A streamlined checkout: The key to converting a browser into a buyer

Who would have thought that great conversion rates depend on the simplicity of your ecommerce journey?

Checkout flow and orchestration are the new buzzwords in successfully converting a browser into a buyer. Ensuring a seamless checkout is now a top priority for eCommerce managers and business executives around the world.  

So what exactly is a streamlined checkout, and why is it so important?

First, to address its importance, a streamlined checkout ensures customers have a smooth, efficient journey from product selection to payment. This smooth journey enables retailers to increase sales and profit without the corresponding cost of additional marketing because they are reducing the number of abandoned carts. In short, a streamlined checkout allows a retailer to optimise their marketing spend and site traffic by creating the most efficient customer journey possible.

In turn, that helps define what it means to have a streamlined checkout. It all comes down to removing obstacles for the consumer. The fewer steps a shopper has to carry out before completing a purchase, the more streamlined the experience – and the fewer opportunities that shopper has to abandon his or her digital cart.

So how do you achieve this swift and streamlined experience without spending weeks — and huge sums – on development?

For retailers using the Magento 2 platform, the answer is simple – add the OneStepCheckout extension. The plugin was founded in 2010 by Magento merchants' demand and has been meeting their needs ever since. In fact, data show that Magento 2 retailers who use OneStepCheckout to optimise their checkout flow recognize, on average, a 30% increase in order conversion!

But while simplicity is essential, retailers must also strike a balance between reducing obstacles and providing adequate customer options, particularly in terms of payment methods.

We know customers crave options. They want product choices that match their particular style or need, they want a full range of colours, sizes, and price points and, more recently, they want a full roster of payment options. In the early days, eCommerce purchases were made primarily through credit cards and digital wallets. But today, a healthy checkout must also include  multiple Buy Now, Pay Later options  and other alternative payment methods. Research shows that consumers expect and demand the ability to pay as they choose. In fact, Optty retailer data shows that offering a 3rd BNPL provider in each market is responsible for a 16% conversion of BNPL sales, while another retailer showed a 40% uplift of GMV when going from 1 to 3 BNPL options in the New Zealand market.

All this sounds good, but a retailer offering this level of choice must consider a couple of key questions: First, how can they achieve all the related benefits without hefty integration costs? And how do they avoid unplanned expenses such as the huge cost associated with, say, mistakenly activating a payment method that fails to convert? And how can they offer these multiple payment options without over-complicating their checkout flow?

Like many eCommerce platforms, the native Magento checkout includes multiple opportunities for a customer to abandon during the checkout process:
- Unexpected costs not being shown upfront
- Slow page loading
- Form complexity
- Unnecessary extra steps
- Not offering enough payment options

While OneStepCheckout addresses the former causes for cart abandonment, Optty, the world’s first BNPL integration platform, is the perfect solution to deal with the latter. Allowing retailers to offer customers the payment methods they demand.

Optty’s single integration works for Magento 2+, SalesForce, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify (releasing soon), or any platform that supports open API integration – unlocking access to 50+ BNPL across the globe. Optty makes offering multiple BNPL providers in any given market as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Equally important, Optty’s flexibility and functionality allow retailers to customise checkout appearance, including custom widgets, provider order, and much more.

With OneStepCheckout and Optty, you can give customers the payment options they want while keeping checkout simple and streamlined.

Another important aspect retailers must consider when striving for an optimised checkout is the ability to test & learn what resonates with their customer base. Historically, high integration costs linked with any new technology – including payment methods — has made it prohibitively expensive to gain this level of insight. With Optty’s single integration, however, retailers can activate any one of the 50+ BNPL providers with just two simple clicks, and without a single moment of additional development work. With the world of BNPL open to them, retailers using Optty can test & learn which providers are most attractive to their customers, which perform best in the industry they trade in, and/or what basket size is most economical for them. What once was impossible due to cost now becomes a basic run-the-business practice with Optty.

A streamlined checkout, then, is a perfect union of choice + efficiency. One that reduces obstacles while providing the choice that customers demand.

Getting this balance can deliver immediate results, with higher conversion rates and bigger basket sizes. And with OneStepCheckout and Optty, the process is fast, simple, and low-cost.

Get started with Optty today. If you’re a Magento 2+ user, get started with OneStepCheckout + Optty today and take advantage of a special offer until October 15, 2022.

About OneStepCheckout: OneStepCheckout is the single most effective technical change you can make to reduce shopping cart abandonment. The original checkout process shipped with the Magento eCommerce platform took users through an overwhelming number of steps. OneStepCheckout decided to simplify it by addressing the key drivers for cart abandonment which are: unexpected costs not showing upfront, page loading speed, form filling complexity and unnecessary steps. Since 2010, OneStepCheckout has been listening to thousands of customers to provide state-of-the-art user experience that removes friction while fulfilling merchant’s requirements.

Improving your checkout process results in more visitors completing their orders, which drives an immediate impact on your bottom line.

About Optty: Optty is the world's first platform to integrate the most popular BNPL technologies in a single place, giving merchants the ability to offer more choice to consumers. Optty is a global organization that provides retailers with a direct channel to dozens of the top global BNPL providers, offering faster connections and improved managed UX and performance like nowhere else.

For more information visit Optty and follow us on LinkedIn.

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