The $300,000,000 Button

[MJ DeMarco]

Great article that not only transcends ECOMMERCE but any website involving conversion. Remove barriers that get your visitors "to do what they want", and more convert.

Tribune

The $300 Million Butto, by Brendon Sinclair (Sitepoint.com)

Pssst ... want $300 million?
Yep, me too. Here's a way to do it, but first you're going to have to have a $25 billion ecommerce business.

I went to buy a book yesterday and, upon going to the checkout, was asked to create an account. You've probably seen the same screen a hundred times -- it's the account creation common to osCommerce, among others.

I did what I always do when I'm faced with this requirement to create a new account: I abandoned the shop and went elsewhere.

That account creation request stops me in my tracks every single time and, my sixth sense tells me, it would stop a lot of other people too.

Shortly after this an online friend sent me through an article that detailed the usability testing that the account creation screen was costing an ecommerce giant a staggering $300 million a year in sales!

Turns out that buyers in buy mode just want to buy what they want to buy. They want to avoid a process that they think will lead to pestering marketing messages. That's really no big surprise -- eliminate the distractions, remove the road blocks, and just make it easy. We all want easy.

It's so simple.

If buyers did eventually create an account, it's likely they'd forget the details for the return visit so the account creation fails to streamline the process for anyone. It just creates even more frustration for the repeat buyer.

The killer bit of information for me is that the online store receives the exact same data about a customer during a simpler checkout system as they do when they ask (and cause massive shopping cart abandonment) the shopper to create an account.
Staggering.

If buying from you -- no matter if it's a book, a web site design, or an online advertising package -- lacks a basic range of payment options to suit the customer, then you're doing it wrong.

By doing it right you could increase your sales by a staggering amount.

 

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[LightHouse]

Great article that not only transcends ECOMMERCE but any website involving conversion. Remove barriers that get your visitors "to do what they want", and more convert.

Tribune

Always been surprised that amazon does auto create an account. i have it on all my stores, its one pages to check out. googles autofill will fill out all your details then you pick shipping or whatever and your done, we will create the account for you to track everything. Makes it much simpler.

 

[Russ H]

Rep speed for this one MJ (hey, everyone needs a little rep speed now and again, eh?)

We'll see if we can streamline (or at least give this as an option) to our booking process.

Way cool.

-Russ H.

 

[Sparlin]

Along the same train of thought as dissatisfied customer, I have another observation. When I was a kid, a product advertised a contest, you would purchase it, open it, and find out if you won or not.

Now, you buy a product, you open it, and then you get a 25 character code that you are expected to look up on the internet or check on by phone.

When you go to many of the sites, they want your info in order to check the codes. I never check the codes anymore, I don't even buy the products based on contest and other gimmicks.

DO you realize how many millions of dollars those companies save in unclaimed prizes?

 

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[neverfastenough]

Another article about it that has some more specific figures

Jared Spool runs User Interface Engineering, which does usability studies on e-commerce sites. Recently, they did work for a major retailer, whose site probably had the most unoffensive design you can imagine: After filling your cart, you press "checkout." After that, you're prompted to log-in or register, before finishing your purchase. The web designers assumed that returning users would know their info, and the new users wouldn't mind the little step of signing up an account, since they'd probably be back. An innocuous set of assumptions. But a massive mistake.
UIE studied people actually using the site, and it turns out that the prospect of registering was enough to turn some users away; meanwhile, even return users had problems logging in because they didn't remember the email address or password they signed up with. (45% of users apparently had multiple registrations—a few had up to 10.) Granted, these represented a small portion of users. But for a retailer with $25 billion, even small portions signify huge lost profits.
So UIE redesigned the site, replacing the "register" button with "continue." They also added a message, saying that registering wasn't required to checkout, but was optional and might be helpful if you returned.
Sales went up 45%—$15 million in the first month, and $300 million in the first year.
Given UIE's success, it's a wonder how often you still see byzantine registration forms on websites. But there's a bigger lesson: That empirical research into how people actually behave matters far more than the intuitions of any designer, no matter how experienced that designer might be.

The $300 Million "Continue" Button | Design & Innovation | Fast Company

 

[Russ H]

Again, a massive thank you for this thread.

-Russ H.

 

[neverfastenough]

This story just illustrates the important fact that if you ever think you're done designing your website, you're not. Continual tweaking is necessary for best results. There are very few businesses (none!) that can be run with a "set it and forget it" attitude.

 

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[Andrew]

"On my answering machine is the message I received from the CEO of the $25 billion retailer, the first week they saw the new sales numbers from the redesigned form. It's a simple message: "Spool! You're the man!" It didn't need to be a complex message. All we did was change a button."

What major retailer was this? Bigger than Amazon but a lot smaller than Wal-mart. Amazon only did $19 billion in sales last year. Walmart did $404 billion. (Speaking of which.. that leaves amazon a whole lot of room to grow.)

 

[buckmajor]

hmmm...this will come in handy down the track. Thank you Fastlane.

 

[CactusWren]

Any recommendations on shopping cart software with a one page check out?

More about one page check out software on this thread:

http://www.thefastlanetomillions.co...t/19229-ecommerce-shopping-cart-solution.html

 

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[SweetJones]

For me, this is a true experience. I cannot count how many times I've actually abandoned websites when they ask me to create an account just to purchase items. Come to think of it, its usually for small ticket items under $100. For high ticket items, if i'm buying it, it's probably the bargain, so I'll create it.

Spot on article. Cheers

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I abandon carts all the time .... I really hate the ads on Craigslist that advertise some real estate property and when you click on the ad, it directs you to some form that screams "Fill out the form to get the entire list!!" INSTEAD of showing the property advertised, sorta the marketers "bait and switch". I hit the "BACK" button. I'm not filling out your form!

 

[ATL_JB]

Great post! Thanks MJ!

 

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