5 Steps to Improving Checkout and Increasing E-Commerce Sales Following these tips can help ensure an easy, frictionless checkout experience to keep customers coming back.

Checkout is one of the most important steps when it comes to e-commerce. Many merchants go to great lengths to build a user-friendly website that gets customers excited to make a purchase. The last thing they want is for these potential customers to bounce at checkout because of some difficulty or annoyance, leaving their online shopping cart full yet unpaid for.

"Checkout is the make-or-break point," says Airon White, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at e-commerce powerhouse BigCommerce. "If a shopper must go through multiple pages, has trouble filling in fields, or has to provide redundant information like filling in their address in both a shipping and billing section, they are more likely to abandon their cart, thus not completing the transaction."

Based on data collected by the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.99%. That's far from ideal. White says that creating a checkout experience that is easy and straightforward can eliminate friction and frustration and increase conversions. Here are White's five steps for improving checkout and increasing e-commerce sales.

1. Optimize your site for mobile.

These days, customers are doing everything on their phones—including shopping. More than seven out of 10 Gen Z and Millennial consumers say they regularly shop online using a smartphone. If your e-commerce site and checkout process don't function easily from a smartphone screen, you're likely losing business in a big way.

"I highly recommend that every merchant tests out their own checkout process from the perspective of their target customer," White advises. "If you identify any issues, inefficiencies, or barriers that frustrate you, take time to explore if your e-commerce platform can accommodate any of these changes."

2. Simplify checkout to a single page.

On some e-commerce sites, a customer must navigate from their cart to multiple checkout pages to finish their order. However, each additional page is essentially another barrier to completing the sale. The longer and more complicated your checkout process, the greater the possibility for customers to abandon their purchases.

"By making checkout a single page, you ensure that customers do not need to deal with long load times or missing fields before they can move to the next step," White says.

For instance, BigCommerce natively offers online merchants an Optimized One-Page Checkout featuring a streamlined, single-page layout that simplifies checkout for customers. "Merchants have the ability to change logos, allow for guest checkout, incorporate wallet button options that fit their shoppers needs, and ensure that they are adhering to the local compliance requirements, like GDPR in the UK," White says.

3. Allow guest checkout.

Of the many reasons customers abandon their online shopping carts, 24% said it was because the site wanted them to create an account first, according to the Baymard Institute. By offering guest checkout and not forcing a customer to create an account or log in, customers won't feel as though they're giving away their personal information if they don't want to.

"Giving your shoppers the ability to choose if they want an account or not goes a long way to customer satisfaction and loyalty," White says. "For example, if I am shopping for a unique item, especially a gift for someone, I may not ever need that kind of item for myself and don't want to be on someone's email list."

With BigCommerce's Optimized One-Page Checkout, you can offer guest checkout via a simple toggle on/off setting that can be applied immediately to specific storefronts as set by the merchant.

4. Keep customer experience in mind when setting security policies.

Setting overly complicated requirements for passwords and other codes is another reason that customers abandon their shopping carts, White says. For example, requiring customers to create passwords with many types of letters, numbers, symbols, etc., can cause frustration.

"We always encourage merchants to spend time in this area to customize their settings based on their shopper's needs," White says. "With BigCommerce, merchants can set up options for guests and account holders, and even enable reCAPTCHA to offer a secure shopping and checkout experience."

5. Give customers more payment options.

This may sound simple, but doing so can really pay off. According to a recent study of European consumers, 87% said it's important that retailers offer their favorite payment methods when shopping online.

"Ensuring that your customers have their preferred payment methods available at checkout means they won't fumble for their wallet or get interrupted during checkout, giving them another opportunity to abandon their cart," White says.

Certain platforms, like BigCommerce, allow merchants to offer additional forms of payment without creating security or compliance issues. BigCommerce maintains PCI DSS 3.2 Level 1 certification, which protects merchants using their native checkout features against credit card data breaches and eliminates the massive cost and hassle of handling compliance yourself as the merchant.

"We have a variety of payment gateway options through best-of-breed partnerships to ensure that you can find the right solution for your shoppers," White explains, "from PayPal and Venmo, to Bolt and Stripe, and even cryptocurrency partners. BigCommerce merchants can securely transact in a variety of currencies around the world."

Along with your online catalog and merchandising strategy, the checkout process is critical to the success of your e-commerce business. Ensuring that you have an easy, frictionless checkout experience will keep your customers coming back. "Remember that you too are a shopper, and what resonates with you likely resonates with your customers — build this into your strategy," White says.

Click here to learn more about how BigCommerce can improve your checkout process and help grow your e-commerce business with quick, simple solutions.