Checkout and Transaction Funnel

Ensuring your customers are comfortable and confident about transacting on your website is crucial for turning ecommerce website visits into sales.
 
With identity fraud and phishing scams rife, online security is a key concern for many consumers and if your site fails to reassure them of your integrity and of the safety of their details, most will take their business elsewhere.

6.1 Integrated payment

Reassuringly, this is a criterion that all the retailers we assessed appeared to take seriously.

We awarded full marks to those whose with ecommerce solutions whose payment pages were integrated within the online shop domain, and penalised those who took customers off to a third-party domain.

Redirecting customers away from the branded ecommerce site may damage the consumer’s confidence in the security of the transaction.

From the point of view of best practice and brand trust, dotCommerce recommends always integrating payment screens into the branded site itself.

Average score: 23 out of 25 = 92%

Poor performers: Avon and Currys

Only two retailers made customers leave the main website in order to complete their payments.

The vast majority recognised the importance of keeping a purchasing customer on their website.

Best practice guidelines

* Ask for the billing address first, and then ask if the billing address is the same as shipping address, so users don’t have to type an address out twice

* Many people still have problems with CCV/CV2/AVS.

Make sure you explain what they mean and if you take AMEX, be sure to accept 4 digits rather than three and tell users where to find the security code on an AMEX card

* Be aware of any PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance issues that you might have when you process or store credit card information.
 
Talk to your payment processor for advice on these issues

Top tip

* A majority, if not all credit cards have dates expressed as numbers. So why do some checkout systems specify the month component in words (Jan, Feb Mar) etc?

By all means have both words and numbers to express a credit card expiry date, but don’t ask your users to do even basic mental arithmetic.

6.2 Delivery options

Confidence in delivery is a crucial aspect in an individual’s decision to purchase online.

Sites that succeed are those that offer fast, low cost effective, reliable and highly flexible delivery options to their customers.

Average score: 31 out of 50 = 62%

High flyers: John Lewis, hmv.com, Game, Currys, Maplin, PC World

Retailers scored poorly in this section, with 4 out of the 20 scoring no points at all, and 30% scoring just half marks.

We found a lack of choice and fl exibility in delivery options, and a resistance to offer a free delivery option.

In a fiercely competitive online market place, it is the retailers who shine in this area that online customers will choose to shop with.

Best practice

* Be transparent about delivery pricing, early on the purchase transaction process – don’t leave the details of delivery cost until late in the process when the customer has already invested time and effort in completing form fields

* Be clear and specific about delivery terms

* Where possible, offer a free delivery option

* If you offer free delivery options, then publicise this on the homepage, in your meta descriptions and in the basket and checkout process

* Use free delivery as a mechanism to up-sell to customers, (e.g. ‘spend an extra £5.50 and get free delivery’)

Top Tip

* You might want to consider using multiple shipping providers offer the best cost routing for your deliveries.

There are multi-channel carrier solutions that will manage this for you so you simply pass the details of the delivery and they will return the cheapest carrier
for the desired flexibility.

Even if you outsource your warehouse, check if they would support different carriers.

6.3 Data security and permission capture

Capturing a consumer’s permission to be sent email marketing messages is email marketing best practice, and important for retailers who want to maximise revenue and sales.

Including an opt-in tick box during the checkout process helps to build a marketing database of actively engaged email marketing responsive customers.

Average score: 5 out of 15 = 30%

High flyers: Avon, Currys, Comet, PC World, Dixons

Just 6 out of the 20 retailers we assessed provided our mystery shopper customers with a simple tick box to opt-in to future marketing communications.

The retailers who were marked down in this section may be missing out on the opportunity to create and segment a highly responsive email marketing database, and use it to drive viral and referral opportunities to grow the database further.

Best practice guidelines

* Legally, B2C online retailers are required only to offer an opt-out of email communications, if data collected in the checkout process is to be used for marketing purposes

* Collecting an opt-in during the checkout process is best practice, as it can help to build a more cost-effective database of highly engaged and responsive consumers

* Include at the point of opt-in/opt-out, a link to a friendly privacy policy that states how and why you store and use personal contact data

* Use the wording of your permission statement to inspire confidence on the part of the customer – not as a legal warning that is more likely to scare them off

* Consider using double opt-in to ensure you capture accurate email addresses of highly engaged customers who are happy to confirm who they are by clicking on an email link in order to opt into your email marketing programmes

Top Tip

* The inclusion of a genuine VeriSign, Thawte, Comdo or other recognised SSL provider logo in your checkout process is essential to reassure customers on
their security and privacy.

6.4 Option to store payment details

Online retailers who give their customers the option for their payment details to be securely stored, make it easier and quicker for their customers to return and make repeat purchases.

Average score: 4 out of 10 = 40%

High flyers: Tesco, Asda, Play.com, Game, PC World, Dixons

With an average score of just 35%, this was one area where the retailers we assessed really fell down.

By making it as easy as possible for customers to buy from you, you’ll increase repeat transactional visits and reduce shopping cart dropout.

Best practice guidelines

* Include an opt-in tick box to enable users to indicate if they would like their billing and/or credit card details securely stored

* Ask for the CCV number each time a repeat order is placed online

* Provide reassuring copy stating how and why this is a safe and secure option for the user to choose

* Look for opportunities to store and personalise other information shown to individual users – either through the use of cookies, or a log-in.

Using customer intelligence to personalise content on an ecommerce site helps customers to return to your site, find what they want and purchase more quickly and easily.

Top Tip

* Be aware of the PCI regulations when storing credit card details on your own system.

If you want to leverage repeat purchases without the expense of gaining PCI compliance then check with your Payment Service Processer and see if they can store those details for you.

6.5 Product recommendation and loyalty schemes

The power of online product recommendations should not be underestimated.
 
By recommending relevant and popular products during and after the checkout process you encourage customers at the point where they are actively purchasing, to make extra impulse buys.

It’s just like supermarkets putting all those bars of chocolate and celeb magazines in racks by the tills to encourage last minute impulse purchases.

Well run loyalty schemes can also help to drive customer spend online.

Average score: 20 out of 55 = 36%

High flyers: lookfantastic.com, Amazon.co.uk, hmv.com

We awarded retailers marks for recommending products during the checkout process, on the confirmation/thank you page and in the auto-responder correspondence, as well as awarding points for loyalty schemes.

We were shocked to find that seven retailers did not take advantage of any of these up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and only 5 of the 20 ecommerce sites surveyed used 2 or more of the touch points described to encourage customers to spend more.

The shining beacon of up-sell was Amazon.co.uk who smartly missed no opportunity to offer website users further ideas and opportunities to spend their money on.

We did find 45% of retailers publicising a customer loyalty scheme.

Whilst these schemes can be complex to administer and can come with as many pros as with cons, retailers not using them may be missing an opportunity to increase brand affinity and online spend.

Best practice guidelines

* Include product suggestions, related products or ‘customers who bought this also bought...’ suggestions on product pages, in the shopping basket, on the confirmation/thank you page and in the auto-response confirmation email

* Link the product suggestions to the relevant product pages to enable easy purchase

* Don’t try and build recommendation technology yourself unless you have very capable developers - most ecommerce solutions oursource this to third parties

Top Tip

* The most effective product recommendation system at checkout is related crosssells. So, if a customer is buying a TV, the checkout page will recommend related products with an offer such as a stand, cables, dvd player etc - items that a customer might also want to purchase with the main item.

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