Are Sales Down? Reduce Friction For Your eCommerce Store With Enterprise WordPress Hosting

Would it surprise you to know that the average cart abandonment rate is 70%? To put it another way, only 3 of 10 customers actually finish the shopping experience. Though it sounds like a great batting average, it’s a pretty tough sell to the CFO when overall revenue is down. 

So what can you do? It means you need to find ways to reduce purchase friction for the remaining 7 of 10 customers. The worst part is that checkout friction is cumulative. Now, you can’t compete with phone calls that interrupt the mobile buying experience, but you can make the experience much easier by reducing the required steps in the checkout process.

“And even the most minor reductions in friction can have a significant impact. One company reduced friction in a single date-of-birth data field by 20% and saw a 40% reduction in abandonment.”

Forbes

Baymard Institute drilled down the top cart abandonment areas of friction in their 2023 study. The top reasons include extra costs, mandatory account creation, slow delivery, and credit card trust issues.

Can your business afford to ignore these common eCommerce friction points for consumers?

What is eCommerce Friction?

Who hasn’t been frustrated in the lines at the grocery store? Firstly, you have intent (you’re hungry) and secondly, your partner keeps texting you asking when you’ll be home (they’re hungry). So the primary need is already a source of frustration. 

You finally get into the line and now there is a customer in front of you getting out her checkbook. (Yes, in 2023 some customers still use a checkbook.) Holy Toledo, Batman! This is taking forever! And your ice cream is melting while you wait to leave the store. Whew. It’s your turn. Beep. Boop. Beep. Boop. 

Yes, I have reusable bags, got my total, time to pay, you think to yourself. Then the POS (Point of Sale) pin pad isn’t working. Swipe your credit card? No. It wants the chip. Oh, now you have to choose print or email. Good grief. 

This kind of frustration is easy to relate to. We’ve all been there. That purchase friction exists both in person and online. While we can’t help your local grocery store optimize its queue, we sure can help you reduce friction by focusing on three main areas: guest checkout, transparent shipping costs, and trustworthy payment processing.

“eCommerce friction, also called purchase friction, is that which hinders the customer from making a purchase or reaching the end of the sales funnel.”

Scandia Web

Reduce Friction by Allowing Guest Checkout

Are you willing to lose almost half of your sales to rigid account setup rules? With overall sales volume down, we’d like to bet you aren’t. User registration has its benefits, that’s for sure. And the marketing team loves nurturing these folks with their email campaigns. Fair enough.

Not all users want to create an account just to buy something from you. Think about it. They saw your amazing running shoes on Instagram. Then the customer chose their shoe size and shoe color. Next is the shipping info. 

They finally get to making a payment, and wait, what? They have to create an account and use another password. Good grief. They leave the checkout process – why? – friction. The desire to buy the shoes on mobile was overcompensated with extra steps. Eh, they’ll get to it later. 

Guess what? They never do.

Reduce Friction with Transparent Shipping Costs

No one likes to be blindsided with extra fees or shipping costs. Late-night infomercials offer 4 widgets for the price of 1 with shipping and handling costs. Well, that wasn’t a deal after all. Oh, and there’s no clear return policy. Shoot. 

You turn to Facebook to rant. As a cat lover and space nerd, you just saw a new mug you must have. You’re definitely buying a new kitty astronaut cup for only $12? That’s a killer deal. But the shipping costs are $10. Boo. You got all the way to checkout and now you’re just over it. 

Maybe someone else has the cup. You can’t get it out of your mind. Eureka! It’s probably on Etsy. You immediately found another astronaut cat coffee cup that costs $5.97 to ship. It doesn’t even matter that it costs more ($25) because it’s way cuter and, more importantly, the transparent pricing causes you to trust the seller.

Hot take: Increase your sales by reducing friction at checkout with transparent shipping costs – or, better yet, free shipping.

Reduce Friction by Increasing Credit Card Payment Trust

In that same report, Baymard found that 19% of cart abandonment was because people didn’t trust the site with their personal credit card information. We’ve talked about PCI compliance before and though a consumer may not know what it is, they know it when they see it.

Consumers trust well-designed, simple, fast websites. The checkout interface should look seamless and, frankly, trustworthy. If the payment form looks janky, it most likely is. So, don’t redirect to another site or payment gateway. Instead, use WooCommerce or a similar checkout platform to reduce eCommerce friction. The beauty of WooCommerce is that there are 79 payment gateway extensions, too – even more important if you’re offering international sales. Oh and don’t forget about Apple Pay, GPay, and CashApp cards.

Hot take: Increase your sales by reducing friction at checkout with a trusted payment gateway that accepts modern forms of payment.

Reduce eCommerce Friction With Modern WordPress Enterprise Hosting 

Modern Hosting where Enterprise-Level eCommerce sites thrive is what you need to reduce friction.  At a reasonable price? Take my money! 

We know how to treat our Enterprise clients and, more importantly, how to be an extension of your existing team. That’s why Rocket.net is the best bet for you and your Enterprise eCommerce clients.