Checkout: what it is and why it matters in an online store –

In ecommerce, the process of check out it is the last phase of the purchase on an e-commerce site. During this stage, the customer confirms his purchase, enters his payment details and confirms the order.

What is the most important part of a physical store, the entrance, the shelves, the warehouse? Each of these places is important, but the most important is the box. It is the place where customers go to pay for the products they chose, in cash or with a card, and the business receives the money for the collection of these items.

Like physical stores, they have a process where the confirmation of the products or services chosen by their customers and the payment is carried out. This process is called check out.

To understand this part of an online purchase in detail, in this article we will explain, what is and what does a checkout mean in ecommercehow the process works, what are the different types and how you can optimize it to increase the sales of your business.

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What is checkout in an online store?

A checkout, or payment page in Spanish, is a type of web page of an (online store or marketplace), in which a customer is shown how to carry out the payment process step by step.

The payment page appears when the customer is ready to finalize their purchase. This page will ask you for a series of data to complete the order, it will show you a series of payment options and an overview of your shopping cart. As we can see in this example of the store checkout.

Ecommerce website owners need to be very careful and customize the checkout page based on feedback from their customers. Something you should know is that the percentage of abandoned carts is usually high, approximately 81%.

A large part of potential customers will browse your store, add products, however, at the time of paying or confirming their purchase, it is likely that they will leave your site for one reason or another.

However, this is a constant in electronic commerce and should not be considered as a disadvantage, but as an opportunity to lower this percentage, facilitating the purchase process.

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How does the checkout process work?

Despite being a simple and familiar process at first glance, there is great complexity behind the checkout of an online store. This process consists of several steps and actors, which as a customer or owner of an online store you sometimes do not see, however, each one is important.

The basic flow of the checkout process with or credit is as follows:

1. The user has to verify that the website has a means of payment that suits their preference (they may have an agreement with issuing financial institutions), this depends on the one that the store has.
2. The client gives his data for the means of payment on the page.
3. E-commerce sends a request to a acquirerthat is, an institution that gives you the possibility of receiving .
4. The acquirer send a request to Financial issuers (banks or financial institutions) to validate that the client has sufficient resources or credit for the purchase.
5. In case of receiving an acceptance, the acquirer You approve the online store to complete the purchase and the user receives confirmation of this.
6. The Financial Issuer deducts the resources spent by the client, then it will be paid to the acquirer and this to business.

Once we have seen how the checkout process works, it is time to talk about the two main types of checkout.

Checkout types

The types of checkout pages are of two types:

• Single page checkout (payment on a single page)
• Multi-page checkout (payment on several pages)

Occasionally companies will provide all the necessary information on one page and you will be able to complete your order without having to go to another tab. On the other hand, other companies will have a multi-page checkout process.

These methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, but depending on the ecommerce platform you have your business on, you will be able to use one or another type of checkout in your online store. Let us see the main characteristics of these types below.

Single page checkout

In this type of checkout, customers can submit all the details to complete their purchase (such as their payment details and shipping information) and checkout without going to another page, eliminating the need to visit multiple pages.

Many e-commerce merchants use one-page checkout in the hope that shoppers can complete their purchases as quickly as possible, as shoppers tend to become more motivated the closer they get to completing their transactions.

When customers have to go through multiple pages, there is a risk that they will not finish the process. Also, the one-page approach is easier to use and reduce the abandon rate of the shopping cart.

Advantage

• They reduce the time it takes to pay. Although the number of form fields to fill out is relatively the same between multi-page and single-page checkouts.
• They do not require users to navigate between pages. This reduces potential second-guessing for customers, as they don’t have to move back and forth between different pages if they want to fill in different fields.
• They are a psychological boost to buyers. By not having to guess how many fields they need to fill out before they can checkout, customers know exactly where they are in the checkout process, so they’re often more inclined to checkout rather than leave an abandoned cart.

Disadvantages

• It can be difficult to configure correctly. Due to the number of fields, the design must be correctly optimized, otherwise users will abandon the cart in the last step.
• Site speed may be affected. This is because the more information there is on a page, the load times increase. If the payment page takes more seconds to load, customers may leave the site.
• Data analysis would be a bit more difficult. Because all the information and fields are on one page, it’s hard to pinpoint a customer’s exact vanishing point within the sales funnel.

Multi-Step checkout

Multi-step checkout, or multi-page checkout, is the most widely used form of payment by many online businesses. In this type of checkout, customers have to navigate through several pages before they can complete the payment. Each of these pages must be designed to collect specific information to process the order.

When using this type of checkout you must ensure that each page is optimized for conversions. When set up correctly, multi-page checkouts are just as effective as single-page checkouts.

Advantage

• They allow you to collect more data about your customers. For example, you can collect email addresses through a popup and grow your lead base, even if the customer abandons their cart midway.
• The pages are very customizable. Since you can decide the design and how much information you want to present on each of the pages. Many online businesses prefer to have several small conversion-friendly pages to a single checkout page cluttered with information.
• Make A/B testing easy. In this way it is easier to optimize the sales funnel, through different tools to improve the payment experience.

Disadvantages

• Require more time and attention from customers. This can affect the user experience and prolong the payment flow, since if a user has to navigate through multiple pages, the chances of abandonment increase.
• Loading all the pages takes more time. This can be a problem if users have a spotty connection. If you have an overly complicated and lengthy checkout process, there is a huge risk that customers will abandon the cart altogether.

How to improve your checkout process to sell more?

It seems simple, but behind a checkout there may be complex processes that make the purchase difficult and affect the user experience. To avoid this, we recommend the following actions that you can implement in your checkout:

• Keep the whole process simple.
• Allows payment as a guest.
• Build trust in your visitors.
• Accept different payment options.
• Optimize the mobile experience.

I’ll tell you a little more about each of these recommendations.

Keep the whole process simple

Try to keep the entire checkout as simple as possible. For this you need to remove any obstacles on your checkout page, such as unnecessary links that could take them to other parts of your site.

It also seeks to avoid forced registrations, long forms, multiple fields to fill in, pop-up windows, and more. When paying, your customers should only focus on this process.

Allow checkout as a guest

Don’t force your visitors to create an account in the first place. Instead, let them check in as guests and only ask for the minimum information to make the whole process smooth and fast.

Many potential customers are short on time and won’t be interested in creating an account. Also, they may be trying to pay from their phone, so creating an account can be a frustrating process.

Build trust in your visitors

Your customers should feel comfortable before checking out their items, for this you can add:

• Antivirus software logos
• SSL Certificates
• Customer testimonials or feedback
• payment badges
• Money back guarantee (if any)

Accept different payment options

One of the main reasons for a high cart abandonment rate can be a lack of payment methods. The preferences of each person vary, some will have bank cards, but others will prefer to make a transfer or pay in cash at commercial stores such as OXXO.

For this reason, it is essential to use solutions that cover different forms of payment, such as , , , or , to motivate your customers to complete the checkout process.

Optimize the mobile experience

The checkout process can be more difficult on mobile devices, so you need to remove any unnecessary friction for these visitors. Large thumbs and small screens can cause accidental clicks, wasting users’ time.

To avoid any type of frustration, it is necessary that each field of the checkout process, buttons, texts and images are designed with these users in mind.

conclusion

As we have seen, the checkout is one of the essential parts of an online store. In addition to the fact that there are different types and recommendations, to optimize this process in your online store.

If you already have an online store or want to sell…