Have you ever used the self-checkout at the grocery store? You pile on your cucumbers, lettuce and apples onto the tiny platform next to the scanner. Cucumbers, two for $1.50. Lettuce, $2.25. Apples…uh. The scanner can’t find a price tag on the apples, and you can’t remember the variety you chose. You scan through screens of pictures trying to match the fruit to the pictures the store provided. You get frustrated and finally call someone over to help you.

Often, self-checkout is easy, fast and convenient, both online and in-person. Sometimes, though, every customer needs a bit of assistance before completing a purchase. Online, that assistance can be hard to come by. Too many e-commerce sites register their highest bounce rates in the final stages of purchase, either in the shopping cart application, or just before hitting “complete purchase.” That is an expensive problem for e-tailers.

The solution is to provide customers with a little extra help when they need it. In person, I could call a clerk over to identify my mystery apples for me and help me finish my purchase. Online, your customers might want the same option. With our PayPal application, your service reps. can guide customers all the way from co-browsing through to purchase, staying with them as they use PayPal’s offering to transfer money and close the sale.

If your self-checkout mechanism is well designed, most customers won’t need your guidance through PayPal on most of their purchases. When they do, however, your ability to be there for them will be the determining factor between whether they finish the sale and come back again or bounce away forever.

Try the PayPal application for free: https://b29f4c.n3cdn1.secureserver.net/registration.jsf?type=free