What is checkout in E-commerce?

Checkout in e-commerce is the final step of the shopping experience, where customers place an order in an online store and proceed to pay for it. The process starts with the user browsing a website or an application and ends with them purchasing and receiving confirmation. It is a crucial part of the online shopping experience, directly affecting cart abandonment rates, user experience, and revenue generation for e-commerce businesses.

To enhance the steps leading up to checkout and optimize sales numbers, businesses need to understand their customers very well.

How Does the E-commerce Checkout Process Work?

The e-commerce checkout process begins when a customer adds an item to their online shopping cart, after which a series of steps leads to processing the order and ensuring a seamless transaction.

An effective checkout process is straightforward, simple, and easy to navigate. Each step of the process should guide the customers with clear instructions so they can proceed to complete their order smoothly.

The exact steps of the checkout process vary from store to store; however, a typical process can be broken down into different parts to help you understand it more thoroughly.

Cart Review

After adding the items to their shopping cart, customers review and make final changes, e.g, change quantities or remove products. Next, they check the total cost, including taxes and shipping fees.

Customer Information

Customers add their personal information, such as name, phone number, email address, and shipping address. In some stores, you get the option of guest checkout that expedites this step.

Shipping Method

Here, customers select their preferred shipping method depending on cost and speed of delivery.

Payment Details

At this stage, customers choose a preferred payment method from multiple options provided by the store. These typically include credit/debit cards, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, buy now, pay later services, etc. They are also required to give their card details to secure their payment.

Order Review

Customers now do a final review of their purchase and get a summary of the items they purchased, along with the quantity. They also verify the shipping and payment details they provided to ensure accuracy.

Confirmation

After the payment is completed, the checkout process comes to its final stage. Customers receive an order confirmation on their screen and via email, with an attached receipt and estimated delivery date.

Recurring Payment Permission

Once the order is confirmed, a customer has the option to authorize the business to save their payment details for future charges.

For example, a customer purchases a subscription service from a streaming platform. They can then grant the platform permission to automatically charge their card at scheduled intervals.

Why do you need to enhance the checkout process?

You need to enhance the checkout process because it is the most important step of the purchasing process, where engagement turns into a sale. With a streamlined checkout experience, you can encourage customers to complete their purchases, leading to higher conversion rates. Checkout optimization reinforces trust, reduces friction, and creates a positive impact on cart abandonment rates.

How can you enhance the checkout process?

There are many ways a business can improve the checkout process of its online store. We have compiled a list of best practices to assist you in this regard:

Enable Guest Checkout

Many customers abandon their carts because a store wants them to create an account. If you want to optimize the checkout process for your customers, allow them to complete their order with their email address. Most cart abandonments occur due to stores wanting detailed personal information, which acts as an obstacle for first-time shoppers wishing for a quick and easy checkout experience. After their first order, send a follow-up email to encourage them to create an account.

Alternatively, you can ask for a social media account login, such as Facebook or Instagram. This does the job just as well, where businesses benefit from accessing customer data, and buyers benefit from a frictionless checkout process.

Accept Multiple Payment Methods

Enabling customers to pay with the payment method they prefer decreases the likelihood of cart abandonments. To improve checkout conversion, offer payment methods like:

• Credit or debit cards
• Buy now, pay later option
• Digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay

Offer Clear Information

When adding shipping and return policies, and product prices, ensure that they’re clearly stated without any room for confusion. Any form of confusion in the checkout process is a distraction that can affect the abandonment of the purchasing process.

Ensure Security

Trust is the number one component that determines whether a customer will go through with the checkout process or leave their cart at any sign of suspicion. Show your customers that this is a secure process by highlighting security labels, customer testimonials, and payment processor logos.

Prioritize Mobile-Friendly Checkout Processes

Mobile phones are used globally for multiple day-to-day purposes. One of the major reasons they are used is for online shopping. A mobile-friendly checkout process encourages shoppers to complete their orders. Creating finger-friendly checkout buttons and sizing for smaller screens are some ways businesses can enhance the mobile checkout experience.

Remove Distractions

A disintegrated color scheme or palette may deter buyers from lingering on your website, ultimately forfeiting their purchase. Similarly, an excessive store design, font size, and theme may also distract your customers from completing their order. Smooth, subtle elements that keep the customers focused on the final checkout step work best for conversion rates.

Offer Several Shipping Methods

Identifying customer shipping method needs is a crucial factor in determining the success rate of transactions. Some customers prefer doorstep delivery, and some prefer delivery via pickup stops.

Additionally, many customers require delivery after office hours or at a time when they’re available to receive their order. Ensuring that the delivery is shipped according to the customer’s preference boosts customer satisfaction, leading to repeat purchases.

Make Chat Support Available

Ease the customers’ last-minute concerns through real-time chat support, guiding them to hit the ‘Purchase’ button. Chat support reassures customers that they’re making the right purchase and alleviates any doubts that they may have during the checkout process.

Display a Progress Bar

Help customers keep track of what step of the checkout process they’re at. This indicator is useful because orders usually need a lot of information to be processed, and amid all the information, a customer can feel lost and choose to abandon their cart. To prevent this from happening, a visibly present progress bar helps them stay on track and complete their purchase seamlessly.

Offer One-Tap Checkouts

One-tap checkouts work best for expediting your repeat customers’ ecommerce checkout process. SubscriptionFlow integrated with Shopify allows customers to complete their orders in one click, through a secure digital wallet that stores their billing information and shipping details. This is an effective tactic that has proven to lift conversions significantly.

One-Page Checkouts

One-page checkouts enable customers to provide their purchasing information all on a single web page. It makes it simpler and more intuitive for the customers, who can then navigate through the checkout experience smoothly.

How Does SubscriptionFlow Optimize E-Commerce Checkout Experiences?

SubscriptionFlow optimizes e-commerce checkout experiences through seamless automation and an intelligent and flexible checkout system designed for contemporary e-commerce and subscription businesses.

It is an all-in-one specialized subscription management platform that seamlessly integrates with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.

Let’s examine the advanced features SubscriptionFlow offers to improve checkout experiences:

Multiple Payment Methods and Gateway Options

SubscriptionFlow provides ecommerce businesses with the option of selecting from a variety of payment methods and gateways. Merchants can accept payments from gateways like credit and debit cards, digital wallets (like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal).

Additionally, customers can choose from several different payment methods. Taking it a step further, when customers select a payment method, SubscriptionFlow automatically chooses the right payment gateway for it.

This variety of payment methods and gateway options increases the likelihood of order completion, directly targeting conversion rates.

Recurring Payments

SubscriptionFlow is designed to manage complex recurring payment cycles effortlessly. It provides flexibility to automate renewals, invoicing, payment retries, and notifications.  

It offers an uninterrupted e-commerce checkout experience, ensuring steady cash flow for merchants.

Customization

Businesses can fully customize the checkout theme to match the style and branding of their store. SubscriptionFlow allows advanced personalization, including button styles, logo placement, and color schemes.

With the checkout page seamlessly blending with the overall look of the online store, businesses can create a greater impact by solidifying their brand image. In turn, customers feel more satisfied, which prompts them to complete their orders.

Embedded Checkout

SubscriptionFlow offers an embedded checkout option for businesses that want to continue using their existing checkout system while managing their subscriptions through SubscriptionFlow.

This feature instantly syncs order details to the SubscriptionFlow dashboard after securely retrieving them from the existing checkout page. In this case, Shopify users have an upper hand. Their transactions are handled as Shopify’s native checkout process, so no additional fees are charged. This creates an integrated, smooth e-commerce checkout experience.

Automated Billing Adjustment

SubscriptionFlow handles automatic billing adjustments, such as proration when customers upgrade, downgrade, pause, or skip their subscription. This ensures that customers are always billed accurately and fairly, without requiring manual intervention from the merchant.