You’ve started an online business. After building a site, fine tuning it for easy use, and doing what it takes to bring traffic to your site, you find your business volume lacking. What is the problem? Is there something wrong with the layout? Is the product not attractive? What do other sites have that you don’t? If you’re getting visitors but not sales, it could be a problem with your layout. However, one often overlooked problem could be a faulty checkout function. No one wants to deal with a headache completing a deal when they’re trying to make an online purchase.

Have you ever been in a store before that had bad service? Everything is fine as you’re shopping around and filling your basket. However, when you get to the register to pay, nothing goes right. The store is severely undermanned, the lines never seem to move, the credit card machine isn’t working properly, the prices don’t scan properly, or the items may even be mismarked. In the end, what was a perfectly comfortable shopping experience has turned into a nightmare, and you just feel like walking out.

It’s no different with the web business. In fact, it’s probably more important that customers feel comfortable with your website’s checkout function. After all, there’s no such thing as a cash transaction online. Any transaction conducted is going to require the release of some critical and private personal information on the part of the customer. In order to make him comfortable enough to do that, you need an efficient and secure checkout process that instills confidence in your customers. Make sure the process goes though smoothly. Have proper security functions on your site. Confirm before processing the order. Continue this even after the order is processed with the invoice and delivery process, and you’ll create many happy customers.