Shopping cart abandonment is a fact of life in the digital ecosystem; no matter how great a business’ online product is, whether it’s a game, dating site, SaaS or social network, there will always be a percentage of lost sales due to cart abandonment. Sometimes users decide not to finalize purchases for reasons beyond a business’ control, but many times shopping cart abandonment is directly correlated with a site’s checkout page. Here’s a quick guide to maximizing conversion rates by optimizing your checkout page:

How to improve your online checkout conversion rate

Reduce steps in the online checkout process

Studies show online customers are less likely to follow through with checkout if there are too many steps involved. This rings especially true with digital products that are frequently emotionally-driven impulse buys. Customers purchasing virtual goods and services want instant satisfaction, so give it to them! One-click checkout is great for mobile applications and sites for this reason.

DO: Provide seamless checkout

A seamless checkout process is a must for all ecommerce and digital sales. Integrate a payment gateway that allows your customers to complete the entire checkout process within your website or application, as they’re more likely to complete the transaction if they don’t need to log in to a third-party site before making a payment.

DON’T: Make your users register to complete checkout

It may seem like a good idea to collect customer email addresses or other information when a customer wants to make a purchase, but the extra step can deter users from completing transactions. Let your users buy products without filling out lots of information, and allow them to enter their payment information and complete their transaction before you prompt them to share their email address or create an account with your site.

Localize checkout for international customers

If you’re in the digital space and don’t localize your checkouts for users in different countries and regions, chances are you’re missing out on many global sales and growth opportunities from international customers. It’s good practice to let customers view product descriptions in their native language and see prices in their local currency. It’s also important to know the preferred payment options in different regions and to make them accessible to customers.

DO: Use a single API

Integrating several payment gateways and multiple APIs is not only time-consuming and difficult to track, but it will also make your checkout page look cluttered and careless. Simplicity is key. Keep your customers happy by finding an all-in-one payment solution that gives them multiple payment options within a single gateway.

DON’T: Make your customers do the work

Providing all the payment options in the world won’t improve sales conversions at all if your customers have to scroll through long, disorganized lists to find the payment option, language and currency they’d like to use. Use a “smart” payment gateway that’s intuitive enough to detect where your customers are and provide them with a localized checkout page.

Assure customers that your checkout page is secure

Massive data breaches involving sensitive payment data over the past decade have prompted consumers to be more cautious with their banking or credit card information, especially when making purchases online. If a user feels that your site is not secure they will ditch their shopping cart and probably not come back. Make sure your payment gateway is secure and PCI-DSS compliant and that your checkout page reflects that.

DO: Display site seals

Give your customers peace of mind by displaying “trust seals” throughout your site and on your checkout page. SSL certificate seals, security seals and merchant seals are great ways to show your users that you’re a credible business they can trust to properly handle sensitive data. It’s also wise to display logos of each payment method choice at checkout since customers may find comfort in familiar images.

DON’T: Ask for more customer information than is necessary

Don’t make your users question why you’re asking for personal information during checkout, only ask customers to enter the minimum amount of information needed to process a payment. If you want more information for marketing purposes ask for it after the checkout is complete.

Optimize your checkout page for mobile devices

If your checkout page does not work properly on smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices, you should stop what you’re doing right now and find a solution. More digital sales than ever before are being made from mobile devices, and in many markets more people use smartphones than computers. It’s critical to implement a checkout option that has cross platform functionality.

DO: Test your checkout page on multiple platforms

While it may be time-consuming, all good developers know it’s important to test applications and sites before taking them live. Your shopping cart, checkout page and payment gateway are no exception to this rule. Go through the entire checkout process on multiple devices and make sure there are no technical issues and that the checkout UI is intuitive, easy to read and functional across platforms.

DON’T: Send users to a new URL

While it’s an easy fix to cross-platform functionality, sending your users to a different URL to complete checkout is a surefire way to lose sales. Not only does it add an extra step to the checkout process, but it may also make your users question how secure your site or application is.

Provide easily accessible customer service

No matter how many times you test your checkout page or shopping cart integration, there’s still a chance you’ll encounter problems at one point or another. If you don’t have easily accessible customer service your customers will give up and make their purchase elsewhere. What’s worse is that on top of the lost sales, you’ll most likely not hear about the issue until much later, if at all. Different customers have different needs, and your customer service strategy should reflect that. Provide customer support via email, a dedicated phone number, and provide prompt responses to inquiries to ensure customer loyalty and to reduce chargebacks.