Last night I was home late and was in no mood to cook. So, I decided to order a pizza. Not having any cash on me to pay for the delivery I turned to the net to order. Here is some free advice for the online pizza merchant on how to improve the checkout process for the hungry consumer and increase sales.

After going online and having quickly found the website of the local pizza chain, I made my choice and proceeded to the checkout.

Then the little payments consultant in me kicked in.

How would I be able to pay for my order? The web shop gave no information on payment options. I knew I could order online, but would I then have to pay in cash on delivery? Research upon research has shown that providing information on the available payment options increases the conversion rate. I was tempted to abandon the whole idea but was hungry and cashless and so I decided to proceed.

Next came the extensive form requiring a full range of contact details. Name, e-mail address, street name, apartment number, postal code and phone number were all needed to register. The whole thing was just begging for a single sign-on identity service, something akin to OpenID or OpenID+ which is currently being set up in the Netherlands. This would enable the merchant to verify who I was and where I live without me having to fill in all my details at this and every other website.

After filling in the form and proceeding to step 3 in the checkout process, I finally found out I could indeed pay online. In addition to cash-on-delivery I could choose between iDEAL, which allows you to pay from your online bank portal, and credit card. The merchant did, however, charge 50 cents for the iDEAL transaction and 1 Euro for the credit card transaction. At this point I was tempted to abandon my shopping cart after all. I, like many online consumers who are used to ‘free’ transactions in brick-and-mortar shops as well as online, don’t like surcharges.

A surcharge has always proven to be a major stumbling block for consumers and web merchants should refrain from using them. Yes, the online transactions carry extra costs. But weigh these costs against gaining an extra purchase you wouldn’t otherwise have received. Had I not been able to pay online, I would not have bought a pizza that night. Secondly, don’t forget that cash transactions also cost money and there are risks and costs associated with sending the delivery guy out with cash. Don’t the benefits of an online purchase outweigh the small cost of the payment?

Despite these consideration (and the added knowledge that the 50 cents for the iDEAL transaction and 1 Euro for the credit card transaction are higher than the actual costs paid by the merchant for these transactions!) I was still hungry and cashless, and so I selected iDEAL and confirmed the order.

I paid with iDEAL and while waiting for the pizza to arrive wrote a first draft of this blog post.

I did not abandon my shopping cart, but many others might have. A few simple changes can greatly improve the online shopping experience and raise the conversion rate. To recapitulate my three main points of free advice:

1. Give consumers information on the available payment methods (and other ordering information) well in advance.

2. Don’t make consumers register if they don’t have to or consider joining a single sign-on scheme (such as OpenID).

3. And don’t make consumers (overtly) pay for the transaction. Include it in the price or just be happy with the business you otherwise would not have had.

And point number 4: take a second to look at your checkout process from the consumer’s point of view (if you need help, ask us at Innopay). Be kind to consumers and they will be kind to you.

Tags: checkout process

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