According to Baymard Institute, a web research company in the UK, the average cart abandonment percentage is 69.23% (last updated: Jan 9, 2017).
Think about that. Clearly shopping cart abandonment is a big problem. Common reasons for checkout abandonment vary from shipping costs or additional taxes, shipping times or problems with the checkout such as too many steps, bad site performance etc.,
Since the checkout is one of the most crucial aspects to increase conversion, Magento 2 checkout has been completely redesigned from the ground-up. Unlike Magento 1.x, the new checkout gets a big overhaul with simpler 2-step navigation, standard anonymous checkout, payment method integration, dynamic delivery cost estimation.
The new Magento 2 checkout keeps your basket free of clutter, clean and faster. And with better checkout experience, it effectively reduces the chances of the customers abandoning their basket.
Let’s dive into those key features and improvements in Magento 2 checkout:
The native 2-step checkout flow
Unsurprisingly, this is one of the biggest improvements in Magento 2’s checkout. The native checkout shipped with Magento 1 took users through an overwhelming six-step accordion layout. It was slow and laborious process.
Happily, Magento 2 makes the checkout way simpler. The steps in the Magento 2 checkout page have been reduced to 2-steps flow: Shipping and Payment. It allows customers to place orders in less time, increasing the conversion rate of the Magento store.
Crafts 2.0 theme takes advantage of Magento 2 default checkout
Magento 2 makes the guest checkout standard
Why is a guest checkout great from a customer point of view?
The answer is simple, customers don’t generally like registering. A study in 2012 found that 25.6% of online consumers would abandon a purchase if they were forced to register first.
Since anonymous checkout is one of the most crucial aspects of the checkout improvements, Magento 2 provides just that. By default, when first entering the checkout with Magento 2, the user’s not forced to create an account to make your purchase. First-time customers are allowed to simply fill in their email address and shipping details, and they also have the option to register at the end of checkout process if they prefer to. For ones who are account holders but want to checkout quickly, they can also continue checking out without signing in, if they choose to.
Magento 2 Guest Checkout
This ultimately puts the user in control and reduce the customer friction.
Top tip: At this stage of customer journey, customer distractions can cost you sale. Hence, you should always make guest checkout option available by default.
Providing shipping rates up front
Magento 2 now comes with the ability to calculate dynamic deliver costs. Once your customer inputs their shipping address, the shipping rates that apply will automatically load based on the data input like country, region or postcode.
It’s no surprise that providing full or estimated shipping costs -- free shipping over a certain value, a flat rate per product or special rates for certain products -- offers a better experience that can reduce cart abandonment. The proof is in the numbers -- the #1 reason people abandon their carts is “unexpected costs” like shipping, taxes & fees.
It’s up to you to use the shipping methods that are included in a default Magento 2 installation: Flat Rate, Free Shipping, Table Rates, UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL. If your customers are looking for a different shipping method beyond, you can find many additional carriers and new features for shipping in the Magento marketplace.
Magento 2’s dynamic shipping rates
Once your customer chooses a shipping rate, the price will be added to their total which clearly indicates there are no hidden costs.
Floating Order summary
Another useful improvement in Magento 2 checkout is the order summary located in the right sidebar. This responsive ‘minicart’ block allows a customer to see at a glance exactly all items they’ve ordered. During checkout, they simply toggle the order summary to see each individual item with a product image and certain attributes assigned to the product.
The order summary can count as instant verification that the correct product was indeed added. This offers complete transparency to your users, especially for speedy shoppers who want to complete a quick purchase.
Magento 2 Order Summary in Crafts 2 theme
Payment method integration & 1-Click payment
With so many payment methods available, it will not be an understatement to say that Magento 2 checkout is one of the biggest improvements over Magento 1.
Magento 2 now includes several payment methods by default:
- Paypal
- Braintree
- Check or money order
- Bank transfer payment
- Cash on delivery payment
- Zero subtotal checkout
- Purchase order
- Authorize.net direct post
All these out-of-the-box payment solutions gives you a lot of alternatives to setup the payment methods that you prefer.
Review & Payment step -- Crafts 2 theme for Magento 2
Notably, Magento 2.2.2 introduced Instant Purchase a few weeks ago, an Amazon-like one-click ordering, which utilizes the Braintree vaulted credit card method that’s native to Magento 2. It lets a customer skip the shopping cart and automatically creates an order for that product based on the default information already stored on their account.
The Instant Purchase is the fastest way to place an order indeed, and definitely important to eliminate the big problem: shopping-cart abandonment.
Conclusion
All in all, Magento 2 checkout is a vast improvement over Magento 1 and will make the checkout simpler and faster.
Thanks to the new streamlining checkout process, Magento 2 gives you meaningful ways -- both in terms of the user experience and technical point view -- to increase conversion rate for your ecommerce store. If you want to have a closer look into a Magento 2 checkout demo, browse around our Magento 2 themes here.
