The average cart abandonment rate is 69.89%. Of the number of people that make it all the way to checkout, 25% will leave without completing their purchase.

Whichever way look at it, that’s a sizeable number of lost customers and revenue. What’s more, the situation is even worse on mobile. Overall ecommerce conversion rates usually lag around two percentage points behind desktop.

So how can you go about recouping some of those sales?

Top companies have cut down their checkout abandonment rate to around 13%. And the simple truth is there’s nothing particularly complex about the tactics they’ve used.

By avoiding a handful of common mistakes, and making a few minor tweaks, you should be able to bring your own rate to a similar level.

1. Slash the Number of Steps to Complete a Transaction

If you look at Crutchfield’s checkout process, you’ll see that customers only need to move through three stages to make an order. It’s worth attempting to achieve the same number of steps (or even less) with your own checkout process.

Crutchfield’s checkout process is made up of only three steps.

There is one caveat, however. On mobile devices, it’s better to fit all information into one screen-sized page. If that means more than three pages, then it’s a trade-off that’s usually worth making.  Making customers scroll up and down can add unnecessary friction to the buyer journey.

2. Minimize Unnecessary Page Elements

During the checkout process, you have one aim – to close the deal. Checkout pages are not the place to promote your upsells and cross-sells. What’s more, unnecessary page elements, that might cause a customer to click through to another area of your site, should be minimized.

This is especially the case on mobile, where space is at a premium and it’s easy to accidentally tap the wrong button.

Simply Hike removes all unnecessary elements including the menu and footer. It just leaves the logo, performance indicator and phone support.

Some online retailers, like Zappos, have gotten rid of everything! If you want to go down that route, however, testing is a must!

If you need to include extra information, do so in the form of toplayers (top-of-the-page pop-ups) that will open a new window when clicked.

3. Make the Most Important CTAs Easy to Click

Or, even better, place them strategically while making them easy to click.

Scott Hurff created a “Thumb Zone” map that shows the spots to avoid when deciding where to place your crucial elements. Ensure you avoid the hard-to-click areas.

Use Scott Hurff’s “thumb map” when designing your pages.

What’s more, remember that visitors use their left hand to operate their mobile devices 30% of the time. Also, keep in mind that left-handers constitute around 10% of the population.

So don’t put everything on the right-hand side of the screen!

Which hand do you use for your smartphone when you drink a coffee or eat a donut?

So how do you put these points into practice? We recommend you follow three tips:

1. Avoid placing elements you want users to tap in the upper part of the screen. Follow the “thumb map” above”
2. Make all tappable elements, like buttons or form fields, screen-wide.
3. Make sure your CTA buttons are colorful and stand out.
4. Don’t force users to tap precisely on checkboxes when subscribing to a newsletter or agreeing to the terms and conditions — make the whole line tappable (if they tap on the instruction, for example).

4. Offer Guest Checkout First

Enable guest checkout and place the CTA strategically. Unless 90% of your users are returning shoppers, the guest checkout button should be one of the first options during the checkout.

At Asos.com you can choose whether to register or simply continue to checkout.

Here’s a pro tip. Copy Spring and ask for an email address before letting a user proceed. This way, you can reach potential customers if they do abandon their cart during checkout.

Conclusion

If there’s one thing you should take away from this post, it’s the simple maxim that “less is more” when it comes to customer checkout.

You want users to undertake one (and only one) action – and that’s to complete the purchase! Anything that prevents them from doing this should be dropped!

And, as always, don’t forget to test the results of all the tweaks you make. While these tips will set you in the right direction, consistent testing will enable you to find your own winning mix!

Are you looking for more ideas to grow your ecommerce conversion rate? I bet you do! If I bet right, you should get our Ultimate 115-point Ecommerce Optimization Checklist which we use with our clients to dramatically increase their conversion rates and sales.

About the author:

Pawel Ogonowski

The Ecommerce Optimization Guy who helps 7 & 8-figure online retailers get guaranteed revenue uplifts in a dev-free way. To get more of Pawel’s content subscribe to Growcode’s Ecommerce Optimization Blog and Bite-size Ecommerce Optimization on YouTube. Connect with Pawel on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Online marketing can open up your business to a whole new world of customers, drive your sales up, and even help you connect with buyers on a deeper level. But what happens when you’re doing it all wrong? Read on to find out how these seven online marketing pitfalls could end up costing you dearly.

1. Not Making Use of Ad Targeting

With online ads, like social media promotions, you can reach tens of millions of people, but the wider you cast your net, the more it will cost you. What you need to focus on is maximizing your ad dollars and that doesn’t mean overspending. It means making the most of the money you do spend. Geo-targeting your ads to reach only the users who have access to your products, or targeting the age groups your product is geared towards will give you more revenue for your ad spend. Plus, it will save you from wasting money on users who are very unlikely to become customers.

2. Undervaluing Social Influencer Promotions

While traditional ads are excellent and the targeting feature makes them much more lucrative, discounting social influencer marketing is a big mistake many small businesses make. If you are careful in selecting an influencer with a large and engaged fan base, who already has the audience you are specifically looking to target, and whose content is in line with your business, you can see a real impact with social influencer campaigns.

3. Buying Fake Social Followers

Investing in black market services to help boost your numbers almost always backfires on brands. Even if your following is high, users can see when engagement is low – and so can Google! This may actually blacklist your website or social channels and decrease the confidence users will have in your brand. Smaller, more engaged audiences always outperform accounts with tons of followers and minimal interactions. Some brands also turn to automated commenting with bot services, but again, this will hurt your business more than anything else.

4. Not Offering Enough Rewards

Customers can have a hard time trusting a new brand on the market. Offering rewards like free shipping, discounts, or other limited promos can encourage your potential client base to give you a try. It’s also great to reward loyal customers so they continue to share your brand with others. Long-term, rewards work in your favor.

5. Not Providing Content

Whoever said users don’t want to read much online was sorely mistaken. Users actually prefer to connect with brands online and engage with them prior to making a purchase. Providing quality content can increase your connection to your potential consumer base and encourage customers to trust your brand more readily. Your content doesn’t need to be excessively lengthy. Choose quality over quantity and make sure everything you post adds value to your website and your reputation.

6. Not Engaging with Followers

Posting great content to your website and social channels is a good start, but you have to go the extra step and connect with your users on a more personal level. When followers comment, you should interact with them. This is your chance to reply, ask another question and really start a conversation with them. Opening up communication with your fan base can boost your engagement and encourage new followers.

7. Not Tracking Your Social Successes and Failures

Whether it’s promotions or social influencer campaigns, you need to keep track of conversions. This way, you will know exactly which ads are working and which aren’t. Some techniques work well in theory, but in practice, may not be right for your particular business. You need to find out which promotions work best for your brand and avoid wasting money on ads and campaigns that aren’t converting into revenue for you. You should also track the page views and shareability of your content to find out what your audience wants and appreciates.

Nobody wants to lose money, but even the most experienced eBay seller makes mistakes.  Here are three of my biggest eBay fails.  Read and learn.

 The Trader Joe’s Nightmare

About 8 years ago, I bought $1,000 worth of Trader Joe’s sea salt caramels to sell on eBay.  I’d never sold food before, but I looked them up, and they were in demand.  I soon realized that I had purchased too many.  Before I knew it, summer arrived, and I had stacks and stacks of these tasty treats sitting in my garage.  Although we were still getting orders, they were melting in transit.  People were not happy.   Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait until winter to get rid of them because they had an expiration date.  We started eating sea salt caramels for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  What else could we do?  I gained five pounds trying to get rid of those suckers.  Eventually, I gave the rest away as presents.  Remember: If you’re going to sell food, always check expiration dates, and be careful buying items that cannot be shipped in hot weather.  Lesson learned.

The Shoe Emergency

Many of our biggest fails involved shoes.  Years ago we did not understand the importance of inspecting preowned shoes before listing them.  Shoes can look brand new but may fall apart the first time they are worn if they have been sitting in a closet for years.  For example, some manufacturers produce soles that do not stand the test of time and will disintegrate or even split in half if they get old.  When we first started selling on eBay, we listed a pair of name brand clogs.  The woman who bought them worked at a hospital and thought they were an amazing deal!  Unfortunately, the first time she wore them to work, she left a trail of rubber wherever she walked.  The soles were literally disintegrating all over the emergency room.  Uh, oh.  Instant refund.

The Fashion Fiasco

In another instance involving shoes, a buyer purchased a pair of beautiful designer heels.  She wore them to work with her favorite outfit.  A few minutes after she got to work, one of the heels fell off – the entire heel.  So embarrassing!  She hobbled around the office for the rest of the day.  Luckily, she thought it was funny.  We quickly issued a refund, and offered to send her a pair of shoes for free.   We now know the importance of closely inspecting all preowned shoes before listing them on eBay.  In addition, we have purchased a one million dollar insurance policy that covers us if anything goes wrong with the products we sell.

Selling on eBay is an adventure, but, like anything, it does come with some risks.  Luckily, each of these fails taught me an important lesson and made me a more successful seller!

About the Author

Miriam Otto is an eBay blogger and credentialed teacher with 13 years’ experience selling on the site.  She was a frequent guest on eBay Radio and has participated in eBay seller panels and projects.  Her blog, The eBay Life, is an all-in-one resource for eBay sellers.

With a blog, you can connect with consumers in a conversational way. You can offer advice, be casual and fun, and give important comparisons showing the difference between your product and all the others out there. While many e-commerce merchants have yet to dip their toes in the blogging pond, now’s the time to jump if you haven’t already. Here are some handy tips to help you get the best results.

Tip #1 – Use Great Images

Did you know images on your website are crawled by Google? There’s an entire tab for image searches on Google, plus they can get picked up in social media. You can gain more visibility and boost SEO with images.

For example, let’s say you sell kids’ socks. Pictures of the socks you sell could show up in Google’s image search. To get extra oomph from your images, name your image files descriptively. For a pair of kid’s striped socks, name your file something like “striped-kids-socks” to get the most SEO value. Also be sure to use alt tags and image descriptions, this will help Google determine the content of your image and rank you better.

Tip #2 – Make Content the Star of the Show

Ok, saying “focus on good content” may seem obvious. But it’s important to remember that you’re not creating content for content’s sake. The content has to be good. While quantity can feel satisfying, the real results will come from quality. Avoid content that’s shallow. Things like poor writing and grammatical errors will reflect poorly on your brand.

Bonus tip: Sometimes less is more. Don’t make the mistake of trying to overstuff your blog with keywords. Google’s become a lot more sophisticated in the way they measure websites.

Tip #3 – Follow SEO Best Practices for Your Blog

You don’t need to be an expert to use SEO best practices. Most people don’t take the time to understand the way Google rankings work. Following the SEO basics can take you a long way. Start by researching your keywords. Find the best ones that will bring you more sales. Then, install an SEO plug-in like Yoast to help you manage using the keywords on page and in metadata. The Yoast plugin will also help you generate an XML sitemap, which you can submit through Google Search Console.

Tip #4 – Rev Up Your Site Speed

People don’t like slow websites. Having a slow blog site can drive visitors away, it also reflects poorly on your brand. Plus, it can harm your SEO. Website speed has been part of Google’s website ranking algorithm since way back in 2010. Here are a few tips to help rev up your page speed…

• Use a lightweight blog template that’s made to perform well

• Spend money on good/fast hosting if possible

• Disable any plugins you’re not using and uninstall them

• Be sure to compress images

• Check your page speed and get recommendations from Google

Tip #5 – Promote Your Blog

Lastly, be sure to let people know about your new blog content. There are a lot of other ways for people to find your content besides showing up in Google. Share newly published blog posts on all of your social accounts. If you have an email list, feature new blog posts in your email communications. It’s a great to keep people informed – while making your content do double duty.

Ecommerce is experiencing a new wave of innovation. While buying products online is now commonplace, the technology supporting e-commerce is evolving to eliminate any remaining friction in the purchase process. This article will examine some of the most exciting developments in e-commerce and how they are changing the retail experience.

1. Mobile-First Shopping Takes Hold

The first era of e-commerce took place using desktop computers. The next will take place in the palm of your hand. At the end of 2017 two-thirds of e-commerce transactions were completed on a mobile device. Retailers are responding by partnering with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to drive sales. Consumers can now enjoy the entire retail experience on a smartphone and innovations such as fingerprint authentication remove even more friction from the purchase process.

2. The Growing Prevalence of Voice Search

Another innovation that is removing friction from retail is the growth of voice search. Voice search using Alexa, Google Home, or other smart devices allows consumers to make a purchase verbally, sometimes without even seeing the product. Purchases through Amazon or Google can be authenticated using a credit card and shipping address on file. Voice search adds greater convenience for consumers and new challenges for retailers. As one business school professor noted, voice search using Amazon’s Alexa favors the company’s own brands at the expense of competitors. Brands depend on visual marketing to communicate with consumers and as voice search takes off will need to completely rethink their marketing efforts.

3. Customers Expect Faster Shipping Times

It used to be that goods were shipped in a week and the customer was entirely satisfied. Amazon changed the game when it gave Prime members free expedited shipping. Now ecommerce sellers are racing to offer faster and faster delivery. Ecommerce sellers can simply go to Stamps.com to print shipping labels with the fastest delivery times USPS has available. Online shoppers have become accustomed to quick shipping and easy returns and retailers that refuse to play will lose sales competitors.

In a few years’ time, shoppers will expect to be able to order a product out loud and have it delivered quickly, safely and securely. The next wave of e-commerce eliminates many of the common frictions and pain points in making a purchase. Companies that do not embrace this trend will be left b