Three mistakes you could be making with your checkout process

Did you know that almost 80% of online shopping carts are abandoned at checkout? I know that sounds REALLY high, but if you don't believe me, check out this latest statistic on shopping cart abandonment from Listrak.

Is your online store a part of the statistics, too? When was the last time you checked your store's shopping cart abandonment rate? Did you even know that you can check? If not, today's podcast episode is a must-listen.

There are many reasons why someone adds items from your online store to their shopping cart and leaves without buying. It could be your shipping charges, the fact that they weren't 100% sure if they wanted to buy or they weren't sure if your site was secure, your checkout process has too many steps and many other reasons.

In today's podcast episode I share my story about why I recently abandoned an online shopping cart at a jewelry website, even though I REALLY wanted to purchase the jewelry. I talk about one mistake that the website was making that was steered me away for actually checking out. Are you making this mistake, too?

Three mistakes you could be making with your checkout process

1. Promo Code

When someone checks out at your online store, do they see a field for a "promo" or "discount" code? If so, what do you think happens physiologically to them if they don't have a promo code to enter? It's exactly what happened to me when I was shopping at the jewelry website and it happens to me ALL the time when I shop online (and I shop online A LOT). I usually go to RetailMeNot.com to search for a coupon code, but what happens if there's no coupon code available? There have been many studies that show that a promo code field can be hurting your online sales. Check out this one from Kiss Metrics.

2. Payment Options

When you're first starting out, it makes sense to offer PayPal as the only checkout option on your website. There are no monthly fees with PayPal and PayPal has more than 173 million users. Their logo is very recognizable and has a lot of trust built in, but what happens when someone wants to check out at your store, but doesn't want to use PayPal? They leave and go somewhere else.

This actually happened to me yesterday when I was purchasing an online gift card for my sister's birthday. The spa that I wanted to get it from only offered PayPal and I only have a PayPal account for my business, not personal, and I didn't want to use my business account to pay for a personal gift. After I tried to checkout without signing in to PayPal, I got an error message that my email address was already associated with a PayPal account and I HAD to log in to that PayPal account in order to complete my purchase. When I tried a different email address, I got another error message saying that the credit card that I wanted to pay with was already associated with a PayPal account and I HAD to log in to my PayPal account. Needless to say, I didn't complete my purchase and instead purchased a gift card at another spa that didn't require me to use PayPal.

There are so many payment options now that allow you to take credit cards directly - Stripe is an easy choice because, like PayPal, they don't charge monthly fees and their transaction fees are exactly the same as PayPal's, so you have no excuse not to accept other forms of payment. There are also many other options that offer lower fees, so it's always a good idea to check around.

3. Checkout as a Guest

When I had my online t-shirt store about 30% of my customer chose the "checkout as a guest" option. Thi