Discover revenue potential in your checkout process

However, it must be clearly indicated that these are recommendations and not products that your customer has selected to purchase, so that they do not become uncertain and abandon the purchase. In addition, the recommendations should appear above the line of sight, as otherwise they may not be noticed. Read our blog article on this topic: Inspiration made easy: How to use product recommendations effectively in e-commerce.

Our experience at epoq has shown that up-sell strategies in the shopping cart should be used with caution, as they can make customers unsure whether the product they have selected is the right one. This could cause them to abandon their purchase. Cross-selling recommendations are more suitable in this case. However, these should not be designed to inspire, as this could cause the customer to cancel their purchase, e.g., if wall paint is recommended alongside a wallpapering table. Wallpapering tools would be a better recommendation in this case.

An alternative to cross-sell recommendations in the shopping cart are cross-sell recommendations in the shopping cart layer. Here, we have recorded the best results for cross-sell products across all industries, as the customer has not yet mentally completed the purchase.

Another way to increase the value of the shopping cart during the checkout process is to set up a checkout area, as in brick-and-mortar stores.Small, inexpensive itemscanbe offeredto go with the selected product, which, as in brick-and-mortar stores, are added to the shopping cart. This is just as effective in online shops as it is in offline retail. In addition, small items can be matched to the selected products online, which is difficult to do in brick-and-mortar stores.

What to do if the customer does cancel

Don't panic. If the customer does abandon the checkout process, you still have the option of discreetly contacting them and redirecting them to their shopping cart. How? With an abandoned cart email. After a few days, you can remind them about their abandoned shopping cart, e.g., with the teaser "Your package is waiting for you" or "Don't forget me," and perhaps entice them to complete their purchase with a discount code. You can find out how this works in detail in our blog article: Increase sales with personalized cart abandonment emails.

Example of a shopping cart abandonment email from the epoq demo store

Encourage visitors to continue shopping via the thank you page

A thank-you page doesn't just have to contain information about the product purchased. You have the opportunity to encourage your customers to continue shopping. You can achieve this with relevant recommendations. By analyzing your customers' online shopping behavior, you can determine which products are most likely to spark their interest. This is usually done with the help of a recommendation engine, which usesartificial intelligence to automatically display relevant recommendations in real time in the shop.

With the teaser "Have you seen these products yet?", you could integrate a widget on the thank-you page and redirect your customers to the product detail page. Another option would be to redirect them to a special landing page that matches their purchase. For example, if a customer has bought ski goggles, you could redirect them to a landing page about skiing vacations and use digital storytelling offer them additional products.

Our experience at epoq has shown that suggested items from categories that the customer did not view during their visit were the most effective. Since the customer has already placed an order at this point, you can't go wrong here by showing your customer what else your store has to offer.

Use transactional emails to increase traffic

When you send the order confirmation, why not include cross-sell products related to the purchased item? This allows you to draw your customers' attention to suitable additional items and guide them back tothe online shop via a personalized email. Your traffic will increase, and so will your sales.

Example of a personalized transaction email from the epoq demo shop

Our experience at epoq has shown that personalized outfit emails are very successful in the fashion industry.

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Conclusion: Turn checkout into check-in

In addition to checkout optimization, there are various ways to get your online shoppers to "check in" to your online store again and make new purchases. To do this, use specific stages in the checkout process that you can personalize. This will allow you to create new sources of revenue and services.

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