You’ve painstakingly built your new Shopify online store. You’ve worked with expert Shopify developers to get it right and have also spent money and time in promoting the store through SEO and social media. Your efforts start paying off and the Shopify store starts getting a steady stream of visitors. But while your visitor count is ticking along, the sales counter is almost silent.
Does that experience hit home?
If so, the problem you are facing is of a poor conversion rate.
According to the Baymard Institute, almost 70% of ecommerce users abandon a purchase at the checkout stage. This phenomenon is referred to as shopping cart abandonment and is the single biggest reason why most online stores struggle to convert a visitor into a customer.
So, how can you minimize your Shopify cart abandonment rate and build a recurring customer base?
Use Your Business Logo & Colors
Sure, Shopify doesn’t offer too many options to customize your checkout page. But it does allow you to add a logo of your business on the checkout page. A logo goes a long way in adding a degree of trustworthiness to your store. This is especially important as the standard Shopify checkout page is quite basic and uninspiring. If you’ve hired a Shopify development company, you can tell them to include your logo on the checkout page.
But if you don’t have a logo for your business, you can fill up the logo’s space with your business’s colors instead. The aim of doing this is to ensure your checkout page is consistent with your store’s webpage. As such, either a logo or your business-specific colors can help increase your checkout conversion rate by building trust and legitimacy.
Add a Countdown Timer
Many aspects of human psychology harnessed by retail stores apply to online shopping behavior as well. For instance, creating a sense of urgency through signs like ‘For limited time only’ or ‘Get 50% today’ entices a potential customer into making a purchase instead of delaying it.
You can do something similar on your Shopify store by adding a countdown timer. While Shopify does not offer this function natively, you can hire a Shopify developer to help you add one instead.
These apps also let you change the message in the countdown timer to whatever you want. So, you can include information like checkout within XX minutes to get free shipping or checkout within XX minutes to secure a hot item.
Regardless of what message you choose to display, make sure it’s honest and is worded clearly without any ambiguity. The sense of urgency created this way motivates a visitor to complete a purchase instead of quitting at the checkout page.
Include a Visible Progress Bar
Have you ever taken a survey and quit midway because you didn’t know when it would end? Now imagine someone who’s willing to part with their hard-earned money, only to be faced with a never-ending checkout process.
In fact, the Baymard Institute’s survey found that a too long or complicated checkout process is the third biggest cause for shopping cart abandonment.
The native Shopify checkout page amplifies this issue as it doesn’t offer a progress bar. This means a customer doesn’t know at what stage of the buyer’s journey they are at, which inevitably leads to customer fatigue and loss of a sale.
A visible progress bar, on the contrary, guides customers through the checkout journey and keeps them informed. This not only makes you look credible but also adds a touch of thoughtfulness.
That said, adding a visible progress bar is no excuse for having too many steps in your Shopify checkout process. Although there’s no ideal number, most expert Shopify developers recommend keeping the number of checkout steps to four or fewer.
Offer Multiple Payment Methods & Badges
The Baymard survey further shows that 6% of respondents cited a lack of payment options as the reason for abandoning their shopping cart. Shopify accentuates this problem because of the absence of payment badges and logos in its standard checkout page.
You can bridge this trust deficit by displaying multiple payment methods and badges on your Shopify checkout page. By doing so, you prove to the customer that you value their security and have a designated gateway to handle all payments.
In addition to building your credibility, this also works well from the UX point of view as your customers can quickly find out if their preferred payment is supported.
Include Trust Messages Liberally
Trust messages are a valuable way of building your credibility in the eyes of the customer and boosting your conversion rate. They can be something as simple as offering a money-back guarantee, mentioning the shipping and delivery timeline, or even specifying your return policy.
You can hire a Shopify developer to display any message that you think the customer might find useful and which adds to your store’s trustworthiness. The right kind of trust message, as such, can give a fillip to your store’s conversion rate and increase overall sales.
Offer a Guest Checkout Option
31% of respondents in the Baymard survey said they abandoned a purchase because the store wanted them to register before checking out. This makes it clear that most online buyers view account creation forms as a hurdle, especially if they are new to your store.
But you can make it easier for them to purchase by offering a guest checkout option instead. This allows a buyer to complete their purchase by sharing only the bare minimum of details. Thankfully, Shopify allows you to add a ‘Guest checkout’ option natively.
But in case do you require a customer’s details for marketing purposes, you can place the account creation section after the checkout process. You can use an enticing call to action (offers, coupons, newsletters etc.) to inform your customer of the benefits of creating an account.
Add Social Proof
More than 90% of online buyers lookup reviews and testimonials before making a purchase. You can leverage this aspect of buyer behavior to boost your store’s conversion rate.
So, instead of the buyer leaving your checkout page and looking for reviews, bring the reviews to them. You can choose from several Shopify apps that let you gather, moderate, and display responses and reviews from previous customers.
These reviews act as social proof of the quality of your product or service, which makes it likelier for a potential customer to go through with their purchase.
Having most of your visitors abandon the shopping cart at checkout can be frustrating. But as we’ve seen above, that doesn’t have to be the case anymore. In spite of Shopify not being fully customizable, there are several things you can do to make your checkout process quicker, user-friendly, and most importantly, trustworthy.
If you’d like to know more about any of the Shopify checkout conversion methods outlined above, drop a comment below. Alternatively, you can also reach out to us if you need help with increasing the conversion rate of your Shopify store. We are a Shopify development company that specializes in conceptualizing, designing, developing, and promoting Shopify online stores for entrepreneurs around the world.
Responsible for developing and managing web presence, Sarah has been associated with eLuminous Technologies for 7+ years. Strategic and innovative with a passion for Content Marketing and enhancing brand awareness. Administered all business marketing operations and advertisement campaigns that eventually increased web traffic. She works under the motto “Think like a Publisher, not a Marketer.”
