If you are running an online business, the process of creating eCommerce forms is sure to be entirely familiar to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Say, you need to collect email addresses for your weekly best hand-picked deals newsletter. What do you do first thing? Yeah, right, you create an opt-in form. Then you direct your attention to user-experience and kindly offer your shoppers an oh-that-super-short-1-question survey to unlock their deepest thoughts about your products. Yet again, you build a poll form. And, of course, gathering some vital information about your customers upon sign-up is what every online retailer does each and every day through all kinds of lead generation forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building high-converting eCommerce forms is an essential part of your customer acquisition strategy. Done right, they can increase your store\u2019s conversions (of course, with a bit of fine-tuning applied) by up to 120%<\/a>. Conversely, poor form design with an overwhelming number of fill-in-the-blank fields and unclear call to action is a surefire path to shopping cart abandonment and destruction of all your marketing efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To guide you through the jungles of a poll creation, I\u2019ve prepared a good portion of theory (no mind-bending instructions, I promise!) and a few practical tips about the way you can implement all that with X\u2011Cart<\/a> shopping cart. Read on.<\/p>\n\n\n Any online form, be it an order form, opt-in form or just a questionnaire, is an important gateway between you and your customers\u2019 actions. And if you have ever tried to force your shoppers to take action and loosen their purse strings, you know this is not an easy task. High motivation is what gets them started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It means you\u2019ll have to torture your brain pretty hard to write the right copy for your form and to ensure your call-to-action button is strong enough to motivate your users instantly. Keep it in mind, that your text should be fairly short and eye-catching. You\u2019ve got only a few secs of your customers\u2019 precious time, so stick to the most necessary info and, if possible, try to ask only for one thing at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using emotional language also helps. For example, to make your CTA button more friendly and personal, try to replace the default \u201cSubmit\u201d with something more inspiring and relevant to your offer, like \u201cGrab it now before it\u2019s too late\u201d or \u201cLet\u2019s start\u201d\u2026 or even \u201cFollow the magic\u201d, why not? Make your words swing, swirl, hop, skip and dance. Believe me, your eCommerce business is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n Perceived fear and doubt in the mind of customers while shopping online is, by no means, a real problem for eCommerce industry. It is 2018, but still, there\u2019s an impressive number of online users who are afraid of shopping online. They may have never bumped up against online fraud<\/a> yet, but, you know it pretty well, that the unexplored is the most frightening. And that\u2019s the reason why a significant part of your potential customers still prefers to steer away from any purchases processed through online payment gateways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, this tough problem is also quite manageable. Let\u2019s take a blog signup form as an example. What can frighten your users so much? Probably, tons of spam, that is going to overload their mailbox. Hidden charges can also be the source of their anxiety. Such lines as \u201cNo charge. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.\u201d or, as Facebook fixed this problem, \u201cIt\u2019s free and always will be\u201d can help here. What is more, implementing this rule on checkout can significantly lower your shopping cart abandonment and take your eCommerce website to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you see the point? Think of what your users are afraid of. And conquer their doubts.<\/p>\n\n\n Every field you ask them to fill increases friction, so think twice before forcing your customers to fill in a super-duper short survey with really simple 378 questions in it. Come on, do you really believe you need all that data? And now to be serious. Remember the following universal rule \u2014 less is more, which simply means that the fewer form fields you leave, the more conversions you get. If it\u2019s a registration form or a contact us form, in most cases, you don\u2019t need to ask for anything but the email address and a name, the latter one can also be dropped. No billing addresses, no credit card details. No, no, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have a look at the picture above \u2014 what\u2019s the first thing that comes to your mind? It looks like I already hear your thoughts ? This \u201cContact us\u201d form \u2014 just a \u201ccontact us\u201d form, to let you ask them a question or two, yeah \u2014 looks like a security questionnaires for Counter Terrorist Check, huh. You see, there are two (!) address fields and postal code. Are they going to send you a reply by post? Taking into account that their eCommerce business is connected with athletic goods, not a secret weapon, this is rather awkward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok. There are some types of information that are more nice-to-know than need-to-know. And if you want to add certain fields, do it, but, please, remember to mark optional and required ones.<\/p>\n\n\n In copywriting, it is a commonly-used practice to put the essential information first. The same goes for eCommerce forms \u2014 what sticks out gets chosen. So, to make your registration form work for you the right way, you need to choose the most visible place and stick your form there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use heat map and click-tracking services, like CrazyEgg or KissMetrics, to get insights on your users\u2019 behavior and to spot the \u201chottest\u201d place of your page. The brighter the spot, the more clicks it received. Try it, it\u2019s fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Placing your opt-in form above-the-fold is considered to deliver the highest conversion rates, as a user sees the above-the-fold content first before he scrolls down for more information. Anyway, the place of your form should also be carefully tested. And that\u2019s what the next paragraph is about.<\/p>\n\n\n There\u2019s no use wondering which form converts your site visitors into paying customers better \u2014 the one with an extra large pink button or the one with an impressive copy. You won\u2019t guess it anyway. Instead, you can run an a\/b test or a split test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here at X\u2011Cart, we use Optimizely. It allows us to experiment with the website\u2019s interface. As a result, we not only managed to increase our sales and on-site time by making our payment gateway more appealing but also made our users fall in love with our e-commerce solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way, did you know, that New York Times subscription form used to be 18 pages long when they first launched their web presence back in 1996? I\u2019m not sure there were any a\/b testing tools 20 years ago. Hopefully, you don\u2019t need any tests to understand that that\u2019s too much for a single subscription.<\/p>\n\n\n Now, that you know a thing or two about web form usability, it\u2019s time to put your knowledge into practice. Let\u2019s see how we can do it with X\u2011Cart PHP\/MySQL\/Bootstrap-based e\u0421ommerce solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n Think up a catchy title and a killer call-to-action for your eCommerce form <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n 2. Remove all doubts to build long-lasting trust <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n 3. Ditch unnecessary form fields <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n 4. Place your form on the most visible place <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n 5. Test it <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n Ok. That\u2019s enough theory for today. Let\u2019s get down to practice <\/h2>\n\n\n\n