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Cutting friction from the checkout experience: Ecommerce executives share insights



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As online retailers kick off their 2018 holiday season, they’ve undoubtedly invested in building a great customer experience from beginning to end — everything from being better at attracting customers to taking care of them even after they make a purchase.

Without question, one of the most critical stages of the online customer experience occurs at the ‘business end’ of their shopping journey — checkout.

Few areas of a customer’s shopping excursion affect top-line growth more than checkout, so having a swift, frictionless, and secure checkout experience is paramount both to increasing conversions and giving customers a reason to come back time and time again.

But with average cart abandonment rates at nearly 70 percent, online businesses are still leaving significant revenue on the table. And that’s not all they might be surrendering. Checkout is also one of the main areas where consumer trust and confidence can be either boosted or broken. In Namogoo’s consumer study, 53 percent of the 1,300 U.S. online shoppers we surveyed revealed that payment security concerns are the main reason they would abandon an online shopping cart.

Preventing checkout friction builds customer loyalty

Preventing fraud at this stage is critical to maintaining credibility with customers, growing a strong reputation as a trusted retailer and increasing loyalty, retention, and revenue.

As important as preventing fraud, is preventing friction at checkout and ensuring that legitimate orders are shipped instantly. Any unwanted delays or distractions that disrupt a customer from completing their purchase can lower their trust in the brand and even damage their perceived security of the transaction itself.

For retailers, finding this balance between fraud and friction is as challenging as it is pivotal. Improving the checkout experience was top of mind for ecommerce executives we interviewed in our e-book. Another major frustration for customers during checkout is being left hanging when it comes to their delivery date.

Samsonite’s Vice President of Ecommerce Jay Nigrelli explains why letting customers know when they can expect their orders helps eliminate hesitation before the sale:

“At checkout, it’s important to more effectively explain to your customers when they should expect to receive their delivery. Instead of telling customers that we’re going to deliver in four to 10 business days, we can use information about where we’re shipping that order from to tell them exactly when it will arrive or at least give them a better range, and keep them updated on where their product is in the fulfillment process.”

Smooth checkout on mobile is key to a good customer experience

With shoppers increasingly on-the-go while browsing for products, optimizing checkout flow specifically for mobile is becoming ever-more critical, explains Magento founder Roy Rubin:

“Mobile customers are very mission-focused and their attention span more limited, with other apps pushing notifications and competing for their attention. The entire checkout flow needs to be made faster and more efficient. Nobody that’s decided to make a purchase wants to re-enter the same information more than once. This is true on desktop, but it is certainly amplified on mobile.”

Rubin also emphasized the need for retailers to minimize friction and ease the path to purchase by offering the most seamless payment options for mobile customers.

“This is the most critical pain point at the end of your funnel. You have it wrong if you still expect your customers to enter their credit card info today on a mobile device. Look at the experience you get with Apple Pay on mobile compared to having to take out your credit card and start punching in numbers on your smartphone. These are two very different experiences: One is completely painless, the other is very painful. It’s imperative for online retailers to reduce the friction in this process.”

Eliminating barriers from the online customer experience is key to the mission of both Signifyd and Namogoo. One growing problem harming that experience for ecommerce customers that has flown under the industry radar is Online Journey Hijacking, where unauthorized product ads injected into consumer browsers disrupt and divert site visitors with banners, pop-ups and competitor ads. That’s why Namogoo, the pioneer in Customer Hijacking Prevention, was developed: to help online businesses deliver the optimal customer experience they work so hard to design free of distraction

That’s why we’re proud of our recent strategic partnership with Signifyd. It means we can solve two significant problems that are causing friction for online customers and cutting into retailers’ bottom lines.

Learn more about how Namogoo is removing friction from the buying experience for leading ecommerce companies.

David Abbou

David Abbou

David Abbou is the content lead for Namogoo. This Torontonian is all too happy to exchange ice skates for flip flops and is a lover of the outdoors, sports and all things social.