The Ecommerce Checkout Report
Posted April 10, 2007 by Jason Billingsley /
Do you want to see which checkout tactics are most used by successful online retailers? How does your conversion rate stack up to those who employ similar tactics? Does a shorter checkout process really decrease shopping cart abandonment? Should you use an order confirmation screen? Does live chat improve conversions? These are a few of the 23 tactics we evaluated as we studied the checkout process of the Internet’s Top 100 Online Retailers.
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This is absolutely fabulous. A compilation of current best-practices for e-commerce. Like the beer fellows say BRILLIANT!
http://www.ebizmba.com
Conversion rates seem to be used in a different way than of the norm. It shows some companies having negative conversion rates. It is not explained how they are coming up with numbers like a 40% improvement when not asking for ccv. Did all of the surveyed retailers do A/B testing and then give the results? Or are they simply comparing conversion rates of companies that ask for ccv andthose that don’t. This second method would not be comparing apples to apples. Too much ambiguity to make decisions based on much of the information in the report.
Jeffrey - thank you for your comments. Could you explain where you feel negative conversion rates are being shown, as this should not be the case?
re: The 40% greater conversion rate for those not asking for a CVV number is shown in the chart. Average CR for no CVV was 6.3% versus 4.5% for those who do; 6.3% is 40% greater than 4.5%.
Note: Factors besides checkout tactics will impact conversion and growth rates. We did not, for example, control for merchandising tactics, site response time, advertising levels, and so on. Also, correlation does not necessarily imply cause and effect.
The purpose of the report was to find tactics that stood out and to entice retailers to investigate the effect within their own testing paradigms. Nothing replaces testing.
Seems very interesting. I will talk about it as soon as possible in my blog for my french readers. It is so bad that no one in France can make this kind of report
Thank you to Jason and Stephan for an INFORMATIVE (yes, it’s worth yelling about) Webinar discussing the findings of the Ecommerce Checkout Report. Having worked with many ecommerce platforms for over 10 years, your report and your opening of the findings to the public is GREATLY appreciated.
Agreed, some of the findings are counter-intuitive; however, you surface and provide an opportunity for consideration of so many factors that are not often tested in the checkout workflow.
Re. CVV, I made 2 purchases on Wed. Both companies are “key” within the Internet Marketing industry, one selling memberships and the other books. Interestingly, the membership site asked for a CVV, but if you used Am Ex, it only accepted the 3-digit code on the back, not the common 4-digit code from the front of an Am Ex card. The confusion resulted in a failed transaction. The subsequent purchase of a book at the other site was equally confusing. They asked for the “security code” instead of the CVV, so I assumed they wanted the 3-digit code on the back - another failed transaction for Am Ex. This site wanted the code from the front. AJAX would have solved this. They could have asked which type of code, and the input screen would have adjusted to inform the purchaser of which code was required.
NOW, I understand why the higher conversion rate without asking for the CVV code.
Thank you again for opening the discussion and challenging us to test multiple aspects of checkout. Biggest take away? Retailers should test key components to avoid leaving money on the table.
I have a couple of questions, I hope you will answer about your report. My site is a low ticket item site, under $75.00.
1. Number of pages in checkout process. I see with three or less pages, conversions were higher. I have a shopping cart page, customer information input page, order review page and then a completed order confirmation page. I am guessing that is 4 pages, I had thought about removing the order review page. What do you think?
2. Also on the data page for low-ticket items, page 10 of the report. ‘Return policies prevalent on page’ had both a positive and negative impact on conversion, how is that possible? Which is best, for a site like mine?
Thanks for your feedback.
I would look at the drop-off between the customer information input page and order review page. Your analytics package (if set up correctly will give you this number). With a low ticket item I would make the process as fast as possible and remove ANY barriers.
The data on return policies is somewhat ambiguous because the visibility of the review info, the placement, and the actual policy all has an effect. What you need to do is test. I suggest using Google Website Optimizer to start. With the demographic I assume you target, security and trust would likely be a higher concern than most.
I’ve been looking for data like this for a long time. Great post.
I need some ideas on numbers if possible for my site, with most orders under $75.00.
If I have 100 Absolute Unique Visitors according to Google Analytics, and I have 3 order confirmations, that equals 3% conversion rate correct?
I am trying to figure where my site has issues. Getting the customer into the shopping cart page, customer input page, or order review page, then order confirmation page.
Presently I have a 4 page checkout process which I am guessing will be reduced to 3 pages after I get some good stats back over time, to backup my assumptions.
What is some general numbers to think you have a good value proposition so that the customer places something in the shopping cart to start with and then common drop off rates going down the conversion process to the final order confirmation page.
Thanks for any feedback.
I want to ask for 2 points of clarification:
1. Are all results for “high ticket products” based on n=22?
2. In Appendix B, what do the “Grand Total” rows and columns mean?
1. Could you explain what n=22 is or where you see that?
2. Grand Total is the aggregate value (most numbers are expressed as percentages according to the bucket in which they are displayed)
1. Was there a grand total of 22 companies whenever calculations were done on “high ticket product”? (n is a statistical term for the number of independent obsevations.)
2. Is it that the numbers in the individual cells are percentages and the Grand Totals are the raw aggregate numbers? Or is it that all numbers are percentages, including the Grand Totals, the latter of which are aggregate percentages?
1. Gotcha. Yes, 22 was the number of companies falling into the High Ticket group.
2. Every number is a percentage.
What does “Growth Rate” mean on page 16?
I currently use Google analytics for stats, but I don’t thing it giving me enough info.
What kind of very advanced stat programs are out there, what do you people use?
Ps. I just saw the presentation, and will of cause use some kind of recording too, I only remember clicktalk, what where the rest? of the providers
Martin,
I use Omniture SiteCatalyst - expensive tool and ClickTale - interesting tool for usability audit.
Hi I’d like to download this report, but the link appears to be dead,
Thanks
Fixed. We just did a company site re-design, so some things were moved around.
Very interesting survey. Have to say it is disappointing that there are not more clearer patterns emerging.
Are we just suggesting that we should forget about any new feature that might help answer a customer’s concerns? That the only important thing is to grab his/her money as soon as possible?
I mentioned your report in my blog at businessmouth.com - please include the link in your list above, thanks.
I wish there would be a software report as well. This one is my all times favourite. Even better than paid Nielsen reports I’ve bought.
Great webinar, Have you done, or has anyone seen any data on the effect of implementing the Verified by Visa or MasterCard Secure code programs on their website?
Great report, it seems that the United States is much further with developing these quantitative reports, as one can see all the data is based on american companies, and probably based on the internet retailer top 500 index. I was wondering if there are similar findings on European/Asian internet retailers.
Furthermore, here in Europe we are quite restricted by the type of payment options. In the Netherlands for example we can ONLY accept Verified by Visa and Mastercard Secure code programmes just because of risk adverse payment providers.