", Customer service hours, warranties you offer, etc.

I've yet to see solid 1 page checkout statistics that show more conversions than the 3 step checkout, and many large stores still have not adopted the "1 page checkout"

I think it really depends on he type of customer you have, some may find the 1 page checkout very large and confusing, while the 3 step checkout goes through asking you small bits of information at a time. My suggestion is that you try 1 week with 3 step, 1 week with 1 step and see where your customers like better. Compare # of visitors to conversions and see what works best for you. There is a report you can use for this as well that tells you visitors , open carts, completed carts.

The bottom line is that 1 or 3 page checkout, the customer needs to feel safe, needs to feel they are paying the right price, need to know that you are a reputable company that they can get a hold of, if you can demonstrate these things you will see less and less of those opened orders that never finished the checkout process :)

[ScribeTime]

Thanks Gonzalo for the very timely information. I've been wondering about many of the things that you addressed. Great info!

[inspironbattery]

Thanks

Thanks Gonzalo