UX approaches for greener checkouts

Hello, Hello and welcome to this episode of the Green Web podcast. This podcast is about ecologically and socially sustainable design. I'm your host. Sandy Dähnert, a UX designer myself.

In today's episode, we will talk about UX approaches for greener checkouts. And checkouts have a lot of potential for more ecological online purchases.

In this episode, we're not talking about ecommerce in general and what to do on your product pages and your shop pages that are other than the checkout, but really talking about what happens from cart to the end of any purchase that we can do in our digital products, in websites, applications and more.

So in this episode, we will talk about how to reduce returns, how to make delivery more sustainable, communicate your sustainability shop efforts or the sustainability of single products. Remember just in a checkout, not in general. As well as designing a lightweight checkout journey and how to go an extra mile within the checkout and how to make it greener.

So let's dive into this beautiful episode today.

Everything that I'm going to mention are, of course, all just some ideas and inspiration snippets. Grab what you need from the episode and let me know afterwards via Instagram or LinkedIn what your best advices are for green checkouts. If you want to add something to the list and to the conversation, I am always happy to get into discussion and conversations with you about those things.

Let's start with the first area how to reduce returns and I know it in e commerce, at least when it comes to actual materialistic products, there is a huge need to reduce returns. Of course, the best would be to have no returns at all because they are extremely expensive for any business. So there are, of course, a lot of best practices and advice and things to do in an online shop to reduce returns, and we will get to that in later episodes. But what can we do in a checkout? And the main fact is that once you're in the checkout, you can't really do much anymore about the product choice because people just want to pay it and give you their information about their address and stuff and then leave and go. But what we can do is this little tiny moment in between your cart and the checkout. Because in your cart, some people use it as a safe wish list. I've done a lot of usability testings before where they just put everything in their cart. Although there was a wish list of favorite list or whatever each shop is calling all of those wish lists, but actually just putting everything in the cart and then deciding what they are actually getting and whatnot. And there is this little teeny tiny moment between the cart and the checkout when the user clicks on go to checkout. And if there is, for example, several sizes of a pair of jeans in the cart or shoes with like several sizes of them in there, then give them a little gentle reminder. That there is a size selection support. Of course, if that's in the shop to decide which ones of those jeans, shoes or other products that they have multiple choices of in the cart to reduce the amount of the same things that they are getting. Like a little gentle reminder, a little pop up, a little page in between, whatever you were choosing for the ideal user journey. But saying, hey, you have the same shoe in different sizes in your cart. Did you see our size selection support feature? Did you see of this dress those different kinds of pictures that we put up for different body forms and heights and all of those things? Any kind of size, selection, support, just mentioning it again saying, Hey, just did you see that? To at least and quite a lot probably even cases reducing the amount of choices that they're actually checking out. So this using this really tiny moment between cart and checkout can reduce returns. Okay. And then we're up into the checkout. They made their selection, they made their choice, and they go into checkout. One of the first things that people do is put in their address and choosing a delivery option here is a great chance to make delivery more sustainable. One thing is to give them the choice of a green delivery service. It's very different in different countries, but there are definitely in each country green delivery options where there is even compensation. And there was different kind of method of delivering something. And just having this as a choice of delivery is really, really helpful so they can choose it even better. Is it if that's already the default option? So the green delivery option is pre selected. So actually a lot more people will choose this option than the more standard one. Of course, be aware if there's any additional costs to green delivery, you shouldn't really put it as a default option. Because that would be a dark pattern or a decisive pattern. But if there is no difference in the grain delivery and of standard delivery, make the grain delivery the standard option. Another way of a more sustainable, greener delivery would be. Having a default delivery option into hubs like packaging, delivering hubs, not into each individual homes, but actually into packaging hubs where they can pick up their package. Of course, that's not feasible for every country or area, but especially in big cities. That's the main solution for reducing this delivery chaos that is happening every single day. We need those hubs and we need people to actually get their packages from their hubs. And it will reduce the carbon emissions of delivery so much. So just think about putting in those hub delivery options. A third advice for a greener delivery is the packaging. Of course you can decide on. You all have just new packaging for all of your products that you're sending out. Maybe you use packaging that is 100% biodegradable and compostable. That's awesome as well. You could choose recycled packaging that has been used before and when things got returned, you get to use that packaging again. But I know from a couple of usability testings that especially when it comes to, for example, shoes, collectors, shoes. So people are buying certain shoes just to collect them, not really to wear them, but to collect them, then they probably don't want recycled packaging. Most likely not. They want it in pristine, newly packaged way. But having this option and it very much depends on your shop, what you're selling. And if you even have anything like that where people really want a new packaging for it. And if you don't, then perfect. Just offer like biodegradable compostable packaging or offer recycled packaging in general. If you have users and people and buyers customers who want pristine packaging, that's really new and shiny. Make it a choice to have recycled packaging versus the new shiny packaging. This could be an option. The fourth advice that I have for a or delivery is the choice of putting products together in one package, although then one item that could be sent earlier will have a delay as well. But make it an option, make it selectable. When I order something from any kind of shop and they tell me, okay, you have those three items, one can be delivered in the next two days and the other two you need to wait for them one or two weeks. I want to have the option to say that the one item that I could have in two days time, I don't need it in two days time, but I want to have it delivered with the other ones. So it's one big package. Make it possible for me to select that because then I'm always thinking, well, should I have a look in one or two weeks time to then check out my products? So it comes in one package, but then it tells me, Yeah, you need to wait another two weeks or something like that. No, I want to have the option to everything together in one package as a user, so make that possible. And the first advice that I have is anything that is related to delivery add ons, for example, food delivery. So often in food delivery, you get napkins, you get chopsticks, or you get other disposable add ons without anyone having asked if you really want them. And of course they are meant to be helpful. But then users start collecting those things and not knowing what to do with all of those, let's say chopsticks. So whatever you want to put in as add ons into any delivery package, make it an option so I can select it. Yes. I want to have those chopsticks. Yes, I want to have those napkins. Yes, I want to have those other disposable add ons that you want to add to my delivery. But if I don't want them, I can deselect them. Or best of it would be, of course, to have it all selected. And I can select if I need any of those things. Please. Just having those options in the checkout makes it much greener. It's little, teeny, tiny, simple options. Okay, let's move on from delivery to communication. Communicate your sustainability efforts or the sustainability of single products. We are still in a checkout, so we don't have those huge content containers there anymore. But you can always have those little content boxes with, for example, the three main actions towards sustainability that you do as a shop you can show. Your badges. You can show icons, you can show certificates, if you have any, to insure people about the values behind what they are buying. That could be on a product, on a single product level, that could be on the overall shop level. Just ensuring people that what they are buying, if that's more sustainable than other things like other products or if your shop is a lot more sustainable than anything else around there, then show it and say it also in the checkout. Ensure people that what they are buying is good, that they are buying. This could be with like little three main actions, with badges, with icons, with certificates, whatever you have. Of course, not disrupting the checkout flow, but just having it there as a little reminder. Yes, where you are buying or what you are buying is really valuable and good that you're doing it. And another way of communicating sustainability efforts is showing emissions of the full purchase. This could be done again. As for a single product, as well as the full checkout card that you're having. I know there are a couple of tools out there that do that. I think Cloverly is one and co2ok. K. I'm not sure about the names, but I think those are two tools that come to my mind and there are others out there as well that support you in communicating the carbon emissions of every single product in your shop as well. Then in the cart and check out the emissions of the full purchase. And it can also tell you, like those tools have comparisons of how much less carbon emissions that is having than having standard non sustainable products in your cart. So they try to give you comparisons as well. It's really interesting to check those emission tools out, communicate what people are buying, and educate them to a certain amount of you're doing a good thing and this is what it compares to, as well as still keeping in mind you're buying something that you can't think about, maybe even not buying and being a more aware consumer. Okay. The fourth topic of greener checkouts is, of course, designing a lightweight checkout journey. And this is a topic that we most often talk about designing a lightweight website, a lightweight application, lightweight checkout. Make it as fast as possible. Don't have any heavy interactions in there. No heavy data, heavy images and videos. That's all not necessary. Design a really sleek, slim but still brand aware checkout that the user has no trouble at all with loading speed with anything needing longer than milliseconds to load. Make it really lightweight, no data heavy checkouts and reduced to a certain minimum of what you really need. Having all on brand of course, and having everything aesthetically pleasing and really, really thinking about an easy user journey through the checkout, there should not be any inconveniences or frustration points because that just leads to bounces. And then last but not least, of course, is. To go the extra mile. And there are a couple of things where you can go an extra mile in grain or checkouts. One thing is to have optional donation and compensation possibilities. You nowadays can find that in flight booking compensation, for example, or PayPal. Just that with adding a donation option to when you're paying for something. Make it optional always, of course. You can make it general like you have one option for donation or one option of compensation, or you can even have juicing one of three good causes. And this person adds €1 or pays €1 extra for the good cause of NGO X, Y, Z. With this payment, and then this donation gets collected right then and there. That is extremely easy to incorporate and helps a lot for donations like those little teeny tiny donations one year here, one year or there. But if 10,000 customers do that, then it's €10,000 or dollars or pounds. So it can be those little tiny integrations that go the extra mile for any kind of good cause that you feel like the shop is really connected to. A second extra mile that I can think of is it's kind of a stupid thing, actually. But in checkouts, a lot of people are insecure whether they actually get a confirmation email, a confirmation, you got this purchase page, so they screenshot the page, the overview page before they click on the Pay Now button as well as once they are on the purchase page, they screenshot that as well to make sure that if they don't get a confirmation email they still have this confirmation screenshot. Doing that with every single purchase and doing like thousands of users doing that means trillion thousands of screenshots that no one needs lying around on smartphones, on laptops, maybe even with this automatic upload to clouds and just screenshots that no one needs are everywhere. I know this is super teeny tiny, stupid little thing, but telling users that there will be an invoice linked after the purchase on the page as well as in the confirmation email. It saves people from unnecessarily creating a screenshot of the page. Yes, it's still a thing. I can't believe it that it is still a thing, but I see it in usability tests all the time. Again that people are screenshot ing it and I. Why? How? But it's just those little tiny insecurities that if something goes wrong, then they are sure to have something in their hands. But just ensuring them that everything's going to be all right and that they will have a purchase confirmation and confirmation email after they clicked pay as well as once they click pay on the purchase page that there is a confirmation email coming, they just have to look in their email folder, Saves a lot of screenshots and therefore a lot of energy for everyone. Once we are on this purchase confirmation page, there is plenty of space to not just leave the user hanging there and saying, okay, thank you very much for buying. And of course we should always say that because yes, we are thankful and grateful for that. But actually showing even further information, for example, on the sustainable items that the user has just purchased. So it is showing how to use this item long term, how to wash it correctly, how to repair it, what to do if there is any problem with it, and just how to make this product live as long as possible. All those little content snippets we can bring in on those purchase confirmation pages can bring those little teeny tiny green advices and things that a user can think of how to use this product in the most sustainable way. Plus, you can put in little sustainability habits, for example, like little suggestions. There are a couple of products who do that. I haven't seen it on a purchase confirmation email, but there is, for example, Yogi T. I don't know if that's a thing outside of Europe, but they have on their packages of packaged tea bags. They do have those little mindfulness habits and yoga practices and breathing exercises on the package itself, those little habit forming content snippets that are really sweet and mindful to do. You can bring this idea into an ecological sustainability habit that you show on the confirmation page. Just an idea, an inspiration to think about not just leaving the user hanging there, but putting in like this little notes of sustainability.

So to sum it up, we have ways to reduce returns. We have ways to make delivery more sustainable than ecological. We have ways to communicate sustainability efforts, whether it's on the single product level or the shop level. We have ways to design a lightweight check out journey and we have the possibility to go some extra miles into green or at checkouts. Question is, do you have any additional advice and things that you put in check outs or that you have seen others placing in their checkouts to make it more ecologically sustainable? Then please let me know. Let me know on LinkedIn or on Instagram at Green, the web. You can find me on those platforms as well as some others. You can find the links in the description. Subscribe to the podcast to get all the next juicy episodes that are coming up. Share this episode with your colleagues, with your friends, with your family. It's a free way to support this show. It's leaving a five star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. It's just a couple of seconds of time that helps a lot for others to discover this podcast to. And then just check out the free resources on my website. There is a lot to discover, a whole blog to discover. With articles there is the best practice library of lightweight websites. Spread the joy and please let me know what you got out of this episode. I'm always curious and keen to get into a discussion and conversation with you. See you in the next episode.