The need for site speed

As already discussed, page load speed on online retail websites is hugely important to visitors. This may seem obvious but, if a website is relatively newly deployed, it is probably taken for granted that it will load quickly for visitors, even when the volumes of visitors are high.

Consumers are busy people. As a result, companies can end up fighting for attention among numerous competitors and distractions. Research throws up varying figures for how fast web users actually expect pages to load, but every result is ‘very fast’.

As web traffic starts to grow, retailers must think about all of the factors that influence page speed: the weight of graphics (and ancillary software plug-ins) on each page; the proximity of the servers hosting the website to its visitors (especially for those with a large overseas customer base); whether the website needs to be cached and replicated using a Content Delivery Network or similar.

So businesses should forget the performance results they got on their last site relaunch and start testing every part of their sites, optimising pages across all platforms.

Which browsers do you really, truly support?

It is becoming common knowledge that mobile browsing has taken over from desktops, laptops and tablets. However, the same is not necessarily true when it comes to conversions. So websites have to look good and perform well on all the major browsers, on all key platforms, even some older browser versions. Retailers must examine visitors by device and browser type – and then decide, as well as communicate clearly, which browsers their website is designed to support.

A website simply must be optimised. It is unforgiveable to leave it untouched once it is live, especially when consumers are moving forward.

Is your website really responsive?

Websites that recognise and respond to the format of the device the consumer is on will, undoubtedly, perform better today than those that do not.

Consumers cannot be forced to transact on their small format devices (mobile, tablet, etc). Some simply feel more comfortable using a PC for financial transactions. It is important, however, that people can find retailers’ websites when searching on their mobiles and are able to view the business products and services intuitively, no matter what platform they are on.

Consequently, it is imperative that a website is fully responsive. If it is not, businesses will be penalised by Google when users search on their mobiles, and that is not good for site traffic.

In addition, a business will, almost certainly, want to present its information in a different way on smaller screens. So, if it has not been addressed already, start now – business may depend on it.

Test, test and test again

A/B testing takes the guesswork out of optimising a website. It provides validation to any suggested changes by showing exactly what effect those changes have on key performance indicators. Where changes do not prove to be positive, learnings can be drawn from them.

A testing strategy needs to be exhaustive when done but not so overbearing that a company can fail to do some of the other optimisation tasks at hand.

Remember the nervous customer

There will always be potential buyers out there who are either nervous of buying online completely, or lack confidence in buying from a website they have never visited, or a vendor they have not heard of.

If retailers want to sell to this audience, they need to make it very clear how safe and easy it is to purchase from a company website. Many territories favour listing ‘web safety’ logos and features upfront on their websites, so businesses should be aware of international customers also. Do not wait until they have made the critical decision to add a product to their basket or made it to the checkout. Chances are they will not get that far. Instead, tell customers on the home page and on every single page on the site.

Nobody is saying this is straightforward or simple. However, if a customer does not identify the company site quickly as one they can easily buy from, the rest will not matter.

By now, the testing strategy should be in place, therefore try out various combinations of homepage and checkout page at the very least. Just remember to try it on all platforms because the solution will not be the same for each one.

Payment and delivery – upfront and everywhere

A business needs to ensure that the key issues of secure payment and efficient delivery are brought to the fore on every page of the website. Amazon is driving the online experience forward with the myriad of delivery options that are offered – businesses should keep in mind that consumers expect the same experience of smaller vendors.

There are few things more irritating than filling in a form, only to find out that payment is not accepted via a specific or preferred method, or delivery is not available. Take a first-time visitor this far and it is unlikely they will come back again.

Conversely, a wavering user may turn into a conversion if they are positively surprised by how easy it is to pay or get delivery. Online retailers should remember to factor mobile into this. Keep payment really simple for mobile users with solutions such as PayPal Express.

Keep USPs in mind

Before launching a website, there will have been a driving force behind it. The business’s purpose needs to be communicated clearly and in a compelling manner to all visitors. The unique sales points (USPs) are fundamental to that process.

It may be hard to differentiate a product from that of a competitor, especially if it is selling the same thing at more or less the same price. But where a business can win sales is by offering specific benefits, such as free delivery, more attractive guarantees or payment options, recycling or price promises.

To make the benefits work, retailers should shout about them well before checkout – if not generally across the site, then at least on individual product pages.

Use content to personalise the company website

Content is the new battleground when it comes to the web experience. What started as a way of bringing a business up in the organic search rankings has now formed an industry all of its own. It is safe to say that every user has a unique set of expectations from a business. The content they see can wildly impact their behaviour.

New users may need more encouragement to buy and more information about payment and delivery options early in their visit. Existing customers may find too much of this sort of information annoying and see it as clutter rather than encouragement, but may be encouraged to buy, or buy more, if they see other messages or linked products.

Personalised content at the various stages of the buying cycle is a technology that is coming fast and is a broad subject. An organisation needs to consider the user journey for many types of consumers and consider how it can improve and personalise this on a page-by-page basis.

The checkout – the moment of truth

Most online retailers live with the fact that over 90 per cent of website visitors leave at the end of a website visit without buying a thing. When time and money has been spent on creating website traffic, a business should be motivated in every possible way to look for new methods to try to achieve the highest possible conversion rate. The following checkout tips are neither exhaustive nor prioritised – but they are from first-hand experts who trade on websites each and every day:

• Do not make users register on a website if they do not want to, and always offer an anonymous or guest checkout capability. By all means, tell them why it is a good idea, but do not force it on them.
• Make it easy for customers to enter their address by offering an address finder based on entering a postcode. Make sure this is tested for usability to ensure the solution really is helpful and accurate.
• Always make it clear how far visitors have got through the checkout journey, as each website is different and checkout processes still vary. Customers view the checkout process as the same as queuing instore and, if the process takes too long, then you risk abandonment.
• Validate every single field as a customer moves through the completion of a checkout page; do not wait until they have clicked ‘submit’ to list all of the errors that have been made in the process.
• Before the transaction is completed, present customers with a clear, unambiguous list of exactly what they are paying for, including delivery dates, times and guarantees, and tell them what will happen next. This will help to minimise returns and avoid abandonment.
• Keep in mind that customers may well need to change their mind at various stages – and ‘step backwards’ in order to complete their purchase. A business needs to make this process simple and intuitive.
• Speed. Checkouts must be light, fast and uncluttered. Remove every single distraction on these pages that you can see and get help from people who do not use your site today.

Remember, your customer has the remote!

It is easy to think that consumers buy in the same way as a business. However, this simply is not the case. As the number of people making mobile payments is increasing, remember not to force the channel on a customer.

If there is any chance that a customer may have questions about the product or its purchase, let them get in touch by phone and make it easy. If it is not easy, another company will make it easy and some users may be prepared to pay a premium to know that they are buying the right product and/or can buy it over the phone straightaway.

Putting the gloss on

Remember to look around for new ideas constantly. Here are more ideas companies may want to consider:

• Customers who do not want to buy immediately need to be nurtured. Creating a wish list feature for those who are shopping but not yet buying is a great idea.
• Make form filling easier using technologies such as HTML5, for example. Use placeholder text to explain what needs filling in and swap to a numeric keypad for phone number and other purely numeric fields.
• Integrate PayPal and PayPal Express on mobiles, with pre-loaded forms to minimise keystrokes and increase conversion. Many retailers are seeing mobile account for almost 50 per cent of sales in early 2016, so this is critical.
• Offer promotions in the basket, such as service options and extended guarantees.
• Always provide help and support, such as telesales, live chat and/or video chat. Do what is needed to get them to complete the purchase.

Do not force users to register straight away

Surprisingly, many online retailers still don’t offer new (and possibly one-time) customers the opportunity to checkout without registering all their personal details. However, according to Larry, the key is knowing when to ask for these details, so as to maintain their motivation.

Consumers are wising up to the fact these details are mainly used for marketing opportunities. In fact, an Econsultancy survey showed that 25.65 per cent of customers abandon their shopping if they are forced to register.²

Annoying customers before they have completed their purchase will lose you sales and useful data. However, giving the option to register towards the end of the checkout process means that they will not feel as pressured, are more invested in the process and information gathering does not seem as invasive.

Stick to a clear, linear process and set expectations

Ensuring that the process is defined and linear is crucial. Some steps, like delivery details and card address, are a must, but using a simple interface element, such as a progress bar, gives the user a clearer idea of what is required from them and what the next step of their shopping experience will be. It also helps shoppers to get an idea of how long it might take to complete checkout.

Delivery estimates are another place this works well. Capturing an address pre-checkout is a great way to give the customer some useful information that might help them when deciding whether to purchase in exchange for data you need. It also means that, when they come to enter their shipping details, you already have this information and they can skip a step.

Optimise data entry for speed and accuracy

Accurate data is critical to retailers. The key is not to put too much pressure on the user, as this can result in frustration. Making elements of the form as easy as possible to complete will reduce this, as well as the amount of time required to fill in details.

Do not assume your work is done

Even if your checkout is doing well at the moment, do not assume that you do not need to do anything to improve it. There is always room for improvement.

Brangwyn reminds us to make sure to test new ideas if you want to stay up to date with changes in technology and reassess customer behaviour. Keep users involved and remember to use evidence to support decisions rather than relying on design fads, no matter how tempting this might be.

I had a chance to catch up with Michael Rouse, CCO of Klarna, to talk about why the checkout journey on mobile devices is particularly complicated. Klarna is an online payment platform used by 65,000 online retailers, including Samsung, Disney, Spotify, etc. To find out more about Klarna, visit: www.klarna.com.

Although mobile sales are growing three times faster than desktop sales, historically, mobile commerce has suffered from low completion rates

This is mainly due to the friction of the mobile shopping experience: there are too many steps to completion and performing tasks, like entering credit card numbers or passwords, is more annoying and time-consuming on a phone’s small virtual keyboard. This friction means only 3 in every 100 sales begun on a mobile device are completed. However, there are ways to improve these conversion rates significantly.

Rouse explains that merchants must make mobile payment as simple as mobile browsing – delivering convenience and removing barriers to getting the product into customers’ hands, without sacrificing security. By reducing the number of steps to purchase completion and eliminating the registration process altogether retailers can boost mobile conversion rates by up to 60 per cent.

The simpler it is for a customer to confirm a purchase, the higher conversion rates climb, and the lower basket abandonment rates sink. Customers tend to return to sites which simplify purchases, so first movers will profit from increased retention. The standard checkout process has led to an abandonment rate of 71 per cent across tablets and 81 per cent on mobile in 2014. ‘The amount of monthly sales abandoned each year totals just over $4 trillion’, says Rouse.

Although simplicity is key for a modern payment solution, the consumer wants more than just simplicity. For example, does the payment technology provide a process where the customer can complete the purchase in seconds, then pay for their goods at their leisure, regardless if that means right way, later or in instalments?

Especially when dealing with distractable, time-poor customers limited by small on-screen keyboards, retailers should be looking to see what payment technologies can, additionally, provide for customers. Using sophisticated algorithms, it is now entirely possible to get an instant answer as to whether or not a customer should be provided with the option of paying after delivery with an invoice or in instalments. Once you have the answer to this question, there is no need for the customer to then input four pages’ worth of information at the point of purchase.

With a mobile-first approach and a clear focus on simple checkout solutions – with a variety of payment methods allowing the customers to decide exactly how and when they want to pay for their goods – retailers will be able to boost conversion rates and solve the problem of the abandoned shopping basket.

I was also able to catch up with John Slater, lead UX designer at EKM, to try to understand why he does not think that one-page checkouts is the holy grail. EKM is the largest UK-based ecommerce provider, offering a fully hosted, all-in-one ecommerce solution. For more information about EKM, visit: www.ekmpowershop.com.

Slater tells me that he remembers, back in his early days at EKM, one of the most requested features was a one-page checkout. At the time, it was going to be the saviour of the ecommerce checkout – it would take away the need for customers to navigate from page to page and wait for pages to load.

‘It turns out, though, that one-page checkout is not the saviour of the ecommerce checkout. It actually causes more issues than it fixes,’ says Slater.

The issues with one-page checkout

In EKM’s research, it found that customers faced with large numbers of fields are put off. In an alarming number of cases, it would put off the customer enough for them to leave the checkout and site entirely.

The primary selling point of one-page checkout was that a customer could start and finish purchasing a product without having to wait for pages to load. In practice, though, this meant that every field that was needed, in order to complete the checkout, had to be output on one page.

‘A customer visiting this flow can become overwhelmed by the number of fields they’re required to fill out, and rethink whether they want to continue with the purchase,’ says Slater.

Another issue the company found with the one-page checkout was that, even though shop owners knew there were only one or two steps to complete a purchase (depending on which payment method was selected), the customer did not. At first glance, they could be lead to believe that this huge list of fields was the first of, potentially, many more steps.

Slater’s current best advice is that the checkout is a multiple-page flow that varies between four and five steps, depending on the shop set-up:

• customer login (optional);
• delivery and billing details;
• order summary;
• payment;
• order complete.

Data retention

As a customer fills in their information, the checkout should retain their data so, when they navigate from page to page or back a page, all previously entered information is kept.

Customers should be able to go back to previous steps both with on-page buttons and the browser back button. Even some of the biggest ecommerce websites are failing to meet this customer expectation.

Visible progress

You should also show your customer the progress they are making, how many steps there are to go until they have made a purchase.

Key findings

• Forty-one links leading away from the checkout journey were removed as part of the improvements made.
• Comparing conversion rates in the seven days before improvements were made and the seven days after improvements were made, there was a 30 per cent increase (from 1.88 per cent to 2.44 per cent).
• Comparing conversion rates in the 28 days before improvements were made and the 28 days after improvements were made, there was a 30 per cent increase (from 1.55 per cent to 2.44 per cent).

Interviewee

David Teague is the general manager for Texfelt UK. Having been with the company for over three years, Teague handles the day-to-day manufacturing and retail operations for Texfelt UK, which includes managing its online B2C retail outlet, Carpet Underlay Shop.

About Carpet Underlay Shop

Carpet Underlay Shop supplies carpet underlay, carpet fitting tools and flooring supplies to both trade customers and consumers. Carpet Underlay Shop acts as the retail arm of Texfelt UK, a manufacturer of carpet underlay and flooring accessories.

Established in 1992, Texfelt UK was initially a business-to-business (B2B) operation, selling its products to carpeting retailers and fitters worldwide, but never selling directly to the public. Whilst carpet retailers had followed the digital trend and taken their full product ranges online, very few underlay specialists had done the same. There was also a lack of products of this type in the multinational marketplaces, like Amazon, which led Texfelt UK to identify this absence as a potential gap in the market. In 2007, it opened Carpet Underlay Shop, a business-to-consumer (B2C) site, allowing consumers to buy not only products manufactured by Textfelt UK, but also other underlay brands, as well as the tools and accessories a consumer would need to fit underlay. Being in such a niche industry online has rewarded them with relatively few direct competitors and, the fact that the company manufactures a portion of the products it sells online has allowed it to be highly competitive when it comes to pricing.