The checkout process is one of the most important steps in the digital shopping experience. Thus it is relentlessly researched, tested, and optimized. Once a customer has shopped your site, found what he or she wants to buy, added it to the cart and started the checkout process, then the merchant cannot afford to lose that customer. The majority of the hard work has been done, so now it’s about providing a simple and smooth process to guide that customer through check out. Providing the right path is critical and only a small deviation can result in huge gains or losses on a highly trafficked e-Commerce site.

So what really characterizes this part of the sales process? A customer has moved from searching and browsing into a scripted path controlled by the merchant. There are two dramatically different customer experiences within each transaction, one controlled by the customer and the other by the merchant.

Four Simple Rules to Creating a Customer Path that Converts:

Based on our experiences at Zmags, here are four best practices that our customers use to create an optimized and high performing conversion path:

1. Simplify the process. Keep the number of steps to a minimum.
2. Align expectations. If there are four steps that the customer has to go through, inform the customer about them upfront and clearly articulate their status.
3. Guide your customers. Clear calls to action and information is basic. Remove any elements that might be confusing to a customer is critical.
4. Remove distractions. Distractions cause customers to lose focus and could motivate other actions not related to the actual check out.

Many of our leading customers have seen their conversion rate at least double by following implementing these simple rules. We’ve found that average conversion rates in the checkout process are 30 percent, but, of course, that fluctuates quite a bit with the complexity of the order and the types of products.

The Catalog Format: Key to Driving Online Conversions?

The best practices of an online conversion and an offline catalog are strikingly similar. For example:

1. Catalogs sets expectations really well. The reader knows exactly how many pages there are and what is needed to go through them all.
2. Catalogs lead the reader through the content. The reader instinctively knows that page 2 comes after page 1 and page 3 after 2. There is absolutely no question about where you are and where you are headed.
3. The call to action is clear and simple – flip the page.
4. There are very few distractions. The reader only has the catalog and the content within it to focus on.

Essentially, a catalog is basically designed as a clear path with a distinct beginning and end, very similar to a check out conversion path on a website. And we’ve found that utilizing a digital catalog on an e-Commerce site will create the value that retailers and brands are looking for: more pages viewed, more time spent, higher conversion rates and ultimately more e-commerce revenue…

So What You Ask?

Typically, an online catalog is best when customers are unsure of what they are looking for and want/need to be inspired. In this phase, it’s highly beneficial to pull them through a series of content pages that might inspire them to make an impulse purchase. In fact, we at Zmags see between 30-80 percent completion rates of catalog browsers that who get all the way to the last page. In a case where a customer has a 370 pages catalog, approximately 31 percent get to the last page. This really reinforces what we call: ”The power of the path.” The fact that consumers know the medium, are familiar with it, and knows exactly how it works translates into behavior that simulates a perfect conversion path.