On-page checkout pages result in 21.8% better conversion rates.
No matter which products you sell at an online store, one thing is certain – all end customers like a simplified and flawless shopping experience. With more people doing online shopping using their mobile phones, the need for delivering am optimized experience is necessary. Having a complicated checkout process on your WooCommerce store may result in losing the prospective customers and, thus, sales. It often happens that people would put many items to the cart and ghost away, leading to cart abandonment.
This aspect of online shopping has always been debatable amongst business people across the globe. While some of them believe a multi-step checkout process works better, others prefer opting for one-page checkout for their online stores.
Here, we will talk about the importance of one-page checkout for eCommerce sites and how to setup one-page checkout for your WooCommerce store.
What is One-Page Checkout?
One-page checkout also known as Single-page checkout is designed to display various elements of a standard checkout process on a single page. These include cart items, billing and shipping information, customer details, and payment details. This type of checkout ensures that a customer buys the product(s) without facing any complication during the checkout.
The main advantage of opting for a one-page checkout on your site is to allow the customers to add products, their details and pay for it on the same page. They do not need to leave the page or hop between multiple pages during the checkout. In other words, customers can order products at your online store in fewer clicks or taps. It is best-suited to target time-conscious customers in your online store.
An example of a one-page checkout would be related to a product-specific checkout page, say a shaving razor kit. On the checkout page, you can also talk about the benefits/features of the product, customer reviews, and warranty briefly. While the rest space can be used to accept details from the customer, be it personal information, shipping details, the quantity of products, and payment information. A similar example is a single-page checkout form that you can embed on a sales page to offer ebooks online.
Why Do You Need a One-Page Checkout Process?
Some of the common reasons why many customers abandon an order during online shopping include lengthy checkout, unclear/incomplete product details, and hidden fees. WooCommerce one-page checkout is no less than a solution that covers up all these aspects of online ordering.
Since the product price and payment module is included on the same page, there can’t be an unexpected fee that gets added to the final bill while checking out. Also, you can share the relevant information related to the product on one page, and there are no complications involved.
With a one-page checkout page, you can allow a frictionless checkout experience for the end customers.
One-Page Checkout Vs One-Click and Multi-Step Checkouts
One-Page Checkout
One-page checkout means all the checkout elements, including basket items, addresses, shipping options, and payment on a single page itself.
Pros of One-Page Checkout:
- It enables the customers to buy products in fewer clicks
- Simpler and easier to use in many circumstances
Cons of One-Page Checkout:
- Long pages, including multiple fields on a single page, may intimidate some customers
- It may result in slow site performance because of including a high volume of content, including text, images or videos on one page
- It is not easy for merchants to track sales funnel data, specifically the point where a customer abandons to buy products
Multi-Step Checkout
A multi-step checkout is the one in which various checkout steps are spread over several pages. It allows customers to confirm the order details before placing the order finally. In other words, with a multi-page checkout, you enable the buyers to carefully go through the purchase process and confirm the required information at every step.
Pros of Multi-Step Checkout:
- You can enable a guest checkout option for the customers with which customers can place an order without creating a customer account
- With multi-step checkout, you can collect valuable data related to user behavior on your site using which you can define the business marketing strategy
- You can gather a customer’s email address in the first few steps of the checkout. This way, you can follow up with the customer if he decides to abandon the cart without completing the order at your site
- It is easy to find out where a customer exits in between the checkout process
Cons of Multi-Step Checkout:
- Many customers prefer one-page checkout
- It often leads to frequent cart abandonment because of having multiple steps in the checkout process
One-Click Checkout
This one is different from one-page checkout, though it may sound similar. Using this form of checkout, you enable the customers to place an order in just a single click, hence the name. For it to work, the customers must have created a user account and saved their billing and payment information in it beforehand. The only objective of this form of checkout is to offer the utmost convenience and reduce the period of buying cycle for customers.
Some popular examples where this form of checkout is used are Amazon and Apple Pay.
Pros of One-Click Checkout:
- It is ideal for impatient shoppers who want to complete the checkout process in almost no time
- The simplified checkout process also results in higher conversions and ROI
Cons of One-Click Checkout:
- It does not allow the standard review of entered information for the customers before they buy products online
- Not all users prefer creating a user account with saved payment information
How and When to Use One-Page Checkout?
Regarding when to use a one-page checkout, the simplest answer would be to analyze the customer behavior at your WooCommerce site. If you are facing a high cart abandonment rate, with customers adding more items to the cart but not buying them, it’s time to dig deeper into the checkout process and simplify it to one-page checkout. It can be more like performing A/B testing on the checkout process to see what works well.
In general, there are two ways to add a WooCommerce one-page checkout.
1. Embedded Checkout
You can create a landing or sales page for a product with a checkout form embedded in it. Using this way to create a one-page checkout process, there is no need to create separate product detail pages. You can enable the end customers to know about the product and buy it on a single page itself. It also simplifies the customers’ shopping experience as they do not have to switch between different pages or go through a separate checkout page.
Embedded checkout form can include a single-step or a multi-step checkout, in which the latter consists of a two-step process to complete the process. Also, a multi-step checkout form looks shorter, simpler, and less overwhelming than the other alternative.
2. Product Specific Checkout Page
Another way to create a one-page checkout is to create a distinct page meant for selling a particular product. To engage users on that page, you can include testimonials, product benefits in brief, USP, warranty, and similar other details.
You can consider it to be a sales-page meant to convince the visitors to buy from you.
For example, a special landing page with a special discount only available for a limited time.
How to Create a WooCommerce One Page Checkout?
The best way to create a one-page checkout for your WooCommerce store is with the official extension, the WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin. So let’s see the features of this plugin and then how to setup the one-page checkout for your store.
Note: You cannot create a WooCommerce one-page checkout without a plugin because the free WooCommerce plugin does not come with a one-page checkout feature.
WooCommerce One Page Checkout Plugin
This plugin helps you to turn any page into a checkout page. With this plugin, you can create custom checkout pages by displaying both product selection and checkout forms on a single page so that you can make it easier for your customers.
Features of WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin
- Allow customers to add or remove products in their cart and complete payment on the same page without reloading
- You can add the checkout fields to any custom landing pages for special promotions
- Can select the products to display on each checkout page and can even create one featured product and related products
- It can be integrated with many WooCommerce extensions such as subscriptions, bookings, bundles, and many other extensions
- You can create a custom template for one-page checkout
How to Step One-Page Checkout with this plugin?
One-page checkout in WooCommerce requires WordPress shortcodes to insert various fields for collecting user information and other order related details. Once created, the shortcode can be used to define the checkout process on any page, post, or custom post type.
Note: Before you can follow these steps you need to first buy the WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin, install and activate it on your WooCommerce store.
Steps to Add One Page Checkout Using Graphical Interface
- In the WordPress dashboard, go to the page or post you want to add the checkout here, Pages –> Add New or Posts –> Add New, while the editor is in visual mode
- Find and click the One Page Checkout icon as seen in the picture below
- In the Products field, type the product name(s) to be displayed
- Choose the products to be displayed
- Select a template for product selection fields
- Click ‘Create Shortcode’
Steps to Add One Page Checkout Shortcode Manually in WooCommerce
- Add [woocommerce_one_page-checkout] in the content of a specific page or post
- Insert the product_ids=“ ” attribute, including the list of product IDs that you want to display at the top of the checkout page
This is to be done as given in the example below:
[woocommerce_one_page_checkout product_ids="32,43,13"]
Insert the template=“ “ attribute along with the slug of a specific template to be displayed. The standard templates and their slugs are as follows:
- Product List: product-list
- Product Table: product-table
- Single Product: product-single
- Pricing Table: pricing-table
You can also create a custom template as well. Finally, update or publish the page or post that you are working on.
Other WooCOmmerce One-Page Checkout Plugins
WooCommerce one-page checkout plugins help you to convert any page into a checkout page. Let’s see some of the best one-page checkout plugins available for WooCommerce.WooCommerce One Page Checkout and Layouts
Using this plugin, you can simplify the checkout process at your WooCommerce site. It helps you combine the elements of the product cart and checkout on one page. As a result, you can deliver a faster checkout experience to your end customers.
Primary Features of WooCommerce One Page Checkout and Layouts plugin
- Easy for users to change product quantity on the same page
- Quick redirection to the checkout
- All sections supported by AJAX
- Predefined layouts for use
- Interactive sections to apply coupons
- Pro version of this plugin comes with three more layouts and features like color panel and custom designing of checkout
ACL Woo OnePage Checkout Shop
It is a one-page checkout add-on intended for bulk ordering of products on a WooCommerce site. Using this plugin, you can simplify the product buying experience of customers at your online store. Its interactive flying add-to-cart feature will add more value to the user engagement metrics.
Primary Features of ACL Woo OnePage Checkout Shop plugin
- AJAX-based Add-to-cart button and other filter options
- Variation swatches
- Grid templates for multipurpose use
- Product display based on category ID
- AJAX pagination
- Flying cart
Selection of the Right Checkout Process
While going through various ways of product checkout for WooCommerce sites, you must remember one thing – Your online store is unique in one way or the other. So, the choice of the checkout process, be it one-page checkout or multi-step checkout, should be based on the user behavior at your site.
Do share your questions and thoughts in the comments section!