Consider that you are a hotel owner. Your guest comes in, asks for a room and other associated services, stays for some days, pays you off and then leaves without giving you any details that you can store for future reference. It sounds somewhat incomplete, doesn’t it?
Well, now consider an online scenario specifically that of a shopping cart where your guest purchases an item and then leaves without you knowing when or at what point he is making the check out. Doesn’t sound good, right? Guest checkout is in fact very important and here are some reasons that will tell you why:
1) Saves Time
There is a large amount of data which reveals that for most buyers, registration is similar to signing up to stuff such as marketing spam. Tell them that once they register, next time the process will become more hassle-free, as their details, including the shipping and billing address would be automatically filled.
This is perhaps the most important reason why customers would prefer a guest check out, without thinking it to be a spam. It clearly saves time, and thus creates value for the customer. Customers who understand the value of time saving would be very much likely to register and opt for the guest checkout process. Some providers also make it lucrative by offering discounts or free coupons once customers sign up.
Online payments industry is witnessing many innovations. Dwolla is one such company that has made a major move to increase sales, by unraveling its feature which enables customers to make guest check-outs.
2) Decreases the Loading Time
The guest checkout process is very important when customers are ready to buy. In the physical world, it goes without saying that no one would like to stand in queues. So why will somebody prefer to do so in the virtual world? A striking study by Amazon revealed that if the load time of the site increased by one extra second with respect to the product pages, Amazon would have a loss in annual sales amounting to $1.6 billion.So it is crucial to provide faster loading, by having guest checkout, or else your customers would prefer numerous other options available online.
3) Gives Buyers a Feeling of Safety
Once shoppers are ready for the checkout process, almost all retailers tend to provide three ways in which buyers can complete the purchase. The first step is that buyers would login using their email address followed by password that was created when the previous registration process occurred. Secondly, buyers can checkout without registering. And thirdly, buyers would register and checkout.
If shoppers are given the choice, most of them would choose to register without checking out, because they feel that it is the quickest route available. Moreover, they also feel it a safe option as they would not be pestered by the retailers or any other third parties.
However, through a proper registration and checkout, the provider can assimilate substantial information about the guest, which can then be included in various studies for improvement of online business. Moreover, when the providers are offering something special, such as coupons or discounts, they do not have to search for new lists but can use the information generated during the guest checkout process.
From the buyer’s point of view, this is also important, as being made a part of the ecommerce site will enable him to make further purchases at an economical rate.
4) Reduces the Trend of Abandonment
If a guest checkout option is there in the shopping cart that you are opting for, there is no need to create an account. This very thing, wherein you do not have to create an account leads to the decrease in abandonment rates with respect to funnels. Sometimes people would not like to share information and find guest check outs safer. Moreover, checkout becomes less of a problem for customers or prospects that are in a hurry.
ASOS.com, a British fashion and beauty online store, managedto decrease its abandonment rate by 50%, at the registration page, simply by removing any mention of creating an account.
5) Makes the Process of Purchase Shorter
It is important to give visitors the freedom of choice. Whether they want to register or not should be left to them. People usually are a hesitant about sharing their private information with you unless they are familiar with the site. So, it would be a bad idea if you make the registration a mandatory process. Moreover, there are times, when it is very frustrating for a customer to fill in a long form, and ultimately he abandons the shopping cart just to get out of the monotony.
In such cases, you would be able to gain trust by making him carry out the transaction as a guest, which will in turn result in a higher conversion rate. According to Baymard statistics, 24% of ecommerce customers abandoned the shopping carts, when they were asked for registration, in order to purchase.
6) Does not Infiltrate Privacy
The crux of the matter is that if you ask too many questions, the amount of trust diminishes rather than enhancing. The more efforts the shoppers have to put in, the lesser will be their loyalty quotient. Given this, guest check out options becomes very important.
There are also intricate tactics that some marketers apply. For instance, most of the effective online retailing sites ask for billing address and then make the customer put a tick in or check mark a box in case the billing address is same as the shipping address. Guest check out assures the visitors that the company is not infiltrating his privacy.
Although there are so many reasons why ‘guest check out’ is good for the business as well as the customer, a number of industry leaders do not follow this best practice for increasing the conversion rates. For instance, the giant ecommerce player Amazon makes it a mandatory step for every customer to follow a registration procedure in order to fulfill a transaction.
However, it should be kept in mind that ,the small and medium business owners are still in the process of building trust with their customers. In such a scenario a guest check out option provides safety and maintains privacy, assuring the customers that they are in a comfort zone. Therefore, this goes without saying, how important it is to avail the services of a professional web design & development company to make guest check out successful and hassle-free for customers.
