We’ve all came to consider that we are in need of a new checkout system that of which a one-page AJAX checkout is deemed to be the most suitable.
Where possible please stay on topic stating WHY it should be one page, if you would require tooltips for customers, the ability to add shipping prior to the checkout and associated improvements.
Please do not brainstorm other modifications as we need as customers, licence holders and developers alike need to know what we as a group want and require.
I understand that some stores make many sales a day and request that you add an estimate to the amount of orders you recieve per week, ie 1/10/100
in that we can track exactly which degree of sales have a distinct need for the one page checkout or else a two page checkout etc.
I personally have 1 sale per week on Average.
A One-Page checkout would greatly increase my orders as we get a lot of traffic from our ebay items and consequently it’s easier to buy off ebay most times.
I would prefer highlightable or drop down tooltips where it clearly explains Creditcard CCV numbers / Expirary dates akin to commom ecommerce stores which the customer is progressing through the checkout.
My comments are all over the place on the forum but ill try and consolidate here…Even though I will may be having my own checkout mod made, I think they are all valid points…
1 or 2 page checkout would definatly be sufficient, I favour a 1 page, however 2 pages could also be of benefit… depending on how cluttered it could become.
Costs
TOTAL cost should be available before taking all of the customers details, this could be custom defined depending on how you ship, i.e by adding an zip code field which uses ajax to update the shipping cost.
Related Products
There should be the ability to add a “product in the cart” related items section, as this can hugely increase sales as Zyles stated on another thread, its the same as a supermarket… batteries / razor blades / smaller consumable are always placed at the checkout … for this reason alone !
Data Entry
I think the data entry should be handled on one page, i.e all customers details, payment method and if credit card also the card details…
Tooltips and more options as mentioned above are almost definatly required.
Order Confirmation Pages
There is no need to have a “confirm your order” page, as they know what they typed and what they have in their cart, does anybody really read this.
Upon completion of the order, the status should be clear and to the point, if success then give them the summary and ability to print an invoice.
If failed, this should also be clear with the ability to change payment method or retry with current payment method (on the same screen) and perhaps some custom text to allow them to phone through their order.
Order status emails should be unique per status as mentioned I have done this and at the moment, it only sends an invoice on completion, otherwise it sends either your order failed contact us, or your order has been shipped with all relevant shipping options / tracking.
3 or 4 invoices sent to a customer only makes them think they have been charged 3 or 4 times.
Customer Accounts
This one I have not fully decided but maybe options to customise to your needs… I think rather than forcing signup (depending on site) it would be great to automatically create an account and include the generated details, such as User : me@myemail.com / Pass: F5G2fea in an email along with their order confirmation, at checkout not everybody decides to create an account, however everybody benefits from order tracking… This will also help with returning customers as you could offer them some kind of discount…
My Summary
Having an optimised checkout flow showing complete prices before all the data entry should certainly help reduce the high percentage of carts being abandoned, its all about making life easy for the customer, and not everybody is a genious on computers, those on dialup may spend about 15 minutes trying to get through the current checkout flow… The easier and quicker it is to order, the more impulsive sales we will get, the worst thing is that if people have to stop and think about what they are doing, they could put the purchase of say for another day, or maybe start to reconsider
Impulse is something that needs to be captured, we all act on it at some stages in our life !
I believe that everyone has their own opinion on how they want it. There should be a one page checkout for those who do need it, and two page for those who want that. It would just simply be a matter of setting in the backend on what you want to use. Coding wise it should not be too hard to split one page up into two.
I also think that there should be a way for a user to correct their order afterwards. Like sending them a link to correct their payment if they did something wrong the first time. Otherwise you have to ask them to place a new order.
SWS brought up the most important things, like clear success or failed messages, have the ability to go back and correct upon failed. I do not see the need to send out an email on failed orders, and I do not see the need to send out emails with invoice unless it is a completed order.
Total cost before requiring customer information I believe is a very important feature. Including handling fees, payment surcharges, shipping etc.
Some people use flat fee shipping some use real time calculation and some use destination based and some use weight based shipping. This is a problem and there should be a way to work this out so all of these have the ability to show total shipping cost at cart stage. For flat fee shipping this is no problem. But for realtime and destination based etc. a box where you enter your zip code and country I believe would do the trick to calculate shipping, as see on other carts.
For the one page checkout it should not be cluttered, showing too many fields at once will scare customers away. The best thing is to have 1-3 “boxes” as steps that fold / unfold as you progress in a streamlined checkout flow either downwards or sideways.
Preferably use AJAX where possible, such as chosing payment option you can have the “payment box” reload the information you need to enter, such as credit card numbers or whatever.
I think tooltips are a great idea aswell, which could be placed either left or right.
I also believe that at the checkout page everything besides the actual checkout information should be stripped. That means any modules/boxes like bestsellers, categories etc. so they are clearly focused on the checkout and not get distracted by anything else. Take a look at: http://store.crab tree-evelyn.com, and you can notice their checkout is COMPLETELY stripped to keep the customer focused.
The ability to have payment methods show based on destination.
I’ll fill in more blanks later.
When I read the title of this thread, I thought it was going to lead somewhere slightly different but related. I see a need for a one-page option isolated from the ‘typical’ checkout process to be used for single-item PPC campaigns, possibly in connection with Affiliate campaigns, or to service off-line single item promotions, each of which may differ from the standard offer on your site. I see this as a feature that is separate from the normal checkout process, but many of the comments above concerning the normal checkout also apply here.
But, since this thread is actually about the normal checkout process …
I think flexibility for the merchant is key. Finding what works best depends on testing, and what is ideal for one site will not be ideal for another. For instance, while SWS makes a great point about “related items” or cross-sell items, which can add significantly to an order total (especially if your accessories are high-margin items), they also work against the quick funneling of customers to closing the sale. Exactly what the “right” balance between the two is will depend on what you sell, and what kind of customers you serve. For one site, recommending additional items will boost sales, for another it will just add clutter and friction to the checkout process. The merchant needs to be able to test to see what works, and be able to adjust how the process works based on their own conversion stats.
For me, concerning the cross-sell issue, I’d rather handle that on my product pages and in the cart, but I want to stop selling once the customer has gone to checkout. At checkout, I want to focus on ease of use and reassuring the customer they are dealing with a legitimate merchant that is responsive and trustworthy. For instance, I want to see testimonials that specifically reassure the customer they are making a good decision handing over their sensitive information, and only those testimonials that serve to reassure.
In general I think “reducing friction” and “building trust” should be the watchwords for checkout processes. Once a customer has made the decision to go to checkout, anything you can do to make the process quick, easy, painless, comfortable and transparent for the customer, the better. But again the exact setup that works for me won’t necessarily work for you.
It would be nice to have a config screen in admin for the checkout process that allowed you a lot of control over the checkout pages, separate from the general site pages. I’m ok w/ a 2 page checkout for general purposes, assuming order total is already available through the cart pages (which is critical, the mini-cart is a great add) … 1) collect the customer’s billing and shipping address 2) Summarize the order and get payment. But I use a single page order form now that works well, and I might find I want to return to that after using a 2-page for awhile. I need flexibility to make that decision.
[quote] The easier and quicker it is to order, the more impulsive sales we will get, the worst thing is that if people have to stop and think about what they are doing, they could put the purchase of say for another day, or maybe start to reconsider[/quote]
I totally agree with this
There is a 3rd page, the confirmation page, that also needs to have it’s own distinct options. This isn’t a “confirm your order page” SWS was protesting, I don’t think anyway … it’s an order summary after sale, which I do think people read and need to be able to easily print. I think relying on e-mail for anything critical is a mistake, as your e-mails will almost always be caught by a spam filter, and at least a fair percentage of customers never check their e-mail, or just delete the contents of their spam filter. I think this page should act as a receipt with complete order details, should include auto-account login info to track your order (SWS’s “customer accounts” above), and should have other options available, like: 1) a feedback option … this is an ideal place to collect testimonials 2) newsletter, club & sales notice signup options, etc.
In general, I default to simple and remaining as cross-browser and backward compatible as possible. I don’t know enough about Ajax to say whether it is the proper technology … I think the javascript Ajax uses probably isn’t an issue as checkout (as well as add-to-cart) already depends on javacsript. But if using it means old browsers will have problems, then I don’t agree w/ using it yet. People gravitate to bells and whistles, they are exciting I agree, but I’d rather run a simple, dumb site that works for the broadest range of customers than a zoomy one that turns it’s back on low-tech users. I don’t want to throw up any roadblocks for the customer
I’d rather not reveal how busy I am but it’s multiple orders a day during 2/3 of the year, warm months are several times that of cold months.
I agree with all the comments SWS and Zyles have proposed, especially the need for a highly configurable checkout process where like Zyles said we could select a 1 or 2 page process and the ability to define which elements we would like to be available and the position of those elements…I also agree with adding tooltips in the default install…I’ve done this manually using tooltips like:
[url]http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/[/url]
and their is a nice one on dynamicdrive too…
Ok, this is NOT a shop checkout, but I personally like the way its put together… so thought it worthwhile posting… Seems to follow suggestions from zyles
[URL=“https://secure.netcars.co.uk/carfinance/loan-application.aspx?sourceid=30&referrer=&term”]https://secure.netcars.co.uk/carfinance/loan-application.aspx?sourceid=30&referrer=&term[/URL]=
I like that!
[quote name=‘SWS’]Ok, this is NOT a shop checkout, but I personally like the way its put together… so thought it worthwhile posting… Seems to follow suggestions from zyles
[URL=“https://secure.netcars.co.uk/carfinance/loan-application.aspx?sourceid=30&referrer=&term”]https://secure.netcars.co.uk/carfinance/loan-application.aspx?sourceid=30&referrer=&term[/URL]=[/quote]
[QUOTE]I also believe that at the checkout page everything besides the actual checkout information should be stripped. That means any modules/boxes like bestsellers, categories etc. so they are clearly focused on the checkout and not get distracted by anything else. Take a look at: http://store.crab tree-evelyn.com, and you can notice their checkout is COMPLETELY stripped to keep the customer focused.[/QUOTE]
I also agree with this comment.
I read that the likes of Amazon etc. structured their carts on the upside down pyramid method where the deeper the customer goes through your site (Homepage > Products > Cart > Checkout) the less chances you give them to get distracted by something else.
If you find that you have alarming checkout abandonment figures then trying this can make a lot of difference.
this can be done already and is actually extremely easy to do…the code is already within the templates to do so…my site has been running sideboxless since it went up…I don’t have the code at hand to post up here but the code is already posted in the forums somewhere…
Fax Orders Orders - when clicking submit go to a new page with basically the same information that is contained in invoice BUT with extra space and details included so that they can just fill in and then fax off.
Bank Direct Deposit Orders - Show our Bank account BSB and Acccount Number on the invoice for them to print and arrange internet/over the counter deposit. We have bank details included in checkout but many forget to write it down. We used to display bank details on our Customer Service/Payment and Postage information page but I’d prefer to keep these details on a need to know basis. Currently I send them in a customised email.
Default ticked checkbox to sign up for newsletters included
I love CS-Cart, but I am all for the One-Page Checkout. take a look at this cart it would be good to have a check like this.
[url]http://www.volusion.com/onepagecheckoutoverlay.htm[/url]
[quote name=‘wavi’]here a good idea
[url]nitobi.com
Here there are more informations about it:
[URL=“Ecommerce White Papers, Infographics, eBooks & Reports”]http://www.elasticpath.com/ecommerce/one-page/index.jsp[/URL]
I hope that we could have soon a feature like this one…
Francesco
i’ve already made the one that you see in elasticpath for myself,
but i think its waaay to much adjustments to make a mod out of:
cs-cart should add it standard…