Optimise your checkout form for increased conversions

The checkout form is the most important form on an ecommerce website. Unfortunately it’s also where the most users leave the website. Making the checkout form as easy to fill out as possible will almost certainly improve your revenue. Here are some tips for an easy to fill out checkout form.

Only ask what is required.

This means getting rid of any form input fields that are rarely used or not essential. No body likes filling out forms. The length of your checkout form is proportional to how many users will complete it. If you don’t need a ‘Company’ field, then remove it. If you don’t need to collect your custoemrs phone numbers, get rid of that too. Your store might only sell ‘virtual’ products such and tickets or downloads. You might not need to collect full address details because nothing is being shipped.

Order the checkout form logically.

Put the easiest input fields first. Name, email etc. Users are more inclined to finish something they have started. If you are using an abandoned cart system you might want to place the email field first. This ensures you collect the users email and can send them cart recovery emails.

Group related information together.

You can make a long, imposing form look simpler by grouping certain fields together. Rather than one long list of fields, place name, email and phone together. Then address details. Then shipping address if needed. If you need to collect a lot of information, consider making your form and multi page form.

Make the most of the traffic to your ecommerce store with a CRO / UX audit.

Avoid placeholder with no input labels.

There is a big problem with place holders with no labels. Once a user starts to enter text into the input field, the placeholder letting them know what to enter disappears. This places more cognitive load on the user. Forms are annoying enough without making it harder. Let the user know what is needed (and what isn’t).You should aim to remove un-needed fields. Sometimes fields are helpful but not essential. Make sure the required fields are marked clearly. No one likes submitting a form only to have an error message pop up telling you you’ve missed a field. Equally important is marking non-required fields as optional.

The credit card input is very important.

Many times a transaction won’t go through because a user inputs the wrong information into the credit card form. Payment gateways can refuse transactions if the users name doesn’t match the name on their card. The same goes with billing address details. Change the name field labels to Name (as it appears on card). Include micro-copy next to the form to guide the user.

Make it easy with auto-complete.

Many browsers can now save contact details and complete forms automatically. However not everyone has this set up. An address finder / auto-complete plugin can increase conversions. This can also help with shipping as it ensures the customers address is correct.

Make the payment button large and clear.

This is possibly the most important button on your website. Make it impossible to miss. The payment button should look different to other secondary buttons.