5 Best Practices For An Optimized Mobile Checkout Experience

Published in

BUFFALOE DIGITAL

5 min readJan 30, 2019

To this day I remember the exact moment that I held my very first iPhone. I can still picture the excitement shining bright in my eyes and the curiosity bouncing around in my brain as I opened up that iconic white box. Staring down at that beautiful, revolutionary touch screen I recall holding down the power button and just as the apple logo began to fade into view I pledged my eternal smartphone allegiance to Apple and would forever question the technological judgement of anyone with a green text bubble.

That historical moment in my adult life took place exactly 11 years, 5 months and 2 weeks from the day this article was written (or 11 iPhones ago in apple keynote lingo). Since the release of that first generation iPhone mobile technology has exploded. Over the course of the last decade we have witnessed the evolution of MMS, mobile applications, social media platforms and most notably, mobile commerce. In 2018 it is hard to believe that online shopping was, at one time, only for the technologically savvy. Today, 80% of Americans make an online purchase from their phone every month and 30% make an online purchase from their mobile phone each week.

As a 30-something woman in tech who owns virtually every gadget on the market (from smart speakers to robotic vacuums) my purchase power is 100% dependent on a brand’s mobile technology, or lack thereof. And I know what you’re thinking, I’m only a small percentage of the customer market. False. There are over 2 billion people with smartphones worldwide and the concept of the smart home is well on its way to becoming mainstream. To clarify, smart home is defined as a house in which any number of interconnected devices and home appliances are performing certain actions in order to save money, time, and energy.

The global smart home market is forecasted to reach a value of more than 53 billion U.S. dollars by 2022¹ and 100% of those smart homes will be controlled via mobile applications. So what does all of this mean for e-Commerce companies? Well, for starters, ensuring your your Shopify website is optimized for mobile is no longer recommended, but essential to success. The truth is, if checking out on your mobile website isn’t convenient and easy, you’ll never see that customer again. And yes, you have Amazon to thank for that.

The good news is, optimizing your customer’s mobile checkout experience can be efficient and cost-effective thanks to Shopify’s extensive app store and developer community. To get you started we’ve rounded up our top 5 best practices for a better mobile checkout backed by client data.

Social Login

Capturing customer information is the first step in converting that customer. If you want to collect more customer data from your site for use in CRM, make creating an account on your site as easy as a click of a button.

The Facts:

Websites using social login apps for their store accounts see up to 20% increase in site conversions.

The Stats:

86% of Users Report Being Bothered By Having To Create New Accounts On Websites²

77% of Users Believe Social Login Is A Good Registration Solution

Recommended App: Oxi Social Login

Digital Wallets

In store payments via smartphones, referred to as mobile proximity payments, are on the rise and expected to generate close to 190 billion U.S. dollars in transaction value in the United States by 2021 with the number of users projected to reach over 60 million before 2020³.

The Facts:

Shopify Merchants using Shopify Payments to accept credit cards online have access to Apple Pay and Google Pay at no extra charge.

The Stats:

A recent survey found that an estimated 110 million Americans have used a digital wallet at some point in their lives. Reflecting a rise in e-wallet popularity, that’s 3.5 million more people than just two years ago who said they used an e-wallet with Facebook Messenger, Google Wallet, Venmo and similar services.

In fact, about 75% of those surveyed — or more than 80 million Americans — say they use digital wallets because they’re a more convenient option than carrying around dollar bills and credit cards.

Recommend App: Shopify Payments

3rd Party Payment Gateways

The original 3rd party gateway, Paypal, took on the internet of things back in 2000 and today, over a decade later, the payment processing pioneer still dominates the digital wallet space beating out Amazon, Starbucks and Google wallet.

The Facts:

Paypal is available in 203 markets and 26 currencies and a quarter of all paypal transactions take place on a mobile device.

The Stats:

In 2017 over 450 billion USD was processed through Paypal. In 2018 18 % of all e-Commerce was processed through Paypal⁴.

Recommend App: Paypal Express Checkout

Alternate Gateways for Financing

This year it is estimated that millennials in the U.S. alone will be spending $200 billion. By the end of 2018, they will have the most spending power of any generation yet, only 1 in 3 millennials have a credit card.

e-Commerce websites featuring Buy Now, Pay Later services experienced 60% increase in average order value and 10% increase in conversion. Their largest demographic? Millennials.

The Facts:

With 78% of people reportedly making a purchase on mobile within the last six months there is no disputing the fact that mobile shopping is on the rise.

However, despite the steady growth, shopping cart abandonment remains a big problem for online retailers .

The Stats:

58% of people have started to pay for something via mobile, only to abandon it before the final checkout. With 31% saying this was because they were asked for too much sensitive information, and 21% saying the process was too long — it has been suggested that offering a ‘buy now, pay later’ option could help combat this.

Recommend App: Afterpay

Post-Checkout Notifications

Everyone working in e-Commerce knows the frustration of abandon cart rate. To be frank, our team at Grass Monkey is borderline obsessed with it. Through our research we found that on average, ¾ shoppers will abandon their cart for a number of reasons from shipping charges to checkout page functionality.

The Facts:

Abandonment costs e-marketers about 2 to 4 trillion per year. Given the large economic impact, shopping cart abandonment solutions are becoming a priority for e-commerce marketers⁵.

The Stats:

Messenger offers you the opportunity to engage with customers in a platform that has higher open rates and click-through rates than email. With an optimized activation, brands can experience up to 90% open rate and 33% click-through rate on in-app abandoned cart reminders.