Ecommerce: One Page Online Checkout

The built-in store has a secure one-page checkout. Customers can enter shipping and payment information and leave any necessary comments before they click to place the order.

Note: This feature is enabled for new stores. If you created your store a long time ago and don’t see this feature, click “Settings” and then click “What’s New” to switch to the newer storefront.

Checkout Steps

Add Products

Once customers add their desired products to the shopping cart, customers can proceed to the checkout to complete their purchase. If you have enabled inventory tracking, customers will only be able to add in-stock products; once customers open their cart to checkout, the store will check your product inventory again to ensure you don’t oversell. If the products in the card are still in stock when they checkout, customers can proceed.

Enter Email Address

The first step on the checkout page is for customers to enter their email address. The store automatically creates a customer account when the email is entered, and customers can use this email to login into their account to check order status.

Email is captured at the very beginning to ensure you have contact information if the customer drops out before purchase. This will allow you to keep a list of “track abandoned carts” email and send emails to these customers asking if they still want to purchase.

This email is also where your store will send order notifications; customers receive order notifications to track the order.

Select Delivery Option

After entering their email, the customer proceeds to the delivery options where they can provide their shipping address and select the best method.

The customer must select one shipping method for all products in one order. Based on the address they enter, the store will show the relevant shipping options based on order weight, dimensions, location, etc.

If you sell a digital good or a service, you can disable “This Product Requires Shipping or Pickup” on the product page; this will allow customers to skip to the next step. If you sell physical products, enable this option.

The store will automatically detect customer location using the MaxMind GeoIP service and will display the estimated shipping cost and tax. As a result, the country and city will likely be pre-filled for the customer.

Note: This estimated cost will be based on the first shipping method available in your list of methods you’ve enabled in the “Shipping & Pickup” section. You can sort these methods as desired, including sorting by price – lowest to highest so customers view the cheapest option.

You can also require that customers enter their phone number at this step; this is critical if your primary method of communication is by phone. To set this up, visit “Settings,” click “General,” and select “Cart & Checkout” to enable “Require phone number at checkout.”

Select Payment Option

The next step is for the customer to decide how they would like to pay. After selecting their delivery option, customers will see all the payment options that you have enabled.

The various payment gateways for credit card processing are integrated differently with the store; this affects the payment flow. For some gateways, the credit card form is securely embedded in the store checkout so that customers stay on your site for the entire checkout process. With other gateways, customers will leave the site to enter credit card details, then return to your store for a “Thank you for your order” page.

You can add instructions for any method, which can help describe the process to a customer. For example, if a customer is paying offline, you can include instructions on how they will pay. When the customer selects this method, the instructions will appear below the list of methods.

You can collect customer billing addresses in this step as well. Requesting a billing address can limit the number of chargebacks or fraudulent charges you see, as some payment gateways can compare the entered billing address to the address attached to the credit card.

To add the billing address section:

  1. Select the Ecommerce tab from the left menu and open your store.
  2. Click on “Settings,” “General” and select “Cart & Checkout.”
  3. Enable “Ask for billing address during checkout.”

Place Order

Once customers enter their payment details, customers are promoted to “Place Order” (this can say ‘Pay’ or ‘Pay with PayPal’). After they click, customers will see their order details on the “Thank you for your order page,” as well as in the Order Confirmation email they’ll receive in their inbox (read more about email notifications).

Checkout Form Options

You can edit your checkout page to include any follow up information: announcements, a place for customers to leave notes, etc.

Request Details

You can request additional information from customers after they checkout. This includes asking where they heard about the company, any custom requests, etc.

  1. Enable order comments: if you need information about the order, select the Ecommerce tab to open the store, then click “Settings” – “General” – “Cart & Checkout” – “Order comments.” Under “Order notes field caption,” enter a description of the information you want customers to leave. You can make this optional or required.
  2. Add the company name field: you can request the customer’s company name here or you can change the name of the field to request different information. Simply enable this option and edit the name.

Note: during the checkout process you can change the order of fields, hide, or add new sections, and generally customize this for your company by using CSS or API.

Terms and Conditions Checkbox

You can ask customers to agree with your company’s Terms and Conditions before proceeding with checkout.

  1. Select the Ecommerce tab from the left menu and open your store.
  2. Click on “Settings,” then select “General” and scroll down to the customer consent area.
  3. Enable “Show “I agree with Terms & Conditions” Checkbox at checkout.”

Customers will now be required to agree with Terms and Conditions to proceed. Read more about adding legal pages to your store.

Consent to Receive Marketing Emails

You can ask customers to consent to receiving marketing emails.

  1. Select the Ecommerce tab from the left menu and open your store.
  2. Click on “Settings,” then select “General” and click “Cart & Checkout.”
  3. Locate the Newsletters section and enable “Request customers’ approval for your marketing emails at checkout.”

Remove Zip/Postal Code Field

If you don’t use the zip/postal code to provide delivery cost estimates, you can remove this request.

  1. Select the Ecommerce tab from the left menu and open your store.
  2. Click on “Settings,” then select “General” and click “Cart & Checkout.”
  3. Disable “Ask for a Zip/Postal code option.”

FAQs

WHY ARE CUSTOMERS SEEING PRE-POPULATED VALUES IN THE CHECKOUT FIELDS?

The store will pre-populate several fields – country, city, zip/postal code – based on the customer’s IP address (this is done using MaxMind’s GeoIP solution). This allows customers to check out quicker and make it easier for you to get sales. This also allows the store to show shipping calculations immediately, which many customers will want to see.

Occasionally, the incorrect values will show. This is because the MaxMind databases don’t have the correct IP address. You can check your own IP by visiting MaxMind to oconfirm your location. If this is correct, the problem should be fixed soon (our databases are updated monthly) and if it isn’t correct, you can send an email to MaxMind’s support team and they will fix this.

WHY AM I OR CUSTOMERS SEEING THAT “NO PAYMENT METHODS ARE AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME”?

If you see this message, it means you have not enabled any payment methods in your store. Find out how to set up your payment methods.

HOW LONG TO ADDED PRODUCTS REMAIN IN A CUSTOMER’S CART?

Indefinitely. The products never expire, but the cart is tied to the customer’s browser so if they clear their cache/cookies the cart will be cleared. This feature is in place to help secure abandoned cart sales.

These products remaining in customer carts do not affect the store’s inventory. The inventory will only adjust when a customer places an order.