Klarna recently joined our partners BVA Commerce at Checkout Mistakes that Hurt Conversion (and How to Solve Them) where Christopher Scott (eCommerce manager at California-based ebike company, Juiced Bikes) talked about prioritizing the checkout experience to increase conversion and evolve the customer journey.
Your checkout is the final stop before customers convert, so it makes sense to prioritize and continually monitor its overall experience and flow. Like so many businesses, Juiced Bikes saw its customer demographic and behavior change drastically over the past year. Pre-pandemic, ebikes weren’t exactly a hot commodity. But thanks to the “bike boom” of 2020, Juiced Bikes saw a shift in demand that occurred almost overnight. “We had to pivot from being a recreational product to a lifestyle product,” says Scott.
To keep up with consumer demand, Juiced Bikes brought on BVA Commerce to help redesign its customer shopping journey—specifically its checkout experience. With an average 2-week lead time, it was imperative that the brand had a streamlined and frictionless checkout experience once the consumer was ready to buy.
To tackle drop off on the cart page, they implemented a Shopify feature that takes customers directly to the checkout, avoiding the cart page altogether. To further enhance the shopping experience, Juiced Bikes switched to offering Klarna’s flexible payment options at checkout. By increasing customers’ purchasing power, with Klarna Pay in 4 and Financing options, the brand saw an increase in average order value (AOV) as well as more customers choosing to pay with Klarna at checkout.
Juiced Bikes also added Klarna’s On-site messaging to its homepage and product pages to make shoppers aware of their payment options early in the purchasing journey. Once the brand’s checkout was looking smoooth, Juiced Bikes began automating and enhancing its prospect and customer email marketing strategy—keeping shoppers informed, providing valuable content, and helping to gather reviews. “Checkout [optimization], when done well, you don’t notice it. But when it’s done poorly, it ruins the experience,” says Scott.
“Checkout [optimization], when done well, you don’t notice it. But when it’s done poorly, it ruins the experience.”
The checkout process is forever changing as consumer behavior evolves, but keeping ahead of it will ensure higher conversion and happy returning customers. Here’s Juiced Bikes top 3 tips to optimize your checkout experience.
- Start testing. A/B testing can tell you so much about what your customers want—and Google Optimize is free and simple to set up. Try testing different images, copy, button colors, value props, etc,
- Emails, emails, emails. As little as 1 email a week can have high returns, and using email marketing automation tools makes this easy to set up. Start with post-purchase flows such as thank yous, review requests, and cross selling.
- Always be blogging. Google loves fresh content, so posting weekly to your blog will help with SEO. Plus, customers love to shop with stores that have strong brand authority. Additionally, adding more content to your website allows you to market to your mailing list. This ultimately increases add to carts and provides a bigger pool for checkout optimizations.