Checkout Payment Design Best Practices
Checkout Payment Design – Understand its Importance and the Best UX/UI Practices to make sure customer convert at checkout.
Making an ecommerce website is a relatively difficult process. There is a lot to think about, but all that effort will go to waste if no one buys anything. Your customers can be thrilled about your offer, prices and shipping method, but stop dead in their tracks if the checkout process is too complicated or doesn’t seem trustworthy.
A good checkout payment design is a must.
Ecommerce businesses represent a large portion of retail sales. Just take a look at these numbers. In 2017, the online market share was 10.5 %, while in 2020 this number rose to over 16%. E-commerce businesses are expanding quickly, with a high success rate, and are available to everyone . But this doesn’t mean that this kind of entrepreneurship is failsafe.
If you’re planning on starting such a business, there is a lot to be mindful about. One of the main issues for online retailers is the so-called “shopping cart abandonment” issue. The average rate at which buyers abandon their purchase is the whopping 68%. That means that 2 out of three purchases have never been finished.
There are many reasons for this. The most common ones are:
- Website is not optimized for smart devices
- Security concerns
- Few payment options
- Complicated registration process
- Hidden costs
- Confusing heck-out user interface
These are the issues we’re going to tackle in this article. All of them are easy to resolve with a well designed payment interface and customer service.
Compatibility
Nowadays it is not enough to have a beautifully designed website that works only for desktop and laptop machines. If your UI doesn’t work flawlessly with many different screen sizes, your customers might reconsider the purchase. A hard to find “Buy now” button is surely going to result in an abandoned shopping cart.
When designing a payment checkout screen, it’s important to think about several factors. First one is the screen sizes your users will be using – Android phones come in many shapes, but there are also tablets, notebooks and laptops that need to be taken into consideration.
The second one is different browsers and operating systems. The variations here are not as plentiful as in the previous paragraph, but are just as important. Make sure to find a developer experienced enough to cover all mentioned above. There are also pre-made platforms which offer e-commerce space for your store, if you don’t want to think about all of this yourself.
Security
Let your customers know which safety feature you’re offering. If you’re working with platforms that already gained consumers’ trust, like PayPal and Shopify, make sure to let your customers know.
Furthermore, if you’re offering an option to save payment details, make sure to provide real security and data privacy. Otherwise you might end up with bad reviews, and when it comes to security issues, this is a big deterrent for customers.
A good checkout UI should always use a customized keypad. There are two reasons for this:
- Avoid third-party apps collecting personal data, credit card numbers, passwords and shopping habits. You cannot stop your customers from using any given app on their phone, but you can make sure your interface is safe and secure.
- Including only the necessary keys. For example, some of the most successful e-commerces offer only letters for the name and address input, and only a number keypad for credit card and CSV fields. This way the customer has a much better, neat overview and larger touch fields.
Another good option for checkout payment design is to include biometric authentication for mobile devices, which gives an extra layer of security to the checkout process.
Payment options
Although many consumers still default to paying with a credit card, younger generations (which, by the way, constitute 73% of total online consumers), prefer to use ewallet payments. Hence, payment gateway integration is a must if you want to reduce shopping cart abandonment as much as possible. Every successful e-commerce website includes payment options for digital wallets such as PayPal, Skrill and other popular ewallet platforms.
Another important factor here is offering a “one click payment” option to your customers. If you provide the possibility to save the card details, the next purchase will be even simpler. Statistics show that shopping cart abandonment plummets in repeated purchases. There are no distractions, no need for additional input other than the CSV number, and the purchase is just one click away.
This method can be used for multiple payment methods. For example, you can create a user interface that offers a choice between payment gateways/credit cards that were already used by the customer. Make sure to keep this many minimalistic but comprehensible, so that the customer can see just enough info about every payment option to recognize which one they want to use.
Registration
Depending on the nature of your ecommerce, you might require the customers to sign up, but don’t stick to it as a rule. There is a special category of customers called “lurkers” who are by rule deterred by the registration process. Lurkers are potential customers who search for a specific product over the internet, usually with no interest in a specific store.
They need a product and they want it with as few obstacles as possible.A guest account for these consumers is a great way to get them into the first purchase. Offering membership discounts or email notifications about sales is always a good way of getting them to stay.
Cost transparency
There is nothing as unpleasant as making a purchase and then discovering that the amount drawn from your credit card is higher than the one you expected. This is a big factor when shopping online, especially if shipping prices or tax info was not shown initially.
This is why many ecommerce businesses include a confirmation screen before the purchase is finalized. This screen represents the summary of the order: amount of items, color/size, shipping cost, taxes/fees and a grand total. You can also include details about an estimated arrival date and the delivery company.
Some international online shops also offer different currencies, which can be a big plus if you plan on selling your goods overseas. People tend to feel more comfortable about online purchases when they see a familiar currency, and this is not a big issue for implementation.
A user-friendly checkout interface
First of all, psychology 101 tells us that people trust things they are already familiar with. This is especially true when it comes to giving up money, so don’t experiment with exotic designs. Both iOS and Android platforms have guidelines for UIs, and you should follow them. Offer your customers a minimalistic, but familiar interface they know how to navigate through.
Speed is your priority
Lengthy checkouts are your number one enemy. Certain info is required, of course, but a lot of usual data can be trimmed or even removed. These are checkout payment design tips to make the process as smooth as possible:
- Don’t ask for the credit card type. There is no need for this, since the first 6 digits will tell you this. You can always add a small icon in the card number field, indicating which type the customer is using.
- If you’re dealing with customers from the US ask for the ZIP code if necessary, but reduce data input by using an API to pull city and state info.
- Mobile apps can use the camera to make a photo of the card, and fill in the necessary data using character recognition.
- Ask for the billing and shipping address during the first purchase, and set it as default. The customer should have an easily accessible way of changing these, but shouldn’t be asked about them every time. Same goes for the default payment method.
- Do not ask for any info twice.
Make the checkout steps intuitive
Step-by-step checkout interface is reassuring to the customers and makes the whole purchase very transparent. Letting your buyers see everything in detail before finalizing the purchase will spare you a lot of headaches, returns and complaints.
For example, good checkout routine looks something like this:
- screen: list of purchased items. Quantities, types, size/color, price per piece and sum;
- screen: billing info, one-click payment option and card/ewallet options;
- screen: passwords and verification for payment options, if needed;
- screen: the summary of purchased items, grand total including fees/taxes and shipping cost and info about the chosen payment method;
- screen: finalizing the purchase.
Additionally, check mark splash screens in between dialogs are a nice way of communicating with your customers. They know that the step is done and registered by the seller.
Interaction with the customer
The shopping experience shouldn’t be an interrogation process, but communication is essential. It’s important to make this dialog unambiguous, intuitive and concise. Using phrases like “OK”, “GO”, “DONE” can bring confusion. It’s always better to use phrases that are directly related to the immediate action.
For example, “NEXT STEP” on a button in the bottom of each checkout screen is very clear. “FINALIZE PURCHASE” is clearly saying that the process is finished. Try to think like a customer, and remember what annoys you during online shopping. A little effort goes a long way, especially when it comes to your balance.
