checkout - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

They also provide a useful way to review the products selected for purchasing, and offer site owners a chance to reassure customers about security and payment options.

Let's look at some examples of basket design used by popular online retailers, to see what works, and what doesn't...

Two-thirds of companies in the UK are failing to send emails to customers who have abandoned their shopping baskets.

This seems like a missed opportunity, and is one of the findings of the E-consultancy / Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2008, a survey of agency and company email marketers in the UK.

Traffic to Google Checkout has overtaken that to rival online payment service PayPal for the first couple of weeks in December.

Hitwise's Robin Goad finds that the payment service has taken a marginal lead, though this doesn't necessarily indicate that more people are making payments through Google Checkout.

Recent figures indicate that around half of all potential customers bail out  during the checkout process.

While there are several reasons for this, including uncontrollable ones like users checking delivery charges or comparison shopping, usabilty problems at the checkout are also partly to blame.

We list ten ways to make the checkout process smoother and reduce abandonment after the jump:

Bob Chieffo published an excellent article last week on the importance of buttons on e-commerce sites in making it clear to the customer what they need to press next.

He points out, on Revenews, that many etailers allow too much room for confusion in the mind of the customer over what they need to do and press to make their purchase.

More than half the people that apply online for various financial services abandon the process before completion, according to a new survey. 

The study, by comScore, suggests many of these abandonments occur because consumers want to find out details about the services on offer, but that information is hidden behind the application process.

Just under 50% of online customers abandon their purchases during the checkout process - one of the biggest causes of lost revenue for online retailers.

While many of the reasons for this are beyond the control of the retailer, such as comparison shopping by users with no intent to buy, there is still much that can be done to reduce abandonment rates.

Problems with the checkout process constitute the single biggest loss of revenue for many e-commerce sites, with almost half of online retail transactions abandoned at this stage.

According to figures from Marketing Sherpa, the average abandonment rate for shopping carts is 60%, of which 12% give up before hitting the checkout. This means 48% of potential customers bail out at the checkout stage.

E-consultancy this week publishes its Online Retail Checkout Special Report, a must-read for e-commerce site owners who want to understand how they can reduce abandonment rates.

Here, Dr Mike Baxter, the author, talks about some of the key issues and problem areas associated with checkouts - and some of the 'quick wins' for etailers.

Google has cancelled a party planned around its Checkout online payment system after pressure from eBay.

The search giant on Monday announced the bash would be held this evening on the fringes of eBay's own Live event in Boston.