The Best E-Commerce Checkout Practices [Infographic]

A recent survey done by Smashing Magazine examines the E-Commerce checkout process and examines the best and worst practices of the top 100 grossing E-Commerce sites.

The average e-commerce checkout is 5.08 steps, with the shortest offering a 1 step checkout and the longest containing 9 steps. It is, however, important to note that the number of steps has minimal impact on the user experience. By concentrating on what the customer needs to do to move forward, you can make the checkout process as smooth as possible.

Many sites (81%) automatically signed users up for their newsletters, but 40% of users said they did not want newsletters, associating them with Spam and causing hesitation when asked to sign up for an account.

The majority of sites tested provided a guest checkout opportunity. After using the guest checkout option, studies showed users were not annoyed if asked to set up an account later or after the purchase.

50% of the e-commerce websites ask for the same information more than once while only 10% auto-filed what the customer had already entered. Not only is this annoying, but increases abandonment on mobile devices.

Best E-Commerce Checkout Practices