If you run an eCommerce business and have been struggling for quite a long time with the high abandonment rate of your shopping cart, then this blog post can help you.
In this article, we are going to evaluate the pros and cons of both multiple steps checkout and single-page checkout systems on your eCommerce website. This information can not only help you with your eCommerce website, but you can also follow these tips for your eCommerce mobile app.
Although this is something that needs to be decided before proceeding ahead with the eCommerce web design work, you must not restrict yourself from switching over to the appropriate checkout pattern which you think will work for you.
If you are not sure which checkout pattern (single page or multiple steps) will be good for your eCommerce website, you can always run A/B split testing.
Single Page Checkout
Pros
a) Speed – When your eCommerce website has a single-page checkout system, your users are not required to wait for page refreshes between each step and therefore it helps your customers to fill out a single-page form much more quickly and conveniently.
b) Visible Progress – Internet users have become impatient and expect every process to be short and instant. A single-page checkout always shows the completion progress of the form to the users which adds a little psychological boost and encourages them to finish it off.
c) Navigation – The good thing about a single-page checkout is that there are really no navigational elements. All the fields are on the same page so there’s no need to go back into the browser. In a multi-page checkout, this might cause problems, especially if customers return to their original page and find that they have to re-enter data.
Cons
a) Layout – The only drawback with a single-page checkout system is that when you are required to collect a large piece of information from your customers (depending upon your business), you will be required to show all the fields together on a single page which looks messy and turn your customers off.
a) Capture Partial Information – By splitting up your checkout into multiple pages, even if your customers abandon the checkout at a later stage, you can still capture their basic details like name, email, and phone number (if you ask them about these details in the first step only).
Now, you can use this email to send them reminders about incomplete orders which will definitely help you to bridge the gap between successful orders and abandoned orders.
b) Analytics – Since when we split the checkout system into multiple steps or pages, are able to track the user’s behavior with each page/step with the help of Google Analytics.
For e.g, if you observe that most of the users would drop the checkout form on the third step (which could be billing details or shipping information), at least you know the problematic area and you can take corrective measures to fix this problem.
c) Layout – No matter how much information you intend to collect from your customers on your eCommerce website, your checkout page always looks clean and clutter-free because you have already split the whole form into multiple steps. So, the layout of your checkout page looks good.
Cons
a) Length – Since the multiple steps checkout page may look quite lengthy, it may discourage your customers who really don’t have time to fill all the fields and patiently wait for each step to refresh. Generally, when impatient users see multiple checkout forms, they get disheartened and decide to quit the website and drop the idea of buying the products.
