Essential StoreFront 6
Add-ons
Pendx Streamlined Checkout - Your Best Bet to Increase Sales
“Our goal was to remove as many barriers to
completing the sale as possible.”
- Kurt West, Pendx Corporation
The primary goal of every eCommerce site is
to drive sales. Put another way, the ideal eCommerce site is
more than just an informational brochure or product catalog -
it facilitates the transaction. Many shopping carts overlook
this all-important maxim - never get in the way of the sale.
| | We started tracking customer behavior on our site, and saw that an alarming number of people were dropping out of the checkout process,” |
Removing Barriers to the Sale
Kurt West and the folks at Pendx had a problem. They were an
early adopter of the LaGarde StoreFront 6 shopping cart
because of its enhancements over earlier versions - including
a more professional look and feel, advanced features such as
Wish List, Email a Friend and Coupons, and the ASP.NET
framework. However, the checkout procedure for StoreFront 6 is
broken into 6 separate steps - and many customers were getting
confused.
“We started tracking customer behavior on
our site, and saw that an alarming number of people were
dropping out of the checkout process,” Kurt recalls. “We got
the same feedback from customers using the chat feature, and
many customers complained by phone. We looked into a few
alternatives and decided to build our own streamlined checkout
as a StoreFront Add-on.”
With Streamlined Checkout, Pendx service representatives now place phone orders directly through the cart while on the phone with the customer | |
Streamlining the Checkout Process
The Pendx SC Add-on shortens the checkout
process to two steps: a Shipping and a Payment page. On the
Shipping page, customers provide their billing address and
separate shipping address if needed. If Carrier-based Shipping
is enabled, customers can preview shipping rates and select
from available methods. On the Payment page, customers can
review their charges and provide their credit card or other
payment information. The entire process is concise and
efficient, and is faster and easier for most users.
One of the most valuable features of Pendx
SC is that it does not require new customers to create a user
account before proceeding to checkout. This is done
automatically - new users are sent a welcome email that lists
their account user name (their email) and an assigned password
(customers can change this later by logging on to their
account).
Increase Sales Immediately
To their great surprise, Pendx found that
sales at their site increased after implementing SC far more
than they had anticipated. “We saw sales jump 50% overnight
when we first installed Pendx Streamline Checkout,” recalls
Kurt.
Facilitating Phone Orders
Like many eCommerce sites, Pendx takes a
large percentage of sales from phone orders. With Streamlined
Checkout, Pendx service representatives now place phone orders
directly through the cart while on the phone with the
customer. This allows them to add items to the cart, calculate
shipping costs and discuss shipping options with the customer,
capture customer billing and shipping information, and
validate the customer’s credit card in real-time. Once the
customer had decided on what they want to buy, this guided
checkout process generally takes less than two minutes. “The
phone support people were jumping up and down,” explains Kurt.
“It cut down our time to process an order to one quarter of
the time it used to take.”
Other Benefits
In addition, Pendx SC includes features for
handling various shipping methods, ground shipping and
in-state shipping. It also includes handling of free shipping
on an individual product basis. Additionally, Pendx SC has
improved session management through improved memory allocation
and session variable management - helping to ensure customers
to not lose cart contents, especially if they use a shared SSL
certificate. Pendx SC also has improved performance for
checking shipping rates, and provides a faster response for
both carrier- and product-based shipping methods. Pendx
Streamlined Checkout is fully integrated with StoreFront 6.x,
is easy to install (under an hour - or Pendx will install
their Add-on for you for a fee - and is easily customizable.
StoreFront 6.2.x Update
Beginning with version 6.2, StoreFront
enhanced their checkout process by adding a check box to the
billing screen that allows the user to indicate they wish to
use the same address for shipping as well as billing.
Selecting this box skips the shipping screen. However, the
overall checkout process using is still dramatically more
streamlined using the Pendx product, and has proved more
stable for many users as part. For these reasons, the benefits
of using the Pendx product remain for merchants using the 6.2
versions and higher, and we continue to highly recommend Pendx
Streamlined checkout as and essential StoreFront Add-on.
At $149, Pendx Streamlined Checkout is one
of your best bets to increase sales, and one of our top picks
as a must-have StoreFront 6 Add-on. For more information on
Pendx Streamlined Checkout and to see a demo,
visit Pendx.com
Ned vanSise
DigitalBeach.org
Web Services and Marketing
StoreFront 6.0 Development and Integration Specialists
Digital Beach offers comprehensive web
services including design, development, ecommerce,
integration, reporting and marketing. Digital Beach supports a
range of ecommerce solutions, including acting as a StoreFront
development partner. |
