checkout process and conversions

looking for opinions

[wayzel]

Hello,

I currently use a 4-step purchasing process for the sale of a service on my website. Each step is on a seperate page with "next" and "back" links built in.
I am wondering if consolidating this signup process to a single longer page would improve conversions...or if leaving it as 4 seperate blocks is better?

The current 4-steps are:
1) enter email address/password/password/password reminder
2) pick service options
3) enter billing information
4) confirm by clicking "submit", followed by "congratulations, you are done"

I explain in the signup process why we need each piece of information. Initially, I chose to seperate it into sections because I wanted everything to appear quick and simple rather than seeing a large number of fields on one page. Also, each page has its own set of rules and checks to make it easy for buyers to fix info mistakes.

However, I've also heard that reducing the number of clicks during checkout/purchasing is a central rule of improving site conversions. I can't tell what percentage of buyers abandon midway through the process because it is all in asp.net panels that show up as 1 page in the logs.

Additionally, I could remove certain info requests such as "secret question, answer" (customers could add these after buying the service, via the 'myaccount' section of the site) or the CVV code in the billing section.

Any thoughts?

[danieljean]

I would experiment a bit. Change it around, and if it's lower, change it back.

Is registration really necessary? You could consider doing it after the successful completion of the order, explaining the advantage as less information to enter next time.

[wayzel]

registration is necessary because it is a repeat-use service (think of your cell phone or ISP account) and hence having a registered user is important. I agree with you that experimentation is key.

[Morocco]

Keep it to a three step process. Overstock.com is an excellent example of the three step checkout. They enjoy the some of the highest conversion rates in the business.

[T_Bill]

We had the same thoughts and the same problem. So we created a one page order form.

Great results (30% drop in abandoned carts)and less confusion for the customer.

Also, make sure that cookies are not necessary to use your cart. We did a test and over 25% of the people using our cart had cookies turned off! A lot of carts use cookies.

If your cart uses cookies it can result in customers unable to order or only able to order one product.

[Reactive]

Currently I use 1shoppingcart to sell my digital product. I feel they offer good ad tracking and a reasonably user friendly checkout process.

Right now I feel as though the 1shoppingcart system is the standard for selling digital products.

Does anyone feel they know of a superior shopping cart system for selling digital products?

[blaze]

Get the billing information first.

[blaze]

That was kinda vague. My reasoning was that if they've gone to the trouble of getting out their CC card and put it into your database and they think you've charged them, then they're going to make sure they follow through with the rest of the process.

Very very unlikely will they abandon the cart at that point.

[wayzel]

I think we will try a one-page buy/checkout process with the credit card info being at the bottom of the page and see how that goes.

I liked Overstock's method (thanks to whoever mentioned that as a source to check out for ideas) and will model it similarly.

Some of the things we will drop from the initial signup process are:

1) a secret question/secret answer for password resets.
2) getting rid of all checkboxes and options and keeping things streamlined so there aren't distractions for new buyers.