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Getting customers on the path to purchase is an accomplishment. You’ve convinced them they need your product enough to fork over their hard-earned money to you in exchange. Once users click the Buy or Checkout button, they have an expectation of what the next few moments of their life will be like.
- Fill in address
- Dig out and enter credit card info
- Enter address
- Select shipping speed
- Submit order
Also, let’s not forget the subroutine that many of us embark upon somewhere in there.
- Do a quick search for a coupon code
- Hopefully find a coupon code
- Find coupon code entry box
- Enter code
The other day, I was merrily shopping online when I suddenly found myself on a registration page. It seems I could no longer go about my business in peace. At that point, the powers that be decided it was an appropriate time to put the brakes on my delightful forward progress. I must now tell them who I am and where they can send my advertisements.
Sigh.
I’m interrupted. I was 2-seconds away from inputting my credit card information, but instead of clicking “Submit Order,” I’m typing in a user name, entering a password, and checking boxes. My hope at this point is that I’ll be dropped back at the same spot I was taken away from. Too often, that doesn’t happen. Too often, I’m dropped off at some sort of welcome page or even the home page again. And, to add insult to injury, sometimes I’m even asked to log in! What?!?
If there is some benefit to logging in the user may want to take advantage of, like avoiding having to fill in a mailing address or credit card information, then by all means offer the user a way to do that. But for the user who is focused on completing a goal; let him complete it, uninterrupted by your agenda. The site can always offer a way to create an account during the checkout process. Also, be sure to state the benefits of creating an account and include information about how your company intends to use the account information. Many users are wary of filling up their inbox with even more marketing emails.
Jared Spool has an article illustrating this point, called The $300 Million Button. His team discovered a registration requirement that interrupted the checkout process on a major e-commerce website was hurting sales by 45%. By simply removing the Register button and adding a note that creating an account was not necessary for checkout, sales from the site increased by $300 million the first year.