What is one of the main enemies of E-commerce?

E-commerce has many enemies, but there is one that is silent and should keep us awake at night.

Friction, in our opinion, is one of the most common reasons for generating high abandonment rates and in turn the reduction of the conversion rate. Friction is interpreted in different ways and in some cases it is more difficult to find since it becomes evident only when it is a truly frustrating issue for the user. We call them micro-frictions, which we have already demonstrated through experience that they are the quintessential user-drivers.

Here we summarize four of the most common frictions that we find in E-commerce and that greatly help to improve indicators:

1. Force the user to create an account to buy. One of the biggest challenges we have is getting a user to buy for the first time, sending them to create an account, generate a secure password and ending up in the email inbox to copy a code, is a shortcut to having a high abandonment rate, especially at the hottest point of the purchase. Offer the user to buy as a guest by default, today all platforms allow that option, then if the user wants to create their account, they can do so, but achieving the first sale is the most important and expensive part of an e-commerce.
2. Force the user to enter information that they might not want to provide. In Peru and most Latin American countries, we are asked for the DNI or ID number even to buy bread, but in most countries this is not a common practice; it is private and protected information. Ask the user only for the information you need to process the order; if you later want to request additional information, ask for it after completing the sale. We have seen cases in which they ask for date of birth, age, and social sign to finalize a purchase.
3. Not informing the user what will happen when they click on the buy button. Sometimes the wording alone can lead the user to think that an action is final. For example, saying “complete purchase” before going to checkout and checking how much shipping will cost leads to unnecessary doubt. It is better to specify that the button will take them to the next step in the purchase process.
4. Optimize the loading time and performance of the website to the maximum. It is common for us to lose sleep over checking the store's Home page through Google Page Speed, but what should really keep us awake at night is achieving an optimal loading time for the shopping cart and checkout. It should be super fast and free of unnecessary scripts and, above all, free of distractions.