Top Considerations for Mobile Ecommerce Checkout

Video Transcript: Considerations for Mobile Ecommerce Checkout

Today we are talking about the checkout, and specifically we are focusing on mobile and what you need to think about when it comes to the checkout on these particular devices.

You’re going to learn the biggest issues when checking out on mobile, mobile checkout statistics, as well as tips for improving your mobile checkout.

Some of the biggest issues that are going to come from checking out on mobile, forms being too long. You only have a limited amount of space on the phone screen and scrolling up and down is going to increase friction. People might miss certain fields, they might not know what’s required and what’s optional, it’s important to include only what’s necessary for visitors to check out.

There might also be confusing layout. If you don’t have a specific checkout for mobile and you’re trying to create the desktop version on mobile, it might end up confusing visitors. They might not know where the order summary is, they might need to leave the checkout to look for certain information, make sure that the checkout is very clear and the layout is easily understandable.

There’s also issues with loading times. Different network speeds, people might be out or in their car wanting to buy something, you need to consider how you could make your checkout on mobile as fast as possible.

There also maybe limited payment options. Visitors on mobile want to check out quickly, and they might look for shortcuts like using PayPal or being able to do an express checkout on Shopify using Shop Pay or Amazon Pay, make sure you’re offering the payment options that visitors are looking for.

Lastly, the lack of guest checkout is going to be a big hindrance. To anyone checking out, but especially on mobile, because you’re increasing friction, you’re adding an extra step, visitors don’t always want to create an account to have to check out, make sure that you always include guest checkout.

As far as statistics, on mobile the average abandon rate for the checkout is going to be 85%, whereas on desktop it’s 73%. Both devices it’s quite high, but definitely on mobile it’s much higher. The mobile wallet usage is expected to reach 45% this year, wallet being using payment options like PayPal or Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay. The adoption rate is quickly growing.

When it comes to page load time and visitors bouncing, Google says that an increase of page load time from one to five seconds, the probability of someone bouncing increases by 90%. Especially true on mobile. Visitors are out, they’re doing something else, they want to get through the checkout quickly, and making the checkout slow, making it slow to load is going to cause them to leave and maybe come back later, or maybe not.

Also from Google, a three-second delay in mobile page load time can result in a 53% increase in bounce rates, any way that you can decrease the loading time on your mobile checkout, you’re going to want to try to do that.

Now, some things to consider when you’re creating a mobile checkout experience. Here from Article, you can see they have a responsive design. On desktop they have checkout summary on the right and they have the form fields kind of side-by-side here. On mobile, they’re not just squishing down this desktop version, they are adjusting the layout to fit the mobile screen much better as you can see here on the right.

Helpful explanations are also going to be really important. Here also on Article, they explain the different types of delivery. There’s front door delivery, inside room, inside and assembly, and visitors might not be aware of what the differences are. Here they have these helpful explanations to keep people in the checkout and not leaving to go find this information and then forgetting to finish their purchase.

You also want to make sure the order summary is easy to access. Here at Patagonia, rather than have the order summary open by default, they have it appear at the top and you can just click, just double-check what you ordered and the total, and then you can close it back up. This make sure visitors stay in the checkout instead of leaving to go the cart and then getting distracted.

You also want to consider mobile payment options, like I talked about in the beginning. Here on Allbirds, and for most Shopify stores, you can offer express checkout options.

You also want to make sure to offer a guest checkout. Here for Warby Parker, they have the ability to sign in with your account. You can sign in with Google or Apple, and then you can also continue as a guest. Then MVMT Watches, they have guest checkout as the most prominent option, or you can also use Amazon Pay, but just make sure you always have guest checkout as an option and that it’s readily available, it’s easy to see and visitors aren’t going to miss it.

Then error messaging here for REI. If you only enter a partial phone number, it mentions that it’s an invalid number for the US. That’s a nice clear error, it tells you what you did wrong that you know what to fix. That’s especially important for mobile, you don’t want visitors getting confused. The moment a visitor gets confused, there’s a chance they might just close the phone and say, “I’ll come back later.” There’s a big chance that they don’t come back, you want to make sure to keep them on the checkout.

All right, that’s it right now for the mobile checkout. Hopefully you got some interesting ideas, some things you can improve in your checkout, and I’ll see you in the next video. Thanks.