Optimize Checkout in WooCommerce –

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Recently I went with a friend to have one of those champion breakfasts in a cafeteria next to my house and I wanted to invite him. I went to the cash register to pay and the bill came to 9.50 euros, I took out my card to pay and when I saw it, the waiter told me that the minimum to pay by card was 10 euros.

I’m not very into banks, physical store POS terminals and those issues, but it seemed to me a little exaggerated the fact that there are still “minimums” to pay by card and that the minimum was such a high amount, for a cafeteria.

I tell you this because that situation at the time of payment left me with a slight bad taste in my mouth. The simple fact of thinking that if I don’t have cash I can’t have a simple coffee, makes me choose another cafeteria that doesn’t have minimums to pay by card, in this highly digitized world.

And it is that (this is where I make a fantastic relationship with what the article is about) when paying in your online store It affects me in the same way as it affected me in this cafeteria that I mentioned to you.

Throughout this article I will tell you why it is so important to have optimized Checkout in WooCommerce.

We will review some concepts, some tips, and I will mention some addons that will help you in your goal of optimizing WooCommerce Checkout.

What is Checkout and why is it so important?

I know this part of the article is very obvious, but it needs to be mentioned.

The quick definition of Checkout, which is understood quickly: where you pay in the online store.

The slightly more “book” definition would be: The peak moment of an online shopping experience, where the consumer faces the uncomfortable moment of taking out their credit card and writing down the details of it, so that the purchase can proceed. of an “intangible” product at first, since you cannot “touch” it (at least until it arrives at home).

The Checkout is directly related to the conversions that your online store has.

This means that a good Checkout will mean higher sales, and a bad Checkout, less sales (various aspects related to (UX) and the user interface (UI) have an influence here).

Having said that, below you will know why it is sometimes enough to leave the Checkout as it comes by default in WooCommerce (we will call it the nice checkout), and other times it is convenient, depending on the product we have, to optimize it in a certain way (we will call it the Checkout Optimized).

The “pretty” WooCommerce Checkout

This is what I call the nice Checkout, which is the one that comes default in WooCommerce. It is not a wrong Checkout at all. Upside down:

• It is very careful visually
• It’s simple, clean, uncluttered
• It offers multiple payment gateways by default (and you can add the ones you need)
• Shipping and cost calculation is accurate and semi-automatic.

For many types of products, it will be enough for you to use the WooCommerce Checkout that comes by default.

However, if you want to go further, you might want to start optimizing Checkout, no matter how little optimization it was. We see it in the next section of the article.

Optimize Checkout in WooCommerce

Right now you may be wondering how to know when it is convenient to divert our sales strategy during Checkout to something more specific and optimized.

Depending on the greater or lesser importance you want to give it, there are cases in which the user experience (UX) It should focus more on one type of Checkout or another.

That is why the first thing I recommend is to recognize who is your client idealand what it needs, based on your product (and your own needs).

Hence, optimization will acquire one meaning or another, and you will begin to realize that optimization is not always “remove”, it can also be “add”.

This means that for example:

• You sell intangible products (you do not need certain fields in the Checkout).
• You sell very specific services (you will need more fields in the Checkout).

To give a clearer example of why “beautiful” is not always “optimized”, I am going to give you a more specific case.

You have an online store where you sell personalized products.

Your client usually selects one of your products, and with a small design application on your website, adds their own designs or makes a design with the material that you offer.

When it’s ready, add it to the shopping cart and pay for it.

In this small “user experience”, some elements to optimize would be:

• That there is confirmation to close the window (so that your design is not lost)
• Possibility to save the design
• That the process is defined in several phases, with a status bar that indicates how much is left to finish and pay.
• That there is an “order confirmation” screen before payment, to avoid errors or cancellations.
• That there is a field to add a personalized card, or to wrap or not to gift.
• Etc.

Are you understanding it better? An optimized Checkout is different for each type of projectand in most cases it is you who is going to figure out what is better or not, or what your customers need or not.

However, there are a number of general characteristics to optimize the Checkout in WooCommerce, and I will describe them below.

Single Page Checkout vs Multi Page Checkout

In the example that we have put in the previous section, we have seen that it would be better to have a Checkout with several pages, although letting our client see the phase in which it is, and how many phases remain, through a visual indicator.

As our example product is quite a complex product, perhaps a single page Checkout would have seemed too encouraging and long, thus increasing the possibility of website abandonment.

That is why there is no right or wrong option in terms of having a Checkout of one page, or multiple pages.

As for simple and common products, the WooCommerce Checkout, by default, is more than enough, for most cases, a single page Checkout is also enough.

However, it is up to you to decide which would be better (which would optimize more) not to lose that momentum of the client when he starts to take the credit card out of his wallet and pay you a certain amount of money.

Fields that are not necessary

Although the title is quite self-descriptive, it is important to emphasize that you monitor the information that you require from your potential buyers, in order to complete their orders.

Although it sounds obvious, on many occasions they forget to eliminate certain fields that greatly condition the purchase mood of the visitor to your online store.

It can be compared to when you are interested in the articles on a website, and decide to subscribe to its newsletter; Imagine that to sign up for it, it asked you for your postal address and your telephone number. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense would it? Would you lose the desire to fill it?

Within this section also enters the “delete” elements within the fields themselves. For example, if your store only sells to Spain, in addition to indicating it in a visible place on your website, try that when selecting the country, “Spain” appears by default, and that it cannot be changed to another.

Imagine the disappointment of someone who has bothered to add products to their shopping cart, and fill in several fields, choose their country, enter their credit card information, and when they hit “pay”, a message appears of “we do not ship to this country”.

Conclude this section by saying that if you really want to leave certain fields, initially unnecessary, but which you would like to “leave there” in case they want to fill them in, that at least don’t make them mandatory.

Do you really need confirmation? Really? Sure?

This section refers to notifications, confirmations, or information ambiguous or unnecessary that your website can offer.

For example, in the name and surname fields, would it be feasible to put an information icon saying “Put your name here, example: Manolito“?

Don’t you think that icon would be subtracting points for attention of the client, with a message that does not contribute anything, and weakening that wonderful momentum of the moment of purchase?

And it is not only valid for tooltips or unnecessary information through help icons next to each field. It also applies to unnecessary product confirmation pages.

For example, you are buying size 40 shoes. You go to the shoe, choose the color, choose the size, and click add to cart; click on view cart, and buy.

Would you see a “shoe color and size confirmation” page here, with a “back” button and a “pay now” button, which would take you to another page with payment and shipping information?

Or would it be easier if, on the shopping cart page, there was already a photo of the shoe with the chosen color, and its size next to it, along with the price), and on that same page, the shipping information, email and credit card information?

Whenever you have any questions or need inspiration, I would go to sites like Amazon, which has, in my opinion, the best Checkout process on the entire Internet.

Links to other pages

Sometimes we feel the need, depending on the product, to offer extra information about it.

Whether through the inclusion of links informative (manufacturer’s page, contact forms on different pages, etc.) or commercial (links to other products within the Checkout page itself), we completely forget that this link favors diverting attention from the person interested in buying our products, and therefore, harms our sales possibilities.

If you need to include such links, at least do to open in a new tab in the background.

However, do not get obsessed with this issue of links, because the vast majority of users already know that by holding down the “Ctrl” key and clicking on the link, said link opens in a new tab, and allows them to continue browsing in the tab where they are.

Mandatory Accounts vs Guest Checkout

Just like when you enter an online store, and you do not see the prices, and to see them you have to register, it is not convenient in 99% of cases to force the user to create an account on your website, in order to pay you for a product.

It is ideal that they can become users, but do not make it a mandatory requirement.

Limit yourself to “let him see” the advantages of being a user of your website (wish lists, periodic discounts, and even a 15% discount on his next purchase) for example.

Don’t pay me in Yuan on a platform in Yemen

In this section I mean that you use well-known and modern payment gateways.

I think back…