The checkout process could make or break a customer’s experience with a retailer. Leaders at Eternally 21 have worked on the checkout page for years. Eternally 21 chief marketing, digital and omni officer Jacob Hawkins shared the five most impactful ways he has seen the retailer improve checkout.
Eternally 21 is No. 105 within the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s rating of North America’s online retailers by web sales. Digital Commerce 360 categorizes it as an apparel retailer.
1. Push customers to a mobile app
The mobile app is the “first and largest way” that Eternally 21 improved checkout, Hawkins said. Two years ago, when he began on the retailer, a mid-single-digit percentage of sales were made on the app. Now, greater than 50% of total business comes through the app.
“It’s the only fastest, easiest approach to shop Eternally 21,” Hawkins added.
Customers can see products much like others they’ve viewed, and once they take a look at, all of their information is saved for a faster checkout next time. Through the app, consumers can even see prices and availability of specific products in stores and go for ship to store, Hawkins said.
2. Offer alternative payment options
Giving customers a wide range of payment options is a very important approach to be sure that they complete the acquisition, Hawkins said. The apparel retailer allows consumers to pay via Apple Pay, Venmo, PayPal, Klarna and Amazon Pay.
It’s a matter of selecting a wide range of payment types without overwhelming the shopper, Hawkins said.
“We don’t wish to have every [payment type] on the market because more is just not all the time more — sometimes you confuse them with 20 different options,” he said. Payment types like Apple Pay and PayPal speed up the checkout process and save the time needed to enter bank card and shipping information, he added.
3. Optimize the web site
Eternally 21 took steps to make its website faster for consumers through a third-party vendor, Hawkins said. The complete website is cached and content is loaded from servers near the shopper. A couple of month after rolling out this alteration, the web site was 50%-80% faster, depending on the device used to access it, he said.
Consumers don’t have the patience to attend for slow-loading checkout pages, they usually expect an instantaneous experience, Hawkins said. Meeting that expectation is sweet for conversion.
4. Personalization
Eternally 21 also added a behavior-informed aspect to its checkout process. For instance, a customer will see personalized recommendations once they’re on the checkout page based on other information they’ve shared. There are also recommendations on pages of various products.
“I believe checkout is a very important piece, but you wish to speed all the process up,” Hawkins said of the shopper’s shopping experience.
He noted that speeding up the shopper’s journey to checkout is very important for retailers to take into consideration, and personalized recommendations help consumers quickly find products they’re occupied with. Revenue from personalized recommendations has doubled within the eight months since Eternally 21 launched the feature, he said.
5. Show customers omnichannel options
Retailers should give customers many options for receiving a product and make it easier for them to determine to envision out, Hawkins said. Eternally 21 offers ship to home and store pickup. That helps Eternally 21 appeal to consumers with barely different preferences. For instance, a customer who doesn’t wish to pay for shipping can elect to ship to a store totally free. Or, someone who needs a particular dress by that evening can buy it via buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and have it inside a couple of hours.
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