Is your checkout set for 2023?

What is checkout optimization?

If we were to sum up checkout optimization in a few words, it would be removing friction from the customer experience. Every single click, scroll, form field or instruction is a potential roadblock where a customer might choose to abandon the cart. You’ve got to create an intentional experience.

The ultimate goal of checkout optimization is to improve ecommerce conversion rates. To achieve this, you need to minimize distractions and take care of common issues that lead to cart abandonment. These include surprise fees (such as the cost of shipping), being forced to create an account to checkout, a slow checkout process, and more.

Has much changed with checkout optimization?

One thing we encourage all ecommerce merchants to consider is that checkout optimization isn’t something you do once. If you want to ensure your shopping experience remains optimized, you need to keep up with changes and updates.

As technology has evolved, so have the realms of what is possible for checkout optimization. It may be small things at a time, but those factors can all add up to a big deal for the overall customer experience.

We can speak from the perspective of CheckoutWC and some of the changes that have been implemented in just the last year, including:

     – Local pick-up options. This has been a huge area of demand since the pandemic and if it makes sense for your business, may be an important feature to have.

     –  Simplified options to edit the cart on mobile screens, including removing items from the cart.

     –  Order bumps. A simple way to upsell or cross-sell in the cart.

     –  Displaying trust badges horizontally in the checkout.

     –  Side carts. This is where the sidebar is replaced with an eye-catching cart that appears on the page when customers add products.

Principles of checkout optimization

Based on what customers say causes them to abandon the cart, there are some basic principles that hold true for checkout optimization. We suggest that merchants always prioritize these aspects, while including updated checkout technology where possible.

Those basics include:

Avoid surprising customers with extra costs

“Extra costs were too high” is the number one reason given for cart abandonment according to Baymard Institute studies. 48% of shoppers have abandoned the cart for this reason.

Those extra costs include things like shipping, taxes, and fees. People hate arriving at the cart unaware of what those costs will be. In fact, 75% of shoppers globally are influenced by free shipping as a factor in their purchase decision. Ecommerce giants such as Amazon have conditioned people to expect free shipping, so expectations of ecommerce stores are high.

Do you have to always offer free shipping? Not necessarily, but it definitely helps. You can find ways around it such as stating “free shipping on orders over $40.” This can help you to increase your average order values too, as people often add something extra to meet the minimum for free shipping.

It’s also worth noting that you can find other ways to set your business apart, even if you do need to charge for shipping. 80% of customers say they’re willing to pay more for better service, which can be your opportunity to stand out.

The bottom line is, whatever you need to charge for the products you sell, keep all costs transparent and upfront. If you always charge for shipping, look into whether a flat rate will work. If customers see “$9.99 shipping on all orders,” at least they know before they get to the cart. It may even encourage them to order more items to make it worthwhile.

Allow guest checkout

The second-biggest reason customers give for abandoning the cart is that they were forced to sign in or create an account in order to checkout. This is a simple one – don’t do it. Always offer guest checkout so that customers without accounts don’t have that roadblock before they can check out.

What if your goal is to have more customers with accounts so you can continue to send them offers? Have an option to create an account after checkout. The first-time shopper has at this point already entered key details such as their name and email address, so offer a simple option to create an account using the details they’ve entered.

Clean up your checkout process

Customers hate it when the checkout process is too long or overly complicated. One mistake that many ecommerce stores still make is to ask for too much. You need a certain amount of information in order to be able to process a sale, but do you really need details such as the customer’s date of birth, or a survey about their product interests?

Cut back form fields to the absolute basics and use autofill options where possible. For example, have the customer start to type their address, then get autofill suggestions based on their location.

It’s also a good idea to show the customer where they’re at in the checkout process. This helps to reassure them that they’re almost done, and not on page one of twenty!

Give options for payment and shipping

“Shipping was too slow” and “they didn’t offer my preferred payment option” are also reasons customers give for cart abandonment. While you can’t always help issues that crop up with shipping suppliers, you can offer customers options to pay for expedited shipping, just in case they really need a product quickly.

On the payment side, at least offering a selection of the common popular options is a good idea. These might include:

     –  Debit and credit cards.

     –  Shopping apps like ShopPay and PayPal.

     –  Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Venmo.

     –  Buy now, pay later options such as Affirm or Afterpay.

Display reasons to trust you

When a customer who has never shopped with you before arrives on your website, they’re looking for why they should trust you. “I didn’t trust the website with my credit card information” is the fourth most common reason given for cart abandonment.

Display trust badges such as certifications and secure checkout badges in the checkout. They help to give your brand legitimacy and communicate the message that customers can trust you.

Final thoughts

Checkout optimization is an essential part of owning an ecommerce store. That is, if you want to maximize your chances of getting customers to buy!

Your goal should be to minimize potential friction in the checkout process so that you encourage more customers to follow through to the end.

CheckoutWC is here to help WooCommerce merchants. Our optimized checkout for WooCommerce smooths the process for customers and helps to boost your conversion rates. Check us out here.

The post What Does Checkout Optimization Mean in 2023? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Considering that 88% of customers are unlikely to return to a site with a poor user experience and businesses lose 35% of sales due to bad UX, your user experience could be costing you money.

In the highly competitive ecommerce scene, it’s easy enough for customers to take their business elsewhere, so what can you do about it? We’re looking at how ecommerce sites can improve the user experience and keep more customers:

What is UX?

UX refers to the “user experience.” When you optimize your website for UX, you’re attempting to get inside the minds of your typical customers and create an ecommerce experience that is simple, logical, and enjoyable for them.

This starts by anticipating shopper needs at every step on your website. Every little interaction goes into the bigger picture that makes up your overall UX. This leaves a lot to consider, from website loading time, to navigation, to the accessibility of your store functions.

UX is an ever-evolving process. As technology has shifted, so have definitions of what constitutes optimal UX. For example, recent trends include AI integrations and voice assistants. Even if you opt for simpler technology, if you haven’t updated your website in a few years, there’s a good chance that there’s more you could be doing for UX.

Why improve your ecommerce user experience?

There are several good reasons why you should look at improving your user experience, including:

• Building more credibility with customers. Sites that offer good UX tend to be seen as more trustworthy and professional.
• Making things easy for your customers. People don’t tend to hang around trying to figure out websites that they find difficult. Removing barriers helps to keep customers on your site.
• Improve retention and loyalty among your customers. Loyal customers tend to refer new customers to your business.
• Expanding your market reach by ensuring mobile users can easily access and use the features of your website.

Prioritize your #userexperience to help build trust and credibility with your customers
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Key attributes of optimized UX

What exactly are ecommerce customers looking for? What kind of site will provide them with a great user experience? Here are some typical areas where you should focus your attention:

1. Website and page load speeds. For more than 70% of customers, page load speeds impact their willingness to buy from online retailers. Various studies have shown that ideal load speeds are between zero and four seconds, with ecommerce sites that load in zero to two seconds enjoying the highest conversion rates.
2. Offer a seamless experience. This covers a lot of ground, but essentially, the steps the customer needs to take should be logical and easy to understand. Navigating your site should be simple, and it should always be clear what their next step is.
3. Keep your website up-to-date. This includes aspects such as design, function, and content. Many features have been updated or improved over the last few years, especially with regard to delivering a good experience on mobile devices.
4. Answer common customer questions upfront. Customers need to trust an ecommerce business before they’ll make a purchase, so providing easy access to FAQs such as product information, return policy, and any warranty information is important.

4 Ways to improve UX on WooCommerce

Here at CheckoutWC, optimal WooCommerce websites are our specialty, so we’re honing in on UX tips for WooCommerce. However, these still hold true as general principles for other types of websites too:

#1. Speed up page load times

A great place to start is to know what your load times are. A tool such as Google Pagespeed Insights can help you to identify pages that could be improved.

There are several elements that can contribute to poor load speeds, including media elements that are data-intensive, your web hosting, and the coding of your theme and any plugins you use. With that in mind, here is a quick checklist to help:

1. Always use high-quality hosting. Your provider should specialize in hosting WordPress websites as this means they will know the technological specifications required for optimal performance. This also means you should be able to get expert help if you need it. Your host should also provide you with enough bandwidth to suit your needs. Low-quality hosting often tries to crowd too many websites onto the same server, slowing sites down when there are traffic fluctuations. Like many things, the general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for.
2. Use a cache plugin. Caching helps to reduce the amount of data being sent between the user’s browser, the database, and the server so that future requests for that data are served to the user faster from a stored copy. Some examples of WordPress plugins for this include W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket.
3. Compress your images. One cause of slow speeds can be large images that take too long to render properly on the user’s screen. In fact, they can make up 50% of a page’s load time. You can either take care of this manually by only uploading images that you’ve already compressed in file size, or you can use an image compression plugin such as WP Smush.
4. Use a content delivery network (CDN). These are best described as a framework of distributed servers that each store your website. When a customer visits your website from a location near one of those servers, the content doesn’t have as far to travel, prompting a faster loading time. Some well-known CDN services include Cloudflare and Sucuri.

#2. Prioritize site functionality

Flashy design does not always equal a good UX. In fact, there are many examples out there of design that looks good on-screen, but is a pain for customers to navigate.

WooCommerce gives you a lot of design flexibility, which is one reason so many ecommerce stores choose it. However, that also means it’s entirely up to you to make good choices in terms of your navigation and functionality.

For example, you should use clear language and obvious menus. This means shoppers should understand exactly what sorts of products are in a category and how to quickly navigate to where they need to be. WooCommerce provides some tips here for improving your navigation.

#3. Optimize the checkout experience

Shopping cart abandonment continues to be a big issue for ecommerce retailers and the cart is a key area to optimize to help prevent this.

You shouldn’t use WooCommerce’s default cart settings. There are many reasons why these settings aren’t optimal, including that they can lead to a confusing experience. Shoppers give a variety of experience-related reasons for abandoning the cart, including that the checkout process was too complicated, or delivery was too slow.

The solution for WooCommerce sites is to use a cart and checkout page that has already been optimized for UX. CheckoutWC is an option to look into.

#4. Offer convenient help

If customers have questions, that’s a key moment where you could lose them. Most people want answers fast – 52% expect customer service responses in under an hour . On top of that, 83% factor in customer service quality when making a decision to buy.

You might not have 24/7 customer service available, but you can offer convenient options for customers to get help. Self-service options such as a knowledge base offering FAQs are one way to help customers. There are several WordPress plugins for creating a knowledge base, such as Heroic KB Plugin or BetterDocs.

Another suggestion is to offer chat options, which have become increasingly popular. Chat can be offered with a combination of live chat and AI options. Again, you’ll need a plugin and there are several options to integrate with WooCommerce. LiveChat and Zendesk Chat are two of those options.

Conclusion

Your ecommerce user experience should be a priority to optimize. The bottom line is customers don’t hang around for a poor experience and improving UX can improve revenue.

Your user experience tells a story about your brand. It can either attract or repel customers, improve or reduce their trust in you. Your choices matter for the overall success of your store.

Lastly, UX should be an ongoing process, not a one-off project. As technology changes over time, so do the features and functions available to smooth the customer experience. Stay on top of your website, and hopefully you’ll avoid having to do a major overhaul.

The post 4 Ways to Improve Your Ecommerce User Experience appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Your conversion rates are a vital metric for your store. The conversion rate measures the number of people who took the desired action (like making a purchase) out of the total number of visitors. Boosting those conversion rates means a more successful store.

The question is, how can you improve conversions in the highly competitive world of ecommerce?

The answer is where CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) comes in. We’ve put together a quick guide for WooCommerce store owners with some practical tips for improving conversions.

What is CRO?

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, means applying strategies designed to optimize the customer experience of your website and drive more people to convert. You can take several possible actions, from small changes to your copy to extensive website redesigns.

The end goal of CRO is to make your website and its functions more compelling to customers. You want to entice them to stick around and take your desired action, such as buying products, filling out a form, signing up for your email list, etc.

Why CRO Matters

CRO matters because it can genuinely be a game-changer for your overall results. Every part of your website has a job; if it’s not doing that job well, it’s probably costing you conversions.

To give a typical example, let’s say the customer adds products to the shopping cart, but as they go through your checkout process, they find the layout confusing or don’t understand why so many form fields are required. The default WooCommerce checkout has some issues that make it less-than-optimal, including confusing features. This confusion can lead to cart abandonment and no conversion for your store. Worse, the customer may decide to shop with a competitor instead, perhaps one with a better website experience.

CRO matters because it directly impacts revenue, so it’s worth monitoring and taking steps to improve.

Strategies for CRO on WooCommerce

Let’s look at some basic techniques for discovering CRO opportunities for your WooCommerce website.

Know Where You Need to Improve

There are so many potential strategies you can implement, so it’s important to understand where to start. One of the best ways to do this is to measure the impacts of different website functions and find where you could improve.

On ecommerce sites, you can look at your sales funnel, as it’s often helpful to divide your strategy into stages. The makeup of the funnel looks slightly different depending on who you follow. Still, most have some version with steps starting at awareness and moving through to conversion or loyalty (repeat customers). You can see this illustrated in the example from Drip below.

Source: Drip

How will you find this data? Google Analytics or another similar analytics package will help you to pinpoint areas you can improve.

Optimize These Key Areas

Some key areas of importance are common among WooCommerce websites.

1. The home page – This is generally the highest traffic page on any website. An ecommerce homepage MUST entice shoppers to keep browsing. It should include straightforward navigation and menus, as well as attractive imagery. A practical search function can also be helpful for customers.
2. Product pages – You should optimize your product pages with clear descriptions, so potential buyers aren’t confused. SEO keywords can be a beneficial optimization, while high-quality product imagery also helps. Some other optimizations might include things like product reviews or product suggestions.
3. Landing pages – A good landing page should have one very targeted goal. You should set it up to drive visitors to that goal without distractions. Effective landing pages minimize navigation options and include all important information up-front.
4. Checkout – The checkout page is a common area for losing customers. An optimized checkout aims to make the customer’s process as smooth and simple as possible. Fix the common roadblocks like excessive form fields or a confusing order of operations. Optimizing the checkout should be a priority. You can invest a lot of time and energy into optimizing every other area of your website, but that’s wasted if customers find a poor checkout experience.
5. About page – The about page is often the second-most commonly visited page on a website. When people shop online, they want to know to whom they’re giving their business. They want to know they can trust the company and its expertise.

Examine the Whole Customer Journey

The customer journey refers to the steps a person typically takes with your business, from discovery to purchase and all the interactions between those steps. Some of that journey will usually happen outside your website, for example, if they email customer service or make a phone call. The diagram below is an example from Delighted:

The point is that part of CRO should examine the steps that happen off your website, too. While the above example shows a bricks and mortar retail store, functions such as email responses or other customer service actions are very relevant to ecommerce. For instance, if your goal is repeat business, look at the customer’s experience. Strategies such as email automations may come into play.

WooCommerce owners: Examine CRO across your entire customer journey for a practical approach.
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Recover Abandoned Carts

While cart abandonment is common, the good news is that you can save at least some with the right abandoned cart recovery strategy. This optimization is one all ecommerce stores should have as it’s often “low-hanging fruit.” You already know the customer is interested in your products, so a nudge may be all they need to return.

Abandoned cart sequences are typically emails (or even text messages) designed to draw the customer back. They may involve an incentive or highlight the product’s benefits so well that the customer just has to have it.

WooCommerce Tools for CRO

Here are some top tools for enabling CRO on your WooCommerce website:

WooCommerce Google Analytics

You have to know your key metrics and which areas of your sales funnel are underperforming to understand where to start with CRO. WooCommerce Google Analytics is the extension to help you measure your data and understand your customers better.

CheckoutWC

That’s us! Optimizing the WooCommerce checkout is what we do. CheckoutWC removes the pain points associated with the default checkout and presents your customers with a simple, easy checkout flow. Take a look at features like order bumps to help boost average order values, express checkout options, and a built-in side cart.

WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart

An automated abandoned cart recovery sequence is a must for optimized ecommerce sites. This extension for WooCommerce will send emails to members or guests who abandon the checkout. It includes several templates store owners can select.

WooCommerce 360 Degree Image

If your product pages need extra optimization help, images are crucial to consider. WooCommerce 360 Degree Image adds a dynamic, 360-degree rotating product image so customers can look from all angles.

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Every ecommerce store should include customer reviews. They remain a hugely influential factor in customer buying decisions and help lend trust and legitimacy to your ecommerce business. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce is one option among the extensions to add review functionality to your store.

FOMO for WooCommerce

Generating FOMO (fear of missing out) is an excellent way to optimize any ecommerce store. People hate missing out! This extension automatically displays recent purchases so customers can see which products are flying out of the door.

WooCommerce Product Search

We mentioned that a good-quality search function is an important optimization. Customers use them and expect to get reliable results. WooCommerce Product Search is an extension, meaning you can add that search functionality.

Conclusion

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, is a must for every WooCommerce store. Conversions keep you in business, so strategies to improve your chances should be part of your ongoing business maintenance.

Use data so that you understand where you need to prioritize optimizations. You can use many possible strategies, so it’s essential first to find the most critical areas.

Finally, WooCommerce has loads of tools and extensions that can help on your CRO journey. We’ve mentioned a few here which can help to get you started.

The post What is CRO? A Quick Guide for WooCommerce Stores appeared first on CheckoutWC.

There are many ideas, from customer loyalty programs to optimizing the checkout process. Among the list of potential tactics, product bundling is worth checking out if you haven’t already.

WooCommerce has options to facilitate product bundling, making it easier for you to set this up as a revenue-generating option. Here’s what you need to know about product bundling:

What is product bundling?

Product bundling is when you package complementary products together, enabling them to be sold as a bundle. These bundles may include upsells or cross-sells, with upsells being an upgrade to the product they chose, and cross-sells being items that can go with the product (such as spare brush heads for an electric toothbrush).

Product bundles can also be a few products that are otherwise sold separately, called “mixed bundling.” For example, you’ll often see skincare companies offer complementary products in a bundle that they otherwise sell individually.

Pure bundling is when the products are sold exclusively in that particular bundle. You’ll often see this with gift sets around the holidays. The same skincare bundle may be offered in a gift box, along with accessories such as face pads or headbands. Those accessories are not available for individual purchase.

Pricing

Product bundles may be offered at a discount as compared to buying each item individually. For example, three items that individually retail for $20 may be bundled together for $50. There’s often some sort of added value for purchasing the bundle, such as the cheaper price for all items, or added products within the bundle.

Bundle pricing can also entice customers to spend more than they otherwise would have due to the perceived value they’re getting from the bundle. A customer may have come to the website expecting to spend $20 on one product, but decided that the bundle deal was too good to pass up.

Interestingly, when Carnegie Mellon studied the psychology behind bundling, they found that doing so can reduce the “pain of buying” for consumers. When items are bundled, buyers tend to not judge individual items by a specific price and perceive value in the bundled price. Some retailers have found that they can increase revenue by selling bundles, even if the bundle price is the same as the total price of each individual item. It’s all about perceived value and reducing that pain of buying.

Why use product bundling?

There are a few great reasons to use product bundling as a sales strategy for your WooCommerce store:

Increase your revenue

Product bundling has been found to help boost revenue in multiple studies. Why? it comes back to that perceived value. Consumers like bundles because they feel they’re getting more value from the packaged products. For retailers, this can also mean an increase in average order value once you start offering bundles, as customers buy more than they originally intended.

Help reduce surplus stock

Do you have certain products that are either slow sellers, or in excess supply in your inventory? Product bundling can be a great way to reduce surplus inventory by bundling those slow-moving products with other, more popular products.

Enhance the customer experience

Product bundling can enhance the customer experience by helping them find products that are grouped with their needs in mind. This makes the shopping experience simpler and less overwhelming for them. A quick, easy shopping experience can also be a good reason for them to come back and make another purchase later.

Boost awareness for other products

Product bundling can provide an opportunity for you to boost awareness for other products that you sell. For example, you’ll see cosmetics brands bundle “travel-sized” products in with full-sized products. This helps to boost consumer awareness of the products they received in travel-sized form, possibly encouraging them to buy a full-sized version of that product next time.

Besides that, the bundle gives the customer the opportunity to try more items at once and discover new products that they may love. This can help to increase their loyalty toward your brand and the likelihood that they’ll come back to make more purchases.

Product bundling can help to boost revenue for your ecommerce store, especially when customers perceive better value
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Tips for successful product bundling

How can you use product bundling successfully? Here are a few tips:

1. Gather data on your customer purchase patterns. Look at what products people already buy, as this is a great place to start with putting bundles together.
2. A/B test your bundle combinations. Run some experiments with different bundles to see which get the best results.
3. Try custom bundling if this makes sense for your products. For example, a store that sells razors might allow the customer to select a shaving cream or shaving bar of their choice to bundle with the razor. This can help to boost perceived value, as well as average order value because customers can have their preference as part of the bundle.
4. Give your product bundle a name. A good way to do this is by drawing attention to a key benefit it provides the customer, enticing them to take a closer look. For example, a make-up bundle might be “glam night out.”
5. If your bundle offers a discount, display this prominently. People tend to go for “bundle and save” options, so make sure you highlight this benefit.
6. Offer bundles at checkout. Bundles can be a logical upsell offer. You’ll see this frequently on Amazon where they’ll recommend products that people often buy with the one you’ve selected, then show a “price for all three items.”
7. Market bundles around the holidays. Bundled products can be an easy gift idea for shoppers.

Setting up product bundling with WooCommerce

Here are some options for setting up product bundling with WooCommerce:

Order bumps

CheckoutWC offers an optimized shopping cart for WooCommerce. One feature that helps merchants with bundling is Order Bumps. These are essentially an upsell, where the customer is offered an add-on in the shopping cart, but can be a great way to offer a bundle, too.

Product bundling plug-ins

Another option is to download a product bundling plug-in for WooCommerce. Here are some examples:

• WooCommerce Bundled Products
• WPC Product Bundles for WooCommerce
• WISDM Custom Product Bundles
• YITH WooCommerce Product Bundles

WooCommerce’s built-in feature

You can also use WooCommerce’s built-in product adding feature to create a bundle. The steps are shown here:

1. Go to Products > Add New, then create a name and description for your bundle.
2. In the Product Data box select “Grouped product.”
3. In the Grouped products field, type in the names of products you’d like to add to your bundle. As long as these exist as individual products in your store already, they’ll come up as suggestions to add.
4. Upload bundle images and select a category for your bundle. (You might just choose a “bundles” category).

Conclusion

Product bundling can be an excellent strategy for improving revenue for your WooCommerce store. It helps to increase average order value and boost the perceived value of your products to the customer.

Bundling can also be a great way to introduce customers to new products and help move slow inventory for your store. It’s worth spending time experimenting with bundling and looking at data to see which approach is the most successful. Product bundling can help you to drive more sales and get customers coming back for more.

The post Product Bundling on WooCommerce: A Quick Guide appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Setting and measuring key KPIs for ecommerce is a critical step for your success. In WooCommerce, there are various analytical tools you can use to gather data and measure against your goals.

The question is, which KPIs are useful for ecommerce stores to measure? We’re looking at some of the most important KPIs here:

KPIs for Ecommerce stores

We’ll start by saying that not all KPIs are for every ecommerce store. It’s important to choose the right KPIs based upon the stage of your business and your goals. Your KPIs should be easily measured and should overall make sense for your business.

Here are some of the top KPIs for ecommerce stores to track:

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is consistently chosen as one of the top KPIs that all ecommerce stores should be concerned with. It is calculated by dividing the number of visitors who make a purchase on your website by the total number of visitors, expressed as a percentage.

Other than purchases, conversion rate might also refer to visitors who take another desired action, for example signing up or creating an account. An increase in conversion rate will typically cause you to see improvements in your other KPIs, such as reduced cart abandonment rate.

What impacts conversion rate? A long list of factors that all contribute to the customer experience. For example:

• Your perceived value.
• The quality of your products.
• Your brand persona.
• The user experience of your website.
• Your pricing.
• The perceived trustworthiness of your business.

If you want to improve your conversion rates, it can be a process to figure out what makes an impact. One thing you can do is track month-on-month or year-on-year trends so that you can try to pinpoint the source of any conversion rate changes. You can also take an educated guess sometimes and test out different changes to see if they work. For example, does making one or two changes to optimize your checkout lead to more conversions?

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value is another ecommerce KPI that consistently rates among the top metrics to monitor. It refers to the average revenue a customer generates with your company across their relationship with you.

Why is customer lifetime value important? The most successful ecommerce businesses focus on building long-term relationships with customers. You want customers who keep coming back for more as it costs you less to get repeat customers than to continue marketing for new customers.

Brands that focus on customer lifetime value tend to put more effort into improving their customer’s experiences with the company so that they’re more likely to come back for more. Factors that impact customer lifetime value include things like your product quality, your customer service, your customer engagement, your dependability, and the overall customer experience.

Strategies for improving customer lifetime value include things like:

• Having a consistent marketing program.
• Listening to feedback and delivering the products/services your customers want.
• Taking any necessary steps to improve the customer experience.
• Having excellent, reliable customer service.

Customer retention rate

Customer retention rate refers to the number of customers who stay with a business over a period of time as a percentage of the total number of customers over that period. It tends to be closely related to customer lifetime value in that higher retention rates typically lead to higher customer lifetime value.

The formula used to calculate customer retention rate is: CRR = ((E-N)/S)x100

S is the number of customers you had at the start of the period, E is the number you had at the end, and N is the number of customers acquired during the period you are measuring.

It’s important for ecommerce store owners to understand what drives their customers to stay and what pushes them to leave. CRR is impacted by many factors, just like customer lifetime value. Doing your best to offer a great overall customer experience can help, including things like timely messaging and delivering good quality products.

Cart abandonment rate

Cart abandonment rate is a consistent pain for ecommerce store owners. It refers to the number of customers who don’t complete the checkout as compared to the total that added items to the cart.

Even a small improvement in cart abandonment rates can lead to a significant revenue increase for ecommerce merchants. An overarching cause of high abandonment rates is a checkout process that isn’t optimized, which can be caused by any number of factors. Some of these include forced account creation, confusing layouts, surprise costs in the cart, lack of trust factors, and too many distractions in the process.

Optimizing your checkout is an important step for improving cart abandonment rates. Here at CheckoutWC, we offer an optimized WooCommerce checkout to take care of some of the issues that exist in the standard WooCommerce checkout. You should see your cart abandonment rates improve as you optimize any roadblocks within the checkout process.

Cart abandonment rate is a key ecommerce metric which can be improved with an optimized checkout process
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Average order value

Your average order value refers to the average amount of money a customer spends per transaction. It’s an important measure in ecommerce because it provides an indicator of how well you capitalize on opportunities to cross-sell or upsell products.

In fact, increasing your average order value can be a very efficient way to increase your overall ecommerce revenue. Even just a few dollars more per transaction can make a huge difference to the bottom line.

Average order value is impacted by things like whether you sell big ticket items versus lower cost items. There are some types of business where you don’t expect to add much in the way of cross-sells or upsells because the purchase is “big ticket.”

Other factors impacting average order value include things like whether or not you present customers with opportunities to upgrade or purchase suggested cross-sell products. Using tools such as Products Suggestions for WooCommerce can help you to boost the number of cross-sells or upsells that you get.

Net profit

Your net profit is your actual profit after the associated expenses of running your business have been taken out. It’s vital to track because you’ll quickly be out of business if you’re not turning a profit!

Net profit is impacted by your business expenses, your product pricing, and your total value of sales. For example, if you have high business expenses your net profit will be lower. If your products aren’t priced to account properly for business expenses, your net profit will be lower. Low sales values? Low net profit.

Improving net profit is a function of finding the right balance between business expenses and product pricing, along with boosting your total value of sales. For sales, you will likely want a mix of higher average order values and higher overall sales numbers.

Return on marketing investment

How much do you spend on marketing? It’s important to look at this holistically because “marketing” can be made up of a number of tasks that have a cost to your business. For example:

• Paid advertising. That’s the easy one to figure out because you can quickly see how much you’ve spent for any paid ads.
• The time spent on campaigns (even if the campaign itself doesn’t cost money). For example, if you have a person who writes and sends out emails, their time is an expense.
• The tools you use for marketing. If you pay a fee for your email platform, that’s one example that should go into your marketing expenses.

To calculate your return on marketing investment, you need an accurate estimate of how much you’ve spent. Here’s how HubSpot calculates return on marketing investment:

[((number of leads x lead-to-customer rate x average sales price) – cost or ad spend) ÷ cost or ad spend] x 100.

• Number of leads: The number of people converted to a lead (e.g. people who entered your website from an ad)
• Lead-to-customer rate: The percentage of leads that became a customer.
• Average sales price: You could also use average order value in ecommerce.
• Cost or ad spend: Your total spend on marketing, including creating promotions.

A number of factors can impact any of those items in the formula. For example, if your website isn’t optimized to provide a good customer experience, you’ll likely have a low lead-to-customer rate.

Time on site

Time on site is an indicator of the level of interest people have in your products, services or content. Higher time spent on site is a good indicator that you’re providing people with the types of content that they’re looking for. This can typically lead to more sales.

Time on site tends to improve when you give people more reasons to stay and browse. For example, by improving your product assortment or providing more valuable content for people to browse. If you sell pet care products and they’re taking the time to read your guide on how to care for pet pigs, there’s a good chance they’ll remember you and at least come back to make a purchase later, if not right away.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who click away from a website after viewing just one page. It can be helpful to note any page-specific data on bounce rate as you might have one or two problem pages and others that perform better.

For pages with a high bounce rate, examine them carefully to try and figure out why people are leaving so quickly. Does the page not give them the information they’re looking for? Do you not have enough high quality product images? Is the page itself not user friendly in some way (such as slow load speed)?

Your aim should be to drive longer times spent on your website as this helps people to get more familiar with your company.

Conclusion

The nine KPIs mentioned above are some of the most helpful for ecommerce stores to stay on top of if you want to improve sales. If we were to add one more, it would be customer satisfaction, although you need to be careful about how you will measure this objectively.

Finally, if you have higher cart abandonment rates than you’d like or lower conversions, look into how you can optimize your checkout process. For WooCommerce store owners, CheckoutWC is here to provide a streamlined checkout process out-of-the-box. Sign up for your 7 day free trial here.

The post Key KPIs for Your Ecommerce Store appeared first on CheckoutWC.

With all the automation and data available in eCommerce transactions, it’s easy to forget there is a psychological transaction happening as well. We have data showing what people do and don’t like about online shopping. Artificial Intelligence is enabling greater personalization for shoppers than ever before. Read on for tips about how understanding the consumer’s mindset and behaviors can be a robust strategic foundation to reduce cart abandonment and increase re-engagement and sales.

The Customer Point of View

eCommerce sellers might think clicking away from a cart in large numbers is a peculiar habit unique to online shoppers. It isn’t. Since people began trading shells for furs, consumers have balanced psychological considerations based on status, comparison, object utility, and price.

Imagine you are working in a brick-and-mortar department store fitting room during a busy holiday season. Shoppers show up with loads of clothes in their cart; they try a few on and leave the rest on the floor in the fitting room.

You could say shoppers in that situation “abandon” a large percentage of their original selection to settle on a much smaller purchase if they buy at all.

This illustrates the “lookie-loo” psychological aspect of the eCommerce buyer’s journey. The Baymard Institute found that “just-looking” was one of the top reasons for cart abandonment for 58% of US shoppers.

What makes it even more interesting is that for some sectors, people don’t have any intention of buying at all.

Statista shows the abandonment rate is highest – 80-89% – for fantasy shopping carts that browsers fill with the auto, vacation, and luxury wardrobe of their dreams.

For expensive items, like plane tickets, hotels, or high ticket retail, comparison shoppers may create several carts across websites to hold the best price until they make a decision.

Carts filled with practical items such as groceries, consumer electronics, and pharmaceuticals have lower abandonment rates of 61 – 70%.

Create a Strategy

Stepping back to consider the customer journey shows us several possible conversions before the sale. Creating a cart abandonment strategy funnel will include a series of conversions tied to interest, establishing trust, and tracking customer behavior on the website for retargeting.

A dashboard for managing different carts in different stages is essential for tracking results.
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Check out Abandoned Cart Recovery from Woocommerce as an option. It includes functionalities to make it easy to implement and track many of the tips below.

Key Components of Cart Abandonment Strategy

Online commerce requires a tricky balance: customers don’t want a complicated checkout but don’t always want to sign in, and first-time buyers are still building trust. Below are several best practices to help your customer navigate their buyer’s journey with you.

Cart Abandonment Prevention Tips

Optimize the Mobile Experience

Let’s say your website visitor is one of the 69% of consumers who used their mobile device to pay for a purchase in 2021. They may want to switch to their phone or tablet to complete the purchase. Consumers now expect a seamless experience across devices.

Mobile purchases are becoming more and more common. In 2020 approximately 30% of US Smartphone users paid for a purchase with their phone. By 2023, Emarketer reports this number will increase to 33.6% of all smartphone users in the United States.

Build Trust

Reassure buyers that your site is secure with McAfee, Norton trustee, or BBB accredited verification.

Eliminate Friction at Checkout

21% of survey respondents abandoned carts because of issues with the checkout process. Be sure your interface is simple and transparent.

Offer guest checkout, but be sure to ask for their email address early in the process.

Depending on your product, you already know a high percentage are just looking. Make it easy for them to convert to a buyer when ready with a Save for Later option.

Also, remember to make it easy for them to pay you. Accepting multiple forms of payment is a necessity for larger sites. Some smaller sellers are broadening beyond just one payment vendor as well.

Finally, be mindful of shipping costs. People don’t like to pay for shipping. In 2018, high shipping costs were the number one reason for cart abandonment. Simplify shipping or offer free shipping.

Manage Coupon Strategy

People really like coupons, and they really don’t like it when they don’t work. In fact, Statista reports that a coupon that doesn’t work is the second most common reason for cart abandonment. Manage your coupon strategy to decrease the chances your buyer will try to use an outdated coupon.

Don’t Ask Me Twice

Statistics show that people don’t like re-entering their information. Use that insight to encourage them to create an account so they won’t have to type in their information multiple times.

You can also encourage them to sign in using a social account such as Facebook. This also helps make retargeting easier, as you’ll see in an upcoming section.

Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

Consider using AI-enhanced tools to help predict when a person is likely to leave the cart. This can allow you to use popups to catch them before they leave to remind them of what’s in the cart or ask them to sign in (give you their email address) to save their cart.

AI tools can also point out if there is a leak in the sales funnel leading to higher cart abandonment rates. Then sellers can take steps to keep the customers in the funnel and increase checkout conversions.

Finally, AI tools enable personalized offers on the cart page for incentive to finish or upsell in the funnel.Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Inviting Them to Return: Email Marketing

With average abandonment rates as high as they are, getting an email address from visitors should be a primary conversion goal because it provides a way to contact them later.

One common way to collect email addresses is with a popup. The popup can be shown based on time on-site or even visitor actions, for example, if they are about to click away.

Email is also another area where AI in eCommerce can be helpful. Merchants can connect insights about shopper behavior with email marketing to produce even better results. Sellers can now follow up on abandoned searches, not just carts.

AI tools help sellers identify customer buying intent and send relevant and personalized emails. Klaviyo is one option that integrates with WooCommmerce.

The WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Recovery Dashboard features a place to set up email nurture series for abandoned cart management. Timing is vital for email series. So are headline topics.

Be sure you split test email campaigns to see which emails work best. Keep the tone relaxed and friendly, not pushy. Here are some basic guidelines:

Email #1: 1-5 hours after abandonment

1. Include a subject line that grabs attention. Use their name if possible.
2. Introduction text as to why you’re emailing. “Hey Joan, We noticed you left some items in your shopping cart.”
3. The specific items left in the cart.
4. An incentive to go back and complete the purchase (a discount, low inventory, etc.)
5. Call to action or checkout button.
6. Social proof as to why the customer should complete the purchase.
7. A link to get help in your email as well.

Email #2: 24 hours later

You don’t want to overwhelm the customer with emails. 24 hours is a good break before sending the second email. Test this and see what works best for your audience. The second email follows the same basic formula as the first and includes an expiration date.

Email #3: 48 hours after abandonment

The third email should let the customer know this is the last reminder they’ll get – you don’t want them to get annoyed and unsubscribe! Reiterate their offer or cart is about to expire. You might also include additional social proof as to why they need the items.

Retargeting on Social and Google

Retargeting simply means that once a visitor abandons the cart, you can set up a campaign using cookies that will show them ads reminding them of what they left in the cart.

Retargeting can be a bit technical, but the strategy converts up to 26% of lost customers, so it is worth testing. There are also WooCommerce plugins that make retargeting easier.

To set this up, you need to place a Facebook pixel, Google remarketing tag, or the equivalent snippet of code from whatever platform you choose, on your website. The pixel tracks the visitor’s actions, called events, on your site. Events include putting items in the cart, checkouts, clicking for more information, and more.

If your website is just getting started, experts suggest that you plan your goals for traffic because the platforms learn from the actions of retargeted people. A minimum of traffic is needed to provide data and improve results from retargeting ads.

Long Term Benefits

Shopping Cart Abandonment affects all eCommerce sectors. We’ve seen that some people don’t want to create an account to check out, so building trust is essential. Many people daydream shop about big experiences and discretionary purchases that are important to them – travel, luxury, automobiles, etc.

However, the solution to abandoned carts isn’t one-size-fits-all. Check out statistics for your industry, and then think about what they tell you about your ideal customer. Create incentives and emails with empathy, personalize where you can, and you will not only increase your recovered cart sales rates, you will increase your “customer for life” base. To learn more about how to improve conversion rates, check out our free guide How to Supercharge Your WooCommerce Conversion Rate.

The post Best Practices for eCommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment Recovery in 2022 appeared first on CheckoutWC.

If not, this is something that you want to take steps to improve. Online reviews are a trust signal to both buyers and search engines, encouraging more people to visit your site and better rankings for your site on Google.

It’s not always easy to get more reviews. They must be genuine and of course, you’re relying on other people to give them to you. There are a few things you can do to help increase your reviews though, which we’re looking at here:

Why do product reviews matter?

Product reviews are important for any ecommerce store because they impact key areas, from SEO to sales. Think about the last time you searched online for a product to buy – what did you look for and how did you decide where to look first? Often, one of the first things people do is look at stores that have good ratings and reviews.

There are some key statistics to know about product reviews:

• 90% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase.
• 79% of shoppers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
• 97% of online shoppers who read customer reviews also look for the business response to those reviews.
• Product pages with customer reviews get 3.5 times more conversions than those that don’t.

People look for reviews because they want proof that other people are using and enjoying your product or service. In the absence of any other evidence that a business online is legit, product reviews are what your prospects will rely on.

In terms of SEO, Google sees reviews as a trust signal too. Search engines look at both quality and quantity, and you’ll see that businesses with more, better reviews tend to be shown ahead of others. Google’s objective is always to show people the best quality results for their searches, which is why reviews come into play.

How many product reviews do you need?

There isn’t any exact number of reviews that Google says you need, but what we do know is that businesses with more, higher-rated reviews tend to rank higher. Google sees the volume of reviews as a sign of reliability. This means that the business that rates an average of 4.5 stars with 100 reviews will usually rank higher than the competitor that averages 5 stars, but only has 10 reviews.

For further evidence of the SEO impact, a couple of years back Google went about removing all anonymous reviews from businesses. For many, this led to a downgrade in their rankings. Bottom line? Get as many good, genuine reviews as possible, and get them frequently.

90% of online shoppers read reviews before making a purchase decision.
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How to get more product reviews

Here are a few tips for getting more product reviews for your WooCommerce store:

Send out emails after they receive their products

The best way to get more product reviews is to ask. WooCommerce store owners already have customer email details from them placing an online order, so using email to request a review makes sense.

Consider the timing of your email to make it more effective. Some companies send review request emails before you’ve even received your order. Are you going to remember to go back to that email and write a review? Probably not. However, if the email is timed to arrive after you’ve received your order, you’re probably much more likely to respond because you’ve been able to see and experience the product.

In WooCommerce, plugins like YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews can help by automatically reaching out to customers who have made a purchase. We recommend setting up automations to request product reviews as it makes the whole process easier for you.

Include inserts in product packaging

Another way to ask for more reviews is to include inserts in your product packaging or on your packing slips requesting them. The key is to make giving a review as easy as possible. People won’t generally follow extensive instructions, so something like a simple, short URL or a QR code to get them there will help.

Some businesses worry that they might get more negative reviews or complaints that way, because people are often known to give reviews when there’s a problem, rather than when everything is fine. One way around this is to make sure you include a contact in case there are any issues with their order. The hope is they go to that contact first, rather than straight to writing a negative review.

Get your products out to sampling programs

If your business is new and doesn’t yet have a large volume of orders, growing review numbers can be tricky. One way around this if you have the budget is to get your products out to product sampling communities. These generally work by companies providing sample products in exchange for honest reviews from their communities of influencers, along with some online promotional activity.

Product sampling tools like BzzAgent reach large audiences of influencers who will provide reviews and visual content online. This can help to build momentum for new product launches, seasonal products, new businesses or products that you simply need more reviews for.

Use a good ratings and reviews plugin

You’ve got to make the review process as simple as possible, and the way to do that on WooCommerce is with a good plugin. There are several to choose from (we’ve already touched on YITH), so find one that has the features you really need.

How to respond to reviews

Did you catch that stat earlier, stating 97% of customers who read reviews look for the response of the business? It’s important to respond to your reviews, both good and bad. Doing so shows a level of integrity that makes your business more trustworthy to customers looking in from the outside.

Another thing that responding to reviews can do is humanize your business for customers. You’re not an anonymous character in the shadows of the internet, you’re a living, breathing human who demonstrates care and concern for customers.

So how should you respond?

For good reviews, respond in a timely manner thanking the person for their review. Something like “thank you, we’re so glad you’re enjoying Product A,” is fine. It shows there’s a real human behind everything.

For negative reviews, you’re still going to respond in a timely manner and thank the person for sharing a review. Keep your response professional and courteous, seeking to understand the customer’s experience rather than taking an immediate defensive stance. For example:

“Thank you for taking the time to write a review. We’re sorry that XYZ happened! Could you please tell us a bit more about [the issue raised], so that we’re able to ensure we address it properly?”

You can apologize if it’s appropriate, but don’t take responsibility for anything that’s not your fault. There are plenty of cases of people giving the wrong review to the wrong business, for example. You can gently point this out: “Hi Bob, we’re sorry you experienced this. It seems that you may be referring to XYZ, which is not a product sold by [Business Name]. Please let us know if we can help with any of our products.”

If the fault does lie with your company, it can help to take ownership in your response so anyone looking in can see how you resolved the issue. For example, include something like “we have sent you an email to organize a refund and replacement on us.”

Responding in an authentic and genuine manner is the key takeaway here. Show that you are professional and take reviews seriously.

Final thoughts

Your WooCommerce business needs reviews in order to rank well for SEO and to attract more shoppers. Reviews show that your business is genuine and that you can be trusted. One thing to remember is that your reviews don’t all have to be absolutely perfect. In fact, having nothing less than five stars can make you appear fake to shoppers – not every customer will be five-star stoked!

Respond promptly to your reviews and show that there are genuine humans behind your business. This will also help to grow trust with customers and hopefully, draw in more sales!

The post How to Increase Product Reviews on WooCommerce appeared first on CheckoutWC.

The goal is always to increase AOV wherever possible, finding ways to optimize your shopping process so that customers are encouraged to add more. If you use CheckoutWC, “order bumps” are our feature for product add-ons or upgrades, which are two ways you can increase AOV.

It’s not always as simple as just introducing order bumps, however. Sometimes they won’t work for particular retailers or they’ll only work under certain circumstances. Let’s take a closer look at AOV and order bumps:

How does AOV work?

Average order value (AOV) is simply the average amount customers spend per online order that they make. It is calculated by dividing the total revenue generated over a specific period (for example, a quarter), by the number of sales over that period. For example, if your total first quarter revenue was $100,000 and you made 1000 sales, your AOV is $100 for the quarter.

AOV is important for a couple of reasons. First (and probably the most obvious), a higher AOV usually means a more profitable business. When you consider what goes into taking an order, picking, packing and shipping it, sending out higher value orders tends to give you more bang for your buck, especially as your fixed costs likely won’t shift much.

Secondly, higher AOV helps you to make the most of your marketing spend. To give a simple example, let’s say you pay for advertising and you’ve calculated that the average cost per customer is $3. If your AOV is $50 per customer, you’d spend $30 on marketing to make $500. If you could bump up your AOV to $100 per customer, you’d spend $15 on marketing to make $500.

If you’re concerned about your marketing budget, it often makes more sense to try to increase AOV rather than to spend more on driving more traffic. This won’t always be the case though – sometimes companies find through trial and error that there’s a natural ceiling to their AOV, beyond which they simply need to drive more traffic to make more revenue. It’s worth testing to find out what your numbers are.

How to improve AOV

There are a few common strategies for improving your AOV:

• Upselling – where you make the shopper an offer to upgrade to the next-level product (a feature with our order bumps).
• Cross-selling – where you offer “add on” products to the customer (also a feature with order bumps). These are usually an exclusive offer that is only available to them because they are making a purchase.
• Free shipping when a minimum order value is met. People will usually try to at least get their order to the free shipping value.
• Volume discounts. For example, “Buy three or more and save 20%.”
• Coupons for a future visit. “Spend $100 and get a $10 voucher for your next purchase.”

Whenever we talk about any sort of ecommerce optimization, the key words are “reduce friction.” People abandon the cart or don’t take up an offer when they perceive that there is some kind of roadblock in their way. With that in mind, it’s important to monitor your analytics and determine what strategies make sense for you.

For example, let’s say you decided to try offering free shipping if a minimum order value is met. Doing this well means finding a sweet spot. You need to figure out at which order value it makes sense for you to offer free shipping without sacrificing too much profit, in conjunction with the value that customers are willing to spend up to in order to get free shipping. Aim too high and your customers won’t go for it. Aim too low and you lose too much profit.

You can improve AOV (average order value) with “order bumps”
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Using “order bumps”

Order bumps are our CheckoutWC feature that allows you to offer add-ons or upsells. Do these work? Yes! Otherwise we wouldn’t be offering them. Do they always work? No, sometimes order bumps might seem to add friction for the customer, so they don’t always make sense to use.

You should always keep an eye on your conversion rates (the number of sales divided by the total number of visitors), and your revenue per visitor (the amount of money generated each time someone visits your site). If either of these go backwards, you may be introducing too much friction to the sales process, even if you are managing to increase your AOV. After all, will it make sense to have higher AOV from overall less sales?

Here are some thoughts and strategies for using order bumps well:

Your upsells must add value

An upsell should be an offer for a more advanced/better model or for the same product with some added features. It has to genuinely be a value-add to the customer for it to work. Will the upgrade or added features genuinely solve a problem for them?

Some people see leather seats in cars as an upgrade and will buy the next model up from a car dealer to get them. Other people just don’t see the leather seats as an upgrade at all. If you live somewhere that gets quite hot, you might see them as a thigh-burner during summer weather!

How do you know what to offer for an upgrade? Through monitoring your data and talking to your customers. Learn about their problems and their preferences and test out your hypotheses for meeting their needs.

Your cross-sells should complement the product

If you sell electric toothbrushes, cross-sells or order bumps such as toothpaste, floss or rinse totally make sense. Unrelated products such as a scarf or a pillow make no sense at all. The best cross-sells tend to be things the user will need with the product anyway, and offering them as an “order bump” in the cart is a simple convenience for them.

You’ll have to test it out, but there is also some suggestion that cross-sell products should be at least 60% cheaper than the product already added to the cart so that customers consider them a no-brainer to add. Items that people often forget can be good choices, such as the batteries for a product, or the filters for lenses.

Use A/B testing and track your metrics

How will you know if offering order bumps are a convenience for customers or if they’re adding a point of friction? Testing and tracking your metrics is the only reliable way to understand your results.

There are many possible combinations or methods for improving your AVO, so A/B testing is a good way to understand what genuinely worked. Devise a methodical series of A/B tests so you can run a change against a control to see what gets the best results. Remember to watch conversion rates to be sure you’re not adding extra friction, too.

Final thoughts

“Order bumps” are designed to increase your Average Order Value (AOV). They work by offering the customer either an upsell or an add-on for what they have added to their cart.

Upsells and add-ons are time-honored methods for increasing your AVO, but you need to make sure they add value for the customer. Know what your customers need and test properly to see if you get good results.

To learn more about adding order bumps to your WooCommerce checkout, take a look at our article here, outlining the setup process.

The post What Are “Order Bumps” And Why Should You Use Them? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

The simple answer is by helping customers to trust in your business. Trust badges are a tool that can be used on almost any website to display your credentials for customers to see.

In the competitive ecommerce world, trust is an absolutely essential factor if you want people to buy from you. People are leery of potential scams and don’t go through with a purchase from just anyone – they want to know your company is safe.

When we talk about conversion optimization, trust badges are one feature that should be part of that conversation. Here’s a quick guide on what they are and why to use them:

What are trust badges?

Trust badges (or trust seals) are the small symbols, badges or icons you see on websites that indicate compliance, membership or use of a third-party standard or software. They are usually from third-party providers that will be known and trusted by the customer.

Trust badges tell your customers that their information is secure and that your website is reliable. They can also indicate that you’ve had to meet some sort of compliance standard in order to be accepted to use the trust seal (for example, if you belong to some kind of professional organization and display a membership seal).

There are different types of trust badges (which we’ll look at), but they all serve the purpose of giving customers the confidence to buy from you. Below are some examples of trust seals, which you’ve probably seen on plenty of websites:

What are the benefits of trust badges?

The ecommerce world has grown to huge proportions over the last couple of decades, but along with that has come some bad actors that look to use the internet to part people from their hard-earned money. Most consumers are now much more savvy of these scams and will do a bit more research into a company they find online, especially prior to their first purchase.

While ratings, reviews and customer recommendations play a huge role in that trust, so does the overall look and feel of your website. Various studies have found that there is a positive correlation between use of trust badges and an improvement in conversion numbers. Here’s one summary from a company that A/B tested their checkout page – one with a trust badge and one without. They found that the page with a trust badge led to a 42% increase in sales.

Trust badges help customers to feel more secure by giving them messages like:

• This company uses common and trusted methods of payment processing
• This website is secure and my personal details will be kept safe
• This company has met the standard for membership to a trusted organization
• This company is legit!

That’s not to say that trust badges are the only indicator of trust that help to convince people to buy. If your website design looks sketchy, you have poor quality images or your written copy is poor, you could put as many trust badges on as you like but people probably won’t trust you. Trust badges are part of an overall package of optimization on your website.

Trust badges are highly recognizable and help show customers that you are legit
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What types of trust badges are there?

Here are some different types of trust badges:

1. Site security badges. These highlight that your website is protected by security software so that customer information is kept safe. Norton or McAfee badges are good examples of these.
2. Secure payment icons. These often go alongside accepted payment logos and tell the customer that their payment details will be kept secure. Common payment icons also help customers to be more trusting because they have recourse through their payment provider if something goes wrong. For example, PayPal allows users to dispute transactions if there is a problem that they can’t sort out with the retailer.
3. Money back guarantee trust seals. These seals usually show how long the customer is guaranteed to get their money back. Again, it helps customers feel they have some recourse if they need it so they feel more confident going ahead with the purchase.
4. Free shipping badges. These help customers to feel secure that they’re not going to be surprised in the shopping cart.
5. Industry awards badges. There are numerous examples of awards within different industries and displaying a seal to show you won can help to reassure customers. For example, TripAdvisor awards top contenders that fall into the travel and hospitality categories, while various organizations run marketing awards for agencies and firms.
6. Membership trust badge. If your business is a member of a professional association or organization, they will often have a trust badge you can display showing your membership.
7. Customer or publication logos. A display of “our customers” on your website, or “as seen in” with the logos of the businesses can help to grow trust, especially if those customers or featured publications are well-known.

Where to use trust badges

The first key place to use trust badges is on your checkout page. This is where customers are doing their last assessment of your business before either abandoning the cart or going ahead with the purchase. Placement is typically near the checkout button so that customers are reassured during the process.

Some types of trust seals (especially memberships or customer logos) may be better-placed on your home page, where more traffic lands. These can be catalysts to get people to explore your website further.

Another place to put trust badges is on any landing pages where you ask for personal information. People want to know that their details aren’t being shared around.

How to install trust badges in WooCommerce

There are a few ways to install trust badges in WooCommerce, so we’re going to start with our own software. CheckoutWC has a simple new trust badges feature that allows you to easily install them from the cart summary page in the back end of our program in WordPress. All you do is click to enable trust badges, then fill in the blanks as shown below:

If you’re operating WooCommerce “out of the box” you can use hooks and filters to add trust badges. It’s not quite as simple as our trust badge feature, but below is an example using the hook woocommerce_after_cart_totals. This puts trust badges below the checkout button:

Another alternative is to add trust badges to your website (outside of the checkout). The quick and easy way is to use a footer widget which then populates trust badges to every page on your website. All you do is choose a text widget, copy and paste the snippet that inserts your site seal into the box, then save it.

Final thoughts

Trust badges are important to use on your website because as various studies have shown, they help to give customers the confidence that it’s safe to purchase from your website. People want to see evidence that you are reputable and that you follow best practices.

Trust badges take a few different forms, including site security badges, payment icons, memberships and guarantees. Do any work better than others? That’s something you can test on your own site. Security badges tend to be among the most popular for reassuring customers that their personal details and payment information will be protected.

The post A Quick Guide to Trust Badges and Why to Use Them appeared first on CheckoutWC.