CSA Exclusive: Specialty baseball retailer streamlines online checkout

You Go Pro Baseball is boosting checkout conversions with a consistent, one-click online checkout process.

Headquartered in Florida and founded by former professional baseball player John Madden in 2007, digital retailer You Go Pro Baseball provides specialty gear and training for aspiring baseball players. Madden recently explained to Chain Store Age how the company has overhauled its online checkout procedures, with resulting improvement in a key competitive statistic.

“It was impossible to find a reliable, consistent, checkout solution,” said Madden. “We went through many different plug-ins and solutions. All of them took forever to set up and would only work for a few weeks before we had more issues and missed sales.”

According to Madden, You Go Pro Baseball’s main struggle in attempting to grow its e-commerce store over the years was finding a “one-stop-shop” digital checkout solution. The company implemented numerous plug-ins that it had to patch together or adapt to work with its e-commerce infrastructure.

“None of the plug-ins provided any real level of support and usually carried a hefty monthly membership fee,” explained Madden. “We would go a week or less before finding major issues, and then defaulting back to our PayPal standard. Losing sales daily was a nightmare. We went through every plug-in out there with no success.”

Eventually, You Go Pro Baseball implemented the PeachPay one-click digital checkout solution, based on the recommendation of the company’s head of website development. PeachPay helped the company structure the plug-in to work properly with its existing online payment technology.

“The checkout process for our customers was streamlined, and our checkout conversions skyrocketed,” said Madden. “The results for us as a company have been tremendous. No more missed sales or checkout issues.  But more importantly, our customers now have a smooth, quick, and seamless checkout process with different options, which is what we love.”

Madden sees You Go Pro Baseball teaming up with PeachPay for many sales seasons to come.

“We hope to grow our business alongside of PeachPay as they continue to innovate and offer new solutions to the checkout experience,” concluded Madden.

Results of a recent survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults from login/checkout technology provider Fast suggest that You Go Pro Baseball is on the right track in offering an expedited online checkout process.

According to the survey, 86% of respondents say they have added an item to their online shopping cart, only to abandon it before checking out. Specific obstacles these respondents cited to staying with their cart through purchase include:

• Checkout process took too long or was too complicated (18%).
• Didn’t want to create another online account (18%).
• Couldn't remember their login information (15%).
• Credit card information wasn't easily accessible (14%).

Effective online checkout can also help retailers attract valuable Gen Z (ages 18-24) shoppers. Survey results show that Gen Z respondents are three times more likely than baby boomer respondents (ages 57-75) to be loyal to a company when they purchase online versus in-person.