This is a guest post from Justin Palmer of Palmer Web Marketing. We’re really excited to have him share his expertise with us here on Get Elastic, as his tips and tricks are always very valuable to online retailers. You’ll learn a thing or ten from his 25 Ways Series and more. If you subscribe to Get Elastic, you want to subscribe to Justin’s feed too.

Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders

We’ve all heard the adage, “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” For many e-tailers, both large and small, the weakest link lies in the checkout process. Mistakes at this critical juncture are costly and unnecessary. Below, I’ve gathered 12 of the most common mistakes I see with checkouts.

1. Unfriendly Credit Card Errors

Getting your credit card declined is always an embarrassing situation, even online. How gracefully does your checkout handle these errors? Unfortunately, website error messages tend to be written by programmers, who don’t always consider the needs of customers.

When handling these errors, suggest a probable solution. If the error is due to an invalid CVV code, show customers a picture of where the code can be found on the card. Is the error due to a billing address mismatch? Suggest having the customer check their credit card statement to ensure their billing address matches. Most importantly, display your customer service contact information where customers can get additional help.

2. Login

Many customers detest the thought of having to remember another username and password. In addition to this concern, you risk returning customers not being able to remember their login information on a subsequent purchase. Sure, you may have a password lookup feature, but what if their email isn’t working or is inaccessible at the moment? For these reasons, offer your customers a guest checkout option that doesn’t require account creation. After the order, you can always ask if they want to create an account for next time.

3. Default Credit Card Type Selected

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Now I consider myself fairly experienced with placing online orders, since I work in the eCommerce industry. Yet I don’t know how many times I’ve entered my Mastercard number with the default Visa card option pre-selected, causing my card to be declined. In their hurry to complete a task, people tend to skip fields that are already populated with data. For this reason, require your customers to choose their credit card type. Better yet, automatically detect the credit card type based on the number (see Paypal’s checkout for an example of this).

4. Cancel Buttons

I always chuckle when I see a “Cancel” button juxtaposed next to the “Submit Order” button. Don’t make it too easy for your customers to abandon their order. A cancel button is the equivalent to asking “Are you really sure you want to buy it?”

5. Up-selling or Cross-selling

There’s a time and place for cross-selling, but it’s too risky at checkout. Too many options can send a customer into a paradox of choice, leading to an abandoned cart. In general, once someone has moved past the shopping cart, it’s time to stop marketing and close the sale.

6. Disclaimers, Explanations, and Warnings

Recently, I reviewed an eCommerce site for an online gift store. Right before clicking the “Finalize Order” button, I was casually informed my “IP address is being recorded for security purposes.” Now honestly, is that disclaimer really necessary? While it may deter fraudsters, (though I doubt it), such needless information will only raise red flags in minds of privacy conscious customers. Other needless disclaimers include “Clicking order button more than once will result in double charges” (maybe you should fix this issue rather than explain it!) or “Products subject to availability” (maybe you should display accurate inventory online!?) As a general rule, keep disclaimers on a need-to-know basis. If it causes visitors to second guess their purchase decision, remove it.

7. Insecure Page Errors

This is possibly one of the most preventable checkout mistakes that arises due to technical issues with secure pages (https://) containing non-secure elements (http:// images, javascript files, etc.). When this happens, some browsers such as Internet Explorer, love to warn customers that “this page contains insecure elements.” When you’re about to enter your personal payment info, this is not a comforting message. To prevent this, make sure you run through your own checkout frequently, with your browser set to display these warnings.

8. Only One Payment Type

Don’t you hate when you don’t have cash and a store doesn’t take credit cards? Many customers feel a similar frustration when a site only takes credit. Alternative payment forms have become almost an expectation these days, with Paypal, e-Checks, BillMeLater, and Google Checkout leading the way. Adding an additional payment method can go a long way in preventing abandoned shopping carts.

9. Dead End Receipt Pages

It’s a shame so many shopping sessions end on the receipt page. Rather than wasting your order confirmation page with a conclusive “Thanks for ordering!” message, why not continue to engage your customers? Consider adding a tell-a-friend form, displaying customer service FAQs, or asking customers to complete a survey.

10. Hiding Additional Charges

Nobody likes surprise charges at the last minute. Make sure that all shipping related charges and taxes are displayed early and often.

11. No Prominent 1-800 Number

People like buying from people, so customers always like to know someone is immediately reachable if they have a problem. While not every customer who sees your 1-800 number will call, just having one creates a sense of trust.

12. Product Stockouts

Oh by the way, it’s out of stock! Surprisingly, a disturbing amount of online checkouts wait until the customer has initiated the buying process before informing them about stockouts. Product availability should always be visible on the product pages and the shopping cart. Any later than that, you’re going to anger your customers.
Avoiding mistakes on your checkout is eCommerce 101. Don’t just take my word for it though, test these suggestions for yourself. With tools such as Google’s Website Optimizer, performing A/B tests on your checkout are surprisingly easy and inexpensive.

About Justin Palmer

Justin Palmer writes the Palmer Web Marketing blog, which covers topics such as eCommerce, SEO, and website usability. Palmer Web Marketing also offers personalized SEO recommendations and eCommerce Site Review services.

Amazon’s new redesign launch is all the buzz this week. The site that popularized horizontal tabbed navigation has now ditched them completely.

You can check out the larger image with feature tour over at Amazon. The redesign is being rolled out in phases, so you may or may not be able to see the changes just yet.

The 4 S’s of Amazon Customer Experience

Why these changes? Amazon conducted extensive usability tests and concluded that people are interested in 4 things:

“We concentrated on shopping, searching, saving, and buying–the four activities that customers have repeatedly told us are the most important to them. They’re now prominently featured at the top of every page on the site.”

SSSB just doesn’t make a good mnemonic, so I propose we refer to these factors as the 4 S’s: Continue Reading:
Amazon Tabs’ Extinction Means Better Customer Experience »

I love it when the “little guy” does something that I haven’t even seen on some of the larger sites I cite as examples here on the Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog. I recently bought a few items from C28, a Christian-lifestyle-clothing shop in California and noticed they were doing a couple of cool things I’d never seen before.

Even when scoping out sites for personal purchases, my usability consultant’s hat is always on. (It’s like those people who take film studies and can never watch a movie the same.) So I was really impressed by this virtual unknown offering features like “Email Me if My Size is Re-stocked” and “Email Me Before This Item Sells Out.” I even went to the search engine to see if I could find another site with this features (after trying a variety of word combinations) and so far haven’t found any. If you’ve seen another store doing something similar, please comment.

Continue Reading:
Small Etailer Packs Big Usability Features »

Ecommerce can be a crazy messed up world indeed. The Elastic Path team recently produced a series of e-commerce shorts including my personal favorite: “Zero Results Found.” Because art imitates life, and search box failures are all too common on even the most sophisticated ecommerce sites, I decided to start my own series on ecommerce search, beginning with how easy (or difficult) is it to find non-product information.

When comparison shopping, you can compare prices and find a store selling an item for a dollar less than everyone else (for example). But it’s possible that another store sells the exact item for a bit more yet is significantly cheaper to ship, even free. So a savvy consumer would be interested in comparing shipping policies between etailers, as would an international shopper. If the searcher is “search dominant” (as opposed to a menu-browser), he or she is going to head straight for that little white rectangle to find the desired information.

Continue Reading:
Shipping Policy Usability - Results Not Found! »

Ski and Snowboard multi-channel retailer Evogear.com began online and grew their success into brick and mortar and phone center channels. Tech Operations Manager Ben Plehal explains EvoGear’s ecommerce journey and shares lessons on maintaining a high quality customer experience.

This is Part One, keep your ears open for Part Two.

MP3 File

[Photo of Ben Plehal by DaveO at Etail West]