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Reviewing LukeW on Evolving E-Commerce Checkout

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lukew-logo-smSome time ago, we found an article by Luke Wroblewski, “Evolving E-commerce Checkout”, a blog post that takes a more thorough than usual look at its topic—a post not only worth reading but also reviewing.

The article poses the question as to whether e-commerce has truly evolved, or rather what changes have been adopted that "have significantly impacted checkout conversion online."

Waves of E-Commerce

Luke posits some key e-commerce evolution waves, starting with the initial ability (now second nature) to purchase physical goods digitally. This wave brought about e-commerce retail behemoths Amazon and Ebay (aided by its 2002 acquisition of PayPal).

waves

In the wave that followed, Apple’s iTunes became the #1 online music store in the world. Amazon’s introduction of Kindle came in 2007. In Q4 of 2010, Amazon announced that in the US their e-book sales had surpassed sales of paperback books for the first time.

The next wave comes as no surprise: mobile online purchasing. Luke lists three bullets:

  • $5B eBay’s 2011 mobile sales
  • $10M daily PayPal mobile payments
  • 15% of 2011 black Friday searches

He goes on to address the primary interface shoppers are presented with in order to complete an online purchase: the checkout form. There are significant innovations that seek to leave the checkout form behind altogether, but this evolution is hard to grasp; it is still history in the making.

Anatomy of the Checkout Form

Luke’s thesis statement runs: "While e-commerce has continued to grow, the experience of buying online has remained largely unchanged for the past seventeen years". He goes on to perform what might be called an anatomy of the checkout form, revealing shortcomings of the old model before diving into innovations inspired by User Experience design, where psychological factors are seen to influence technical and design advances.

To this day, the most common digital shopping experience consists of finding an item you want to buy, adding it to a cart, then checking yourself out.

Unsurprisingly this process just about always culminates in a form. After all, online retailers need to know who their customer is, where they want their item sent, and how they’ll pay for it. This has resulted in a fairly standard set of required input fields.

What he finds is that "despite many years of optimization, online shopping cart abandonment rates reached 75% in the first six months of 2011." – Source: seewhy.com.

Evolving Checkout

lukew-persuasian-efficiency-graphTwo factors come into play in tackling the cart abandonment problem: how to Increase Desire (Persuasion) and how to Reduce Effort (Efficiency). Luke outlines 12 components that strive to put these optimization factors into play, from various angles. We see these as a useful mosaic of where e-commerce checkout is heading as it begins to put the user experience (UX) more directly center stage—matching psychological insights with technical innovations.

  • Web Form Design
  • Clarifying Requirements
  • Real-Time Feedback
  • Saved Accounts
  • 1-Click
  • Free Shipping
  • Shipping Programs
  • Psychological Motivators
  • Mobile Input
  • Digital Stores in Physical Locations
  • Digital Shopping in Physical Stores
  • Shopping Devices

Some trends emerge: single page checkout, guided multi-step forms, dynamic forms that respond to variables in a single UI. He studies an "accordion" style checkout as exemplified by Apple.

Removing a question "can have a real impact", he says, and references another of his articles, "What Impacts Web Form Conversion?".

Real-time feedback on form validation is also promoted as a useful, more conversational way of interacting with users to spot errors and give feedback without delay.

Trust is another psychological factor (often unconscious) that is aided by SSL verification seals. Professional design is also mentioned, as is injecting a sense of both community and urgency. In this example, messaging for the product is supplemented by (a) a discount percentage, (b) how many purchases of the item have already occurred, and (c) time left to buy.

This last item represents a familiar meme of scarcity (of time or units) we’ve seen – and possibly seen through – on travel sites. Such manipulation, even if technically valid, can be seen here as the dark side of UX, which otherwise is given a rosy face in the article.

Insights on mobile input include camera-powered barcode scans and image recognition apps. Luke discusses Amazon’s Flow ("augmented reality" as TechCrunch puts it). Luke’s take:

Amazon’s Flow is perhaps the most impressive example of reducing the gap between products in the physical world and digital shopping. Through a continuous image recognition system, Flow allows you to point a mobile device at barcodes or products. Once identified, it only takes a single tap to order the product from Amazon using 1-Click checkout. When coupled with Amazon Prime, the product is shipped free and arrives within two days. If that’s not the bleeding edge of digital shopping I don’t know what is.

apple-store-appThe cross-breeding of brick & mortar with digital purchasing is explored here in some detail. You can pick up an item in an Apple store, launch an app and buy it without even dealing with a store rep. Or you can buy online and pick up at a local store. The article refers to Apple’s Easy Pay; since it was written, Apple has come out with the "Apple Store" app, a revamped version with additional features.

Location detection also plays a big role in the cross-breeding of physical stores and digital purchasing. Shopping Devices "can turn an entire tablet, media reader, or mobile device into an end-to-end complete digital shopping experience."

Luke’s conclusion is worth quoting in full:

Digital content and mobile devices are growing at a breakneck pace creating many new opportunities for e-commerce. From friction-less checkout on dedicated devices to services that combine the best of physical and digital shopping, we’re just seeing the start of what’s possible. There’s never been a better time to “checkout” what’s next.


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