The biggest UX mistake in e-commerce: discount code input on the checkout page

Increasing the conversion rate by removing the unnecessary friction from the purchase flow

It has been over 6 months now that I am working on GO2CINEMA – a cinema ticket booking engine for the UK. My venture into the startup world exposed me to a large number of startup founders. Whenever I am introduced to a new startup I try to offer useful feedback to my fellow entrepreneurs – after all, thorough, technical feedback is one of the most valuable assets when building a product.

Today I’d like to discuss an anti-pattern that I see many (most?) e-commerce startups do: discount code input on the checkout page.

tl;dr; Do not add discount code input to the checkout page. It will distract people from finishing the purchase and make them second-guess the decision. There are better ways to distribute promotions to new and existing customers, e.g. campaign URLs.

Discount code input on the checkout page.

By the time a user gets to the checkout page, the user has already made a relatively firm commitment to proceed with the purchase. Your task is simple: streamline the process. You need to remove any distractions that would make the user change his mind.

Lets think what happens when user sees “Enter discount code” just before proceeding to purchase:

Peter saw a tweet about a new service that is offering a virtual sales assistant that will engage customers on his e-commerce website and this way increase conversion rate. Peter goes to the service website and he is instantly mesmerised by the beautiful illustrations demonstrating increased user conversion rates and overwhelmed by the thought of employing ML and AI to communicate with his customers. The service costs a lot. However, Peter thinks the price is worth the service and proceeds to the purchase page. BUT WAIT! What is this? [Peter sees “Enter discount code” input.] Peter realises that he could save if he found a discount code. Peter goes to Google “discount code X 2017”. No discount code come up. However, while searching, Peter saw ads for the competitor service. Peter goes back to complete the purchase. This time Peter is no longer sure whether this is such a good deal. Peter starts to ask questions: How much do the competitors charge? Where can I obtain a discount code? Does it really use ML and AI as the landing page implies? Peter decides to postpone purchase until he can answer these questions.

The moral of the story is self explanatory – remove any distractions from the purchase flow. This includes,