Strategic Experiences For Restaurant Websites or Mobile App – Part 1 – Checkout Process
Building a checkout process with the consumer in my mind is key to its success. Transactional clicks are the story of the past. The behavior-driven check-out process has been implemented by big players but it’s hard to get it right when building it for smaller businesses.
It’s important to know that big players have spent a lot of time and money to analyze, research, and experiment with the best checkout process steps that fit their market. The greatest companies historically have engineered the maximum quantity of quality and consistency. A continuous qualitative breakthrough in marketing, strategy, innovation, and management. This has worked for them for years but not for smaller players.
The checkout process needs to educate but walk the user through the next steps. It needs to be simple but smart at the same time. Great online checkouts invoke various human emotions
It’s important to point out that a well-engineered checkout process actually enables customers to buy more. Customers typically purchase more food when ordering online. Firstly, The best online ordering system takes that judgemental feeling away. The customer feels more comfortable virtually. Certain customers feel judged and guilty when ordering a certain amount of food in-person. Secondly, you are able to customize upselling and cross-selling meals.
Cicis Pizza franchise offers an add on drink or appetizer during the ordering process. Due to these offers, online bills are usually higher than orders made in-person or via phone. Therefore, you will profit more through an online ordering system. Simultaneously, customers are more likely to come back for more due to their lack of guilt.
A well-engineered checkout process can incorporate the following key criteria’s to help the user through the checkout process:
Don’t require shoppers to register in order to check out. Forcing them to create an account before they complete their order is just an additional stumbling block.
If you have several steps in your checkout process, show a progress indicator so the user knows exactly what steps they need to take. Include shipping prices which update automatically in the cart as the user adds more items or adjusts quantity.
We followed strategic steps listed and built on our website powered by Smart Restaurant, and we were extremely successful within first few weeks of implementation. Thanks Dev.
John Lovel
Main Chef, Surf City
- Free delivery can have a huge effect on conversions.
- Let customers know an approximate delivery time before they check out.
- Include tracking status and location information if possible.
- In your confirmation email, include information on how users can modify their order before it’s prepared.
- Including miniature thumbnail pictures in your shopping cart reduces the likelihood of shopping cart abandonment (probably because it makes products seem more tangible).
- Put your refunds/return policy or guarantee below your checkout button instead of on a separate page or on a customer service page. Can you recommend other products that would complement what the customer just ordered?
- Cross-selling can be highly effective before an order is fully placed.
- Summarize the benefits of your product or service as bullet points before you ask for the order.
- Offer bonus discounts at checkout. Offer free shipping or a percent-off discount to customers on their next purchase.
- Don’t require registration in order to buy. Some sites require users to complete a registration form in order to make a purchase. Be sure to offer a one-time, “express” checkout to minimize potential roadblocks.
- Have a link to your coupon or current promotion right on the landing page. Better yet, automatically fill in the “coupon code” at checkout if possible.
- Add the option for customers to read and leave reviews and ratings for products. Consider offering a coupon or a reward for completing the review.
- Customers don’t like unpleasant surprises. Don’t spring hidden fees, long contracts, or other extra issues on customers once they begin checking out.
- If you have a shopping cart feature on your site, include a link to it on the homepage. This allows users to immediately see what they’ve selected, without having to navigate through any product screens or go through checkout before they are ready to do so. This is especially important if your site saves shopping cart selections from prior visits.
- Put your order selection on the same page as your product, so that customers don’t have to click on another page to buy.
Shopping Cart Best Practices
Category: Marketing, Startup
Keyword Search: Shopping cart, Shopping Cart practices, best shopping cart practices
Target: Online sellers, Online businesses,
While browsing through websites and purchasing goods I noticed that some websites have lengthy shopping cart practices and some involve the least time. So, today we are going to talk about the best shopping cart practices.
Are you into an online business or are planning to launch one? In any situation, this article is worth reading. As it gives a sheer understanding of how to convert the user into the client. Yes, it is important to understand the details that prevent cart abandonment at large. Shopping cart open doors for-profit and takes your business to another level. But, a complex shopping cart can ruin your business. There are various shopping cart practices but we have brought you the best of them. Incorporate these practices while designing your shopping cart and be on the edge of achieving success all the time.
Keep Checkout Process Simple
Checkout confirms purchase order. Therefore, it is important to keep the process simple and short by asking for minimum information such as an address, Pincode, preferred time for delivery, and landmark for example. People prefer making an online purchase as it is easy to shop and pay, but a lengthy form, that asks for too much information can annoy the user resulting in cart abandonment. So, restrict the user from cart abandonment simply by:
- Designing a short and easy checkout process
- Ask for necessary information only
- Create an easy sign-up form
- Show real cost including taxes, VAT, shipping charges, and gift wrap charges if any.
Optimize Navigation
Navigation on-site helps the users all the time especially when they include items into the cart. Create less accurate navigation to guide the client till the payment is done. Remember, that logical navigation is beneficial for the website. Irrelevant navigation can disinterest the user and he/she can leave the site.
We suggest you have different numbers of navigation on each page and no page or option is left without navigation as it can make the user confused about what to do next.
Save for Later
Shopping carts must have this option because people are seen doing window shopping even online. Hence, they must have a basket to keep the items they wish to buy. Like many companies, you too can have a basket or a cart icon in the header that will show a pop-up whenever the user adds an item to the cart. For example, Amazon shows only the icon when nothing is added to the cart but starts displaying 1, 2 and so on the cart icon as soon as you add any item to the cart.
You can name this option as ‘Save for later’ or ‘Wishlist’. This will keep the user involved with your website as he/she can make a purchase of the added item later by clicking the buy now option in the cart.
Wide Payment Methods
The payment step must be user-friendly in the sense that you must have various payment options. Apart from credit cards and debit cards also include Paypal, Google Payments, Paytm, and Payumoney. These payment options give the users the flexibility to choose and pay according to/her convenience.
Show Accurate Prices
The shopping cart shows the actual price that the user is paying, hence, you must include all taxes, VAT, service charges, and shipping charges in the invoice with the item description. The user feels cheated when the actual payment price differs rather than increases from the price that has been shown with the item. This upset the client and he/she leave the website. The listing of hidden prices at the end leaves a bad impression on the user and is likely to make you lose huge business.
List Testimonials Below Items
Users look for trusted websites and testimonials or customer reviews as they are also known as best to be listed below the items. This helps in building the trust of the user that the website on which he/she makes a purchase is trustworthy and delivers what they show.
These six practices help you build a simple, user-friendly, and easy-to-use shopping cart. In the next blog, we will bring you more useful information that will bring more success to your business.
Statistic Trivia
- 68.7 % of the users don’t buy on their first visit to the website. It means only 1 out of 4 users make purchases on their first visit.
- 72% of the users aged between 24-35 years purchase items which they add to the cart under wishlist or save for later option in case they are offered discounts.
- Promote new offers on the website. As 23% of the users leave the website without noticing these offers. These unnoticed offers can make you suffer less than expected.
(Statistics reference:- http://www.designforfounders.com/shopping-cart-abandonment/)
