Shoppers tend to naturally be cautious online, especially given that they can’t see your products in-person or ask to “speak to the manager.” They look for reasons to trust, as well as to be mistrustful.

One strategy for helping to boost that sense of trust is to use the secure checkout badge and trust seals on your website. These help to send a message that your business is legit, an important reassurance for the many people wanting to avoid the plague of credit card fraud.

Here’s what you need to know if you have a WooCommerce store:

What are trust badges?

Trust badges are symbols that are placed on websites to convey that the brand is legitimate, trustworthy, and takes the security of its customers seriously. You’ll also see them referred to as trust seals or site seals.

Trust badges are especially important for any kind of website that collects payment and personal information from customers, WooCommerce sites included. Customers look for clues that a website is safe to provide their personal details, and may be scared off without them. One study found that trust badges increase the perceived trustworthiness of a website by 75%.

The success of the trust badge in actually fostering trust among site visitors tends to depend on whether they recognize the logo used. Most third-party trust badges, such as McAfee or PayPal Verified, have to be earned by meeting the criteria of the third party. This adds an extra layer of legitimacy to the seller, although consumers don’t necessarily know one trust badge from another.

What is the secure checkout badge?

The secure checkout badge is a trust seal that is given to you when you sign up with a company that provides an SSL certificate. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) provides a secure connection between two devices operating over the internet.

In ecommerce, the secure checkout badge indicates that the checkout process can be trusted. It communicates that the customer’s payment and personal information will be kept secure. Some of the most well-known of these include Norton, Lifelock, and payment providers such as Shopify, PayPal, and Amazon Pay.

Do trust badges still matter?

In short, yes. Baymard Institute has run an ongoing checkout usability study looking at various factors that influence user perception of and trust in the checkout. They found that users continue to feel uneasy about sharing payment information on ecommerce sites, largely due to credit card fraud. Additionally, the average user’s perception of a site’s security, outside of brand trust, was largely due to how visually secure the page looked.

Baymard Institute states: “What we consistently observe is that any parts of a checkout page with trust badges, reassuring microcopy and a general visual “robustness” are often perceived as being “more secure”, while parts without these visual clues inspire less confidence – despite the fact that these fields are all part of the same form on the same page.”

Additionally, Baymard Institute looked into which seals give the best sense of trust when paying online. The screenshot below shows what they found:

“Visual security indicators” are important for customers to trust ecommerce websites
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What types of trust badges are there?

There are a few different types of trust badges – here are some basic categories:

SSL and security badges

Many SSL certificate issuers will also provide a trust badge to go on your website. These are also referred to as secure checkout badges and show that customer information is protected.

Other types of security badges include those which have their own set of standards in order to get the badge. For example, The TRUSTe seal indicates that your website complies with privacy standards such as Europe’s GDPR.

Accepted payment badges

As a general rule, your ecommerce customers want to see payment options from recognized payment providers. In fact, according to studies from Baymard Institute, lack of payment options is a common reason behind shopping cart abandonment.

Accepted payment badges indicate clearly to the customer which payment options you accept. They also tell them that you comply with the requirements of those payment providers, which can be another reason to trust you.

Third party endorsements

Third party endorsements are great credibility boosters for your business. They usually involve programs with an application and review process, meaning you have to meet strict criteria to gain the badge. These badges prove to customers that you have legitimately had to meet a certain standard, so can be expected to meet those standards in your business. Some examples include:

• The Better Business Bureau Accredited Business badge.
• Google Reviews badge.
• Amazon Best Seller badge.
• Membership seals and certifications for professional organizations (see the example below from Professional Photographers of America).

Guarantee badges

There are various types of guarantee badges that almost any ecommerce business can display. They exist more to give customers confidence that your business offers them some kind of recourse.

For example, there are “money-back guarantee” badges, “free shipping guarantee” badges, and “free returns” guarantee badges. These badges aren’t as “exclusive” as say, a third-party certification badge, but they at least provide reassurance to the customer.

How do you get trust badges for WooCommerce?

First of all, some trust badges, such as those that you have to earn through a third-party, must be downloaded from that third-party. These will often have some sort of unique identifier attached, which is used to prove that the trust seal belongs to you.

Other trust badges are easily obtained by anyone who wants them, often by finding and downloading an image file. (As you can see, while consumers feel safer when they see trust badges, the badge doesn’t necessarily mean the business is safe!).

As for adding the badge to your checkout or other pages on WooCommerce, there are a few ways:

1. If you use the default WooCommerce checkout: Click on the checkout tab under your WooCommerce settings, then scroll to the bottom of the page to find the trust badges section. Select the trust badges you want to display, then click “save changes.”

2. You can use WooCommerce hooks. For example, after uploading your trust badge image files, you could choose to use the hook woocommerce_after_cart_totals to display your badge beneath the cart total section. Here’s what that looks like:

3. CheckoutWC users:

Conclusion

The secure checkout badge and other trust seals are still important to have on your WooCommerce site. Ongoing studies show that customers find websites more trustworthy when they see trust badges, and while some are easily available to all, others, such as third-party endorsements and SSL badges, indicate that you had to meet a certain standard to display the badge.

Where should you put those trust badges? They can be displayed anywhere on your website, but one place you should always have them is in your checkout. This is the last segment of your website where customers look for reasons to trust you, and a badge may help to prevent cart abandonment.

Here at CheckoutWC, we’ve created an optimized checkout for WooCommerce. Take a look at our demos here and sign up to optimize your own WooCommerce site.

The post The Secure Checkout Badge and Trust Seals in WooCommerce appeared first on CheckoutWC.

An optimized site can help to draw more business your way, whereas if you haven’t optimized, it can push that business to your competitors.

While creating an optimal customer experience is important for your website as a whole, the checkout page is a key area where most ecommerce businesses could use improvement. Cart abandonment is a very common consequence of less-than optimal checkouts, with an average abandonment rate close to 70%.

Your mission is to prevent cart abandonment as much as you possibly can, and instead encourage people to complete the checkout. Here are some tips for doing just that:

What does it mean to optimize your checkout?

The overarching goal of optimizing your checkout is to improve conversion rates, or the number of visits that result in a sale. Optimization can be looked at as removing or mitigating any roadblocks in the checkout process for the customer.

Some common optimization tasks include: minimizing distractions; helping to gain trust; reducing steps; and driving customers toward purchase. Every website will have its own set of priorities or key areas to optimize. 

Checkout optimization matters because most ecommerce merchants could stand to benefit from fewer abandoned carts. According to Baymard Institute, 17% of abandoned carts happen because the checkout process is too long or complex, while other top reasons such as having to create an account or surprise costs in the checkout could be mitigated by making some changes.

Key checkout metrics to improve

It’s important to know what you’re looking for and how you’re going to measure success. Here are some key metrics to keep track of:

• Cart abandonment rate. This is the percentage of visitors who add items to the shopping cart, but click away before completing checkout.
  
• Conversion rate. This is the number of people who made a purchase compared to the number who visited your website, expressed as a percentage. It is calculated by dividing the number of purchases by the number of sessions, then multiplying by 100.
  
• Average order value. This is the average amount customers spend at one time in your online store. While this isn’t always impacted specifically by checkout optimization, it can be (we’ll touch on some ways).
  
• Returning customer rate. This is the number of customers out of your total who have made a repeat purchase from your store. The checkout process is one aspect of many that can either encourage or discourage repeat business. 

Keep an eye on key checkout metrics so you can see if your optimization efforts have made a difference #woocommercecheckout
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Optimization tips

One of our first tips is that the default checkout process offered by your ecommerce platform (including WooCommerce), is not optimized for the best customer experience. There are flaws with most default checkouts, including things like extra form fields, confusing layouts and forced account creation.

Which leads to our second tip: there are often optimized checkouts that have been built for your particular ecommerce platform if you don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on customizations yourself. CheckoutWC does this for WooCommerce checkouts. 

If you want to go down the route of customizing yourself, or if you want a checklist of sorts for determining an optimized checkout solution, here are some key optimization tips:

Show checkout progress

You’ve probably had an experience online where you’ve wondered how much longer a particular task was going to take and whether you can be bothered finishing it. Various tests have shown a positive correlation between showing the customer their checkout progress and the number of completed checkouts.

A progress bar or similar helps to show shoppers the steps they need to complete checkout and how far along they are. It helps to set expectations rather than keep your customers guessing.

Never force account creation

Forced account creation comes in as the second-most common reason for cart abandonment. This happens when the customer is required to create an account just to complete checkout. In brief; just don’t do it. You can offer account sign-in for customers who would like it, but besides that, leave account creation until after checkout. Even better, if you use the details the customer already provided during checkout to create an account with one click, this makes it more likely they’ll decide to do it.

Be upfront about costs

Surprise costs are the number one reason people abandon the cart. This often comes down to shipping costs or other fees that are added during checkout. Large numbers of people will click away when they didn’t expect to pay that cost, even if it is a relatively minor shipping charge.

The best way to avoid surprising people is to be upfront. If you offer free shipping, tell people how they can get it. Otherwise, give people an idea of the cost – for example, “$8 flat rate shipping on all orders.”

Reduce distractions

Distractions at checkout include things like alternative navigation or complex menus. Customers can become confused or distracted, then abandon the cart. It’s better to reduce anything that has a customer click to a different area of your website.

Reduce form fields

Each new form field that a customer is required to fill out is a potential reason for them to leave. As a general rule, less is more. Only ask for exactly what you need so that you reduce the amount of time a customer has to spend on the checkout process.

Look at checkout flow

Checkout flow is a term to describe the order of operations of your checkout. The aim should be to make it as logical as possible for the customer and avoid confusion. Some checkouts have a strange flow, for example putting the billing address ahead of the shipping address. That’s not how customers generally expect to find it.

Make the cart easy to edit

Difficulty editing the cart can be another issue that falls under “checkout complexity.” Many customers are in the habit of browsing sites and adding items they are interested in to the cart. They then go back through the cart and want to be able to delete or edit as necessary. If you make this difficult, they’re likely to give up. 

Remember, a customer is not going to checkout unless they’re happy with the items in their cart so there’s no point in making it difficult to edit. The customer will more than likely look for an alternative option to order if your site puts up roadblocks.

Be upfront with your returns policy

Another reason customers give for abandoning the cart is that the returns policy either wasn’t satisfactory or wasn’t clear. You can help avoid this by having upfront links to your returns policy. Some retailers have the policy pop up as an overlay on screen if the customer clicks on it. This way, they haven’t left the cart but they still get to see the policy clearly.

Introduce cross-sells and/or upsells

Remember that average order value metric? Cross-sells or upsells offered during the checkout process (or right after) can be a great way to increase your average order value. At the same time, when done right these can offer value to the customer. For example, if they’re checking out an item that usually works with another product, you could offer that product as a cross-sell. Most people appreciate getting all the things they need in one order rather than discovering later that they needed that other product!

How to optimize your WooCommerce checkout

For all the WooCommerce store owners out there, the default checkout is not an optimal setup for your customers. The flow isn’t intuitive and there are too many form fields, among other issues.

CheckoutWC offers you a solution with our plugin that brings the best features of the Shopify checkout and makes them available on WooCommerce. Our solution reduces steps and form fields, and presents the customer with a beautiful, optimized checkout flow.

Ready to check it out? You can sign up for a free 7 day trial here.

The post How Do I Optimize My Checkout Page? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Any experience that is less-than optimal for the customer can lead to cart abandonment and lower sales. It’s worth examining every aspect of your checkout to determine if you’re offering the best possible user experience, including guest checkout vs. customer accounts.

Ask any merchant and they’ll almost always state a preference for customers to check out using an account. The reason is quite simple: it makes it easier to gather customer history in one place and permits continued marketing.

However, if you want to optimize the checkout, you’ve always got to place yourself in the customer’s shoes. Here’s what we know:

Checkout flow and cart abandonment

Let’s pretend that every other aspect of your ecommerce store is optimized for the customer. They can easily navigate your site, view high-quality product images and descriptions, and search for anything they need. With all other things being optimized, that leaves the checkout flow as a possible roadblock. If customers aren’t even getting to the checkout, then you need to take a serious look at their experience beforehand.

Cart abandonment is a common issue for all ecommerce stores. This is where a customer adds items to the cart, but then abandons it partway through the checkout process. According to Baymard Institute, the average abandonment rate sits around 69.82%.

While the top reason for abandonment given by customers is surprise costs (such as shipping and taxes), we need to pay careful attention to the number two reason as well: “The site wanted me to create an account” is a complaint shared by 24% of those who abandoned the cart.

Even just the perception that account creation is required can be enough for customers to walk away. And yet, there are several positives to account creation…

Guest checkout vs. customer account: Pros and cons

There are valid reasons for and against both guest checkout and customer accounts. Let’s take a closer look:

Guest checkout: The pros

From the customer perspective, allowing guest checkout can be a trust indicator. When a person is new to your brand, they’re testing you out, seeing if they can trust you. If you require an account to checkout, they start to question your integrity. Why do they want me to have an account? Are they going to bombard me with marketing? What if they store my payment details and charge me for things I don’t want?

Allowing guest checkout helps customers to overcome any initial hesitancy and speeds up the checkout process for them. It’s about reducing friction in the checkout flow, and an impact of reducing friction is lowering cart abandonment rates.

You could sum up guest checkout as a lower level of commitment for the customer. Many shoppers will say, “I just want the thing, I don’t want to deal with anything else,” so guest checkout speeds their path to getting the item.

A core aim of your checkout should be to grow trust with your customers, along with simplifying the process
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Guest checkout: The cons

Guest checkout cons are largely on the merchant side, although there can be future inconveniences for customers. From a merchant perspective, guest checkout gives you less information and opportunities with the customer. You can only communicate with them by email to offer order updates – no marketing when they haven’t expressly opted in.

From the customer perspective, while guest checkout may be fast, it can also mean they’re not entitled to certain benefits that come with account creation. For example, perhaps they can’t collect loyalty points or don’t get free shipping.

If guests were to come back again looking to reorder, there’d be no account history. Having an account generally makes it easier to track down items you’ve ordered before.

Customer account checkout: The pros

Once a customer has an account, the checkout process can be even easier than before. Accounts can store your checkout information and allow for features such as one-click purchase. They can make customer order history easily accessible for reorders.

Account creation can also lead to a more personalized experience for the customer with your brand. Accounts allow for recommendations based on order history, and more relevant marketing messages. They can also make it easy to interact with customer service, who can draw on previous orders to offer advice on future purchases. Customers can also easily check on order status within their own account.

Customer accounts also allow shoppers to take full advantage of any loyalty programs or special account offers. They can accumulate points, apply discounts, and collect on any specific account holder benefits. Customers can also leave reviews and look back at their own order history.

For merchants, the more customers who have accounts, the better. This offers you more opportunities to market and draw in repeat sales. You can run campaigns and account holder exclusive offers, improving your customer lifetime value.

Customer account checkout: The cons

As we mentioned earlier, compulsory account creation can be a significant roadblock for new customers. Even the perception that account creation is required (usually due to its placement in the checkout flow), will halt some customers in their tracks.

Another potential drawback can be account fatigue. This happens when customers feel overwhelmed about having to remember usernames and passwords for yet more online accounts.

Solutions for customer accounts

It’s clear that the merchant preference will always be for customers to create accounts, while significant numbers of new customers will be put off by having to create one. This is where you need to look at optimizing your checkout flow.

Even the hint of requiring an account to checkout will cause abandonment, so make sure you’re not offering account creation at the beginning of checking out. Account creation after checkout is a good solution, although it’s also very easy for customers to ignore this and click away once their order is complete.

CheckoutWC offers an alternative solution for WooCommerce checkouts. By default, customers will be registered for an account using their email address provided during checkout. They will then receive an email post-purchase, offering them a link to set a password for their account.

Even if the customer decides not to add a password for an account, CheckoutWC’s user matching feature can automatically be helpful for them. This feature associates guest orders with accounts that match their email address, so there’s no cost or inconvenience to the customer if they decide to login or not.

How to encourage account creation

In the end, merchants want more customers to create accounts, giving you permission to reach out to them. Besides making sure you offer account creation at the end of guest checkout (or use CheckoutWC to automatically create an account for customers), here are some suggestions:

• Clearly explain the benefits. Some ecommerce stores simply offer signup, but don’t include details on what’s in it for customers.
• Have exclusive benefits for account holders. For example: points that add up to discounts on future purchases; free shipping; account holder exclusive sales or offers; “first looks” at new products; loyalty programs where they move through different levels to gain access to more benefits.
• Make account creation super easy. If you’re not using CheckoutWC to automate account creation, you should at least minimize the information a customer needs to provide. For example, as you already have their email address, you might just ask them to set a password after checkout completion.
• Make passwords easy to recover. For those who do create an account then forget their password, jumping through hoops will put them off.
• Be respectful of customer email. Customers don’t want their email addresses passed on to other marketers, and they don’t want their inboxes blown up with too many messages. Marketing is fine, but make it relevant and don’t overdo it.

Conclusion

While account creation is advantageous in many ways for both customers and merchants, it’s a roadblock for new customers if offered too early in the checkout process.

WooCommerce store owners should find the right balance between guest checkout and account creation by carefully optimizing the checkout flow. Account creation should be offered post-purchase and should be as simple as possible to set up.

CheckoutWC makes post-purchase account creation easy for your customers, along with several important checkout optimization features. Take a look at how we can help you streamline your WooCommerce checkout here.

The post Pros and Cons of Guest Checkout vs Customer Accounts for Your Ecommerce Store appeared first on CheckoutWC.

This is generally the $64 million question for merchants and there’s no one “right” answer. Ecommerce success is a combination of factors, from the right products and services, to the right marketing, to an optimal website experience for your customers.

If having great products is the first priority on the list, then website optimization should be the second. You can spend a lot of money on marketing and driving traffic to your website, only to find that people leave without buying if their experience on your site sucks.

One area that is often ripe for change on ecommerce sites is the checkout process. Your checkout flow should be designed to encourage customers to complete the process. If you’re getting large numbers dropping out at the checkout, it’s time to look into their experience. Here’s what you should know:

The checkout flow and why it matters

The average online shopping cart abandonment rate clocks in at 69.82% – ouch. Now, you’re never going to prevent all cart abandonment. That’s just not how it works. Sometimes people add items to their cart as they browse, but they don’t yet have the intent to buy. That’s something that will always impact your abandonment statistics.

However, do you get shoppers starting the checkout process only to abandon part-way through? If you get a lot of this behavior, there’s a good chance that something about your checkout process is turning people off.

The checkout flow can be one of those reasons. Checkout flow describes the steps a person must take to checkout and how they take those steps. For example, you can have one, continuous form that they must fill out, or you can implement a multi-step checkout that takes them through each stage one-by-one.

Your checkout flow matters because it’s a known barrier that can lead to cart abandonment. Among the top reasons given by customers for abandoning the cart include things like “the site wanted me to create an account,” “too long/complicated checkout process,” and “I couldn’t see or calculate the total cost of my order up front.”

In fact, most of the reasons given for abandoned carts are within your control to do something about. Optimizing your checkout flow should be one of those.

Poor checkout flow is a common reason for cart abandonment.
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WooCommerce’s default checkout flow

We’ll start out by acknowledging that you’re going to want to customize the default WooCommerce checkout flow. Why? Because it isn’t optimized for conversions. It has some solid features, just not necessarily presented as you need them to be for your customer experience.

To begin with, WooCommerce’s default tends to be heavy on the form fields. There are separate fields for almost everything, and some of those may even be unclear in terms of their relevance. Customers can feel overwhelmed by the number of fields.

There is also a lack of automated input for form fields in the default version, meaning the customer can feel like they’re constantly filling out forms. Small automations, such as auto-populating an address can help to smooth the process.

The default version also allows little room for explanation. Sometimes you need to collect certain information (such as a phone number), but customers may be unwilling to simply hand that information over. They want to know why you’re collecting it, so room to explain is important.

Another factor that can present a roadblock is the positioning of the account creation function. The default WooCommerce flow doesn’t force account creation to checkout, but it does offer account sign in or creation in a position that causes the customer to have to pause and evaluate. Some may mistakenly think that they must have an account to check out, which could cost you customers.

How can you improve checkout flow?

There are several possible strategies for making improvements to your current checkout flow, especially if you’ve got WooCommerce’s default settings, or similar. One thing to note is that as with all website optimization, some things make a big impact for some merchants, while only a little impact for others. There’s definitely a case for some trial and error, preferably including some A/B testing to check on the impact of any changes.

Here are some suggestions for improving checkout flow:

Make it multi-step

When customers are presented with one long form, it can seem a daunting task to fill everything out. Single form checkouts can give the appearance of being long or complicated, even if they’re really not.

A multi-step checkout helps to break down the required form fields into simplified blocks. It’s even better if your customers can see their progress, such as in the screenshot below. You can see a progress line at the top, showing them which step of the checkout process they are on.

Only collect the information you really need

There can be a temptation to gather as much data as possible from customers so that you can use it later, but that’s not a good idea during your checkout process. Simplify it down to only what you really need. Don’t need a phone number? Don’t ask for one! And if you do need it, offer an explanation as to what it’s for so customers feel comfortable.

Make sure it’s logical

The flow of your checkout should be a logical process, with step B following step A. One illogical example can be found on WooCommerce’s default option, where they ask for billing address ahead of shipping address. Most customers would expect to give their shipping address first. Examine your checkout flow for anything that might be out of order. A third-party who has no stake in your business may be a good place to start so that you get the view of someone without inside knowledge.

Auto populate information

Customers like quick, efficient checkout processes. You can help them out by auto populating information wherever possible. One example is when people type in their ZIP code, you can have the city and state auto-populated into their fields.

Another example is address. When you use geolocation features, you can have an auto-suggestion for the customer’s address as they start typing, saving them from filling in multiple fields. Here’s an example below:

Offer account creation after checkout

Throwing account creation at the start or somewhere in the middle of your checkout flow just puts a potential roadblock in place. Even if account creation is not required for checkout, you’ll still make customers pause and wonder if they need one to keep going. 

Instead, offer account creation after they’ve completed checkout. They can take it or leave it then, without worrying that it impacts their ability to complete their purchase. You might even offer some sort of incentive, for example, “create your account with us now and get 15% off your next order.”

Conclusion

Your checkout flow describes the order of operations that a customer must go through to complete a purchase on your website. This process is one of the most common areas where ecommerce merchants lose customers, particularly if the checkout flow isn’t optimized for the customer experience.

An optimized checkout flow feels simple and quick for the customer. They understand where they are in the process and what is required. Automations help to reduce the form fields they need to fill out.

CheckoutWC offers an optimized checkout flow for WooCommerce. Avoid the pitfalls of the default version and install a great customer experience out-of-the-box. Take a look here at how we can help you.

The post What is Checkout Flow and Why Does it Matter to Your Ecommerce Store? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

As powerful as WooCommerce is, it doesn’t come with everything you could possibly need out of the box. Ecommerce businesses have unique needs and require different features to meet those, which is where plugins and extensions come in.

The checkout page is critically important to get right for any business selling online. On the customer end, it needs to work seamlessly, delivering them a great experience that helps to build trust in your business. On the seller end, you need processes to be as clean and simple as possible so you can streamline your operations.

What can WooCommerce checkout plugins and extensions do for you? Let’s take a look:

Checkout plugins and extensions: How do they work?

Plugins and extensions are pre-built pieces of software that are designed to “plug and play” with your WooCommerce checkout. They add new functionality that you didn’t previously have with the standard checkout, for example a better checkout flow or integrations with other software.

Most of these are fairly easy to use. You download the plugin software and activate it within the back end of your website. These add-ons are either developed by WooCommerce, or they’re created by third-party developers.

Why use plugins and extensions?

Plugins and extensions aren’t the only ways to add functionality to your WooCommerce website. Some other ways include: WooCommerce blocks and shortcodes, prebuilt page templates or themes, and custom coding for WooCommerce.

A good reason to choose a plugin or extension instead is that you might not have the expertise to custom code yourself (or the time to wait for someone to do it for you), or the other options might not cover what you need. You might be happy with your theme and perhaps shortcodes don’t do what you need. Plugins and extensions are quick to deploy and deliver you the needed functionality as soon as you activate them.

One thing we always emphasize about the WooCommerce checkout is whatever you do, it should be about optimizing the experience for the customer. Making something “look pretty” is nice, but does it help the customer? Here are some things you can achieve with extensions and plugins:

• Alter the layout of the checkout page. For example, Checkout WC allows you to break it into three simple steps.
• Change the design or page template.
• Add, remove or rearrange fields.
• Link products directly to the checkout page.
• Offer upsells or side-sells.
• Trigger automatic free shipping, free gifts or other features.
• Make certain fields a requirement.
• Add integrations such as abandoned cart software or CMS.

Plugin choice matters: How do you choose the right ones?

The plugins or extensions you choose matter. Sometimes, the wrong choice will lead to a poorer experience for customers, such as slow loading or an unclear path. Your aim should always be to put the customer experience first. Here are some things we’d consider when choosing plugins or extensions:

Start with your purpose

What are your goals for your WooCommerce checkout? Why do you need to add functionality to it? Be firm in the purpose of your website and who you want to attract so that you can plan out your feature needs accordingly.

You should also consider your budget. Some of the best plugins and extensions involve a monthly subscription fee, so you need to be clear about what you’re willing to pay. Look at it from an ROI perspective – will paying for that plugin pay off in terms of a better customer experience and more sales?

Consider how the plugin works

Does the plugin add to the customer experience or detract from it? How easy is it to deploy on your end, then use on the customer end? You should look for simplicity and ease of design. If customers have too many hoops to jump through, they often abandon the cart.

Carefully consider before adding WooCommerce extensions: does it add to the customer experience?
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Choose reliable sources for plugins

WooCommmerce is an open source software, meaning anyone can develop plugins or extensions and put them out there. However, that also means there are many plugins of dubious quality. Some of the worst are coded so inefficiently that they’ll slow your whole website down.

The old adage “you get what you pay for” often rings true here (although there are some great free plugins). You’ll often find sites that offer free versions of plugins that are usually premium, which should be a red flag to you. These have often been modified in such a way that causes harm to your website.

How do you find a reliable source? For one thing, they generally offer refunds if their plugin doesn’t work for your store. Also, check the reviews! There are thousands of WooCommerce users out there and many will write reviews of the plugins they use. Look for a plugin that has plenty of good reviews.

Look for plugins and extensions that are well-supported

Another feature of reliable plugins and extensions is that they are well-supported by the developers. You should see evidence of regular updates being made, showing that they’re actively keeping up with any needed changes.

You should also be able to access support for the plugin should you have any questions. You should see developers answering questions and generally being available as people need them.

Look for good page speed

If a plugin significantly slows down your page speed, it’s not a great experience for the customer and you’ll find more people bouncing from your checkout. This is easy to test. You can use a speed testing tool such as WebPageTest to check important metrics on your page speed. You shouldn’t see a significant difference after installing a plugin.

Clear documentation

A decent plugin generally comes with helpful, clear documentation. As a general rule, we would avoid any plugins that have incomprehensible documentation. You need to see a clear overview, description of installation, and descriptions of how the features work.

Sometimes documentation comes in the form of a ticketing system or forum. Check that developers are responsive to any queries through these platforms.

Why choose CheckoutWC?

When you want an optimized WooCommerce checkout, you need a solution that is specifically designed to eliminate the challenges of “out of the box” WooCommerce. The standard WooCommerce has multiple issues that represent speed bumps to your customers, such as a confusing layout and unnecessary form fields.

Optimizing the WooCommerce checkout means simplifying the customer experience with features such as automated form field population, and changing the layout from one big, overwhelming form to several smaller, more manageable fields.

CheckoutWC transforms the WooCommerce checkout into an optimized customer experience with a beautiful, responsive design. The simplified checkout process encourages prospective customers to follow through, helps with easy account creation, and integrates with your favorite plugins. Check it out for yourself here and take advantage of our free seven day trial.

The post WooCommerce Checkout Plugins and Extensions: A Review appeared first on CheckoutWC.

According to Forrester’s research, shopping cart abandonment costs eCommerce brands over $18 billion a year. Some margin of abandonment is due to browsing behavior. Annex Cloud reports that about 40% of shoppers place items in their cart without intent to purchase. This can be the virtual equivalent of asking the sales clerk to put something on hold in a brick-and-mortar store. Customers use carts to comparison shop at different sites.

Abandonment rates vary by device, too.  The rate of people on cell phones abandoning carts is over 86%.  At the same time, mobile commerce continues to grow: almost 73% of eCommerce sales take place on mobile devices. WooCommerce optimizes your store for mobile, not only for your customers but even allowing you to add products and run your eCommerce business from your phone. 

Abandonment rates and steady growth in mobile commerce are just two compelling reasons it is vital to make sure the checkout process is as smooth as possible, or “optimized.” When we optimize, we create the best possible version of something. Let’s look at ways to optimize the WooCommerce checkout experience for customers.

WooCommerce Default Checkout

The WooCommerce Default Checkout is well-optimized out of the box. The simplified purchase flow design eliminates friction. Customers hate to re-enter information, so instant field validation immediately lets them know if there’s an error. 

Customers who don’t see their preferred payment option will click away. With the WooCommerce Default checkout, you can set up dedicated express payments and accept multiple payment methods. And of course, the checkout has seamless integration with WooCommerce Payments. Default Checkout also supports Stripe, WooCommerce Shipping and Tax, Google Analytics, Square, PayFast,  WooCommerce Subscriptions Product Add-Ons, Name Your Price AutomateWoo, Storefront Child Themes, TaxJar, and Points and Rewards.

Of course, you may still want to make some changes, depending on your business and customer. You can customize and edit features using Gutenberg, WordPress’ block editor. You can add or remove fields instantly without needing to code. 

During the checkout stage, a trustworthy experience is critical to customers. Default Checkout carries your brand theme from your store pages through to checkout, so your customer never experiences confusion seeing a checkout page that looks out of place. 

Ten Reasons Why Customers Abandon Checkout 

There are dozens of suggested tweaks to optimize your checkout process. What should you focus on first? One idea is to look at why customers who have the intent to buy abandon the process in the first place. Baymard.com is a treasure trove of research about eCommerce user experience. The chart below shows the top reasons for abandonment during checkout: 

Source: https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

This graph gives you a checklist of places to start when creating your checkout optimization strategy. The good news is some of these fixes are simple – WooCommerce Default Checkout implements some of them instantly.

Complaint 1: Extra costs too high (48%)

Customers abandoned their purchase due to extra costs at twice the rate of the next most common reason. It’s clear that if you can improve just on this metric alone, it can significantly affect your conversion rate.

Strategize how to lower extra costs, or at least prepare the customer to accept them. Transparency is key. Be upfront and clear about any additional charges. Provide flat shipping rates or tools like shipping calculators. Offer free shipping if possible, or bundle it with a loyalty program. Amazon realized early on that customers hate paying for shipping. They have had incredible success with their paid Prime membership, which includes free levels of shipping in exchange for a flat monthly or annual fee. 

Complaint 2: The site wanted me to create an account (24%)

Gaining a customer is like dating. In an ideal world, all your customers would willingly go steady with you by creating an account.  However, if 24% walk away because they aren’t ready to commit, the logical answer is to provide a guest account checkout process. You could also offer an incentive to them for creating an account. Finally, you can highlight customer reviews to help build trust with new visitors. 

Complaint 3: Delivery was too slow (22%)

This one is tricky because fast delivery costs more, and as we’ve seen above, customers don’t like to pay extra for shipping. However, UPS maintains that 77% of shoppers will pay more for faster shipping. Do some research and see how customers in your industry feel about paying more for faster shipping.  

Is your fulfillment process too slow?  It’s not easy for smaller shop owners to compete with Walmart and Amazon’s fast shipping, but there may be options. Review your fulfillment process and see if there is room for improvement. 

Complaint 4: I didn’t trust the site with my credit card information (18%)

There isn’t much in eCommerce that is easy, but every once in a while, you get a gift, and this is one of those times. If your checkout process is clunky and unprofessional to the point people don’t want to input their credit card, you could increase your conversion rate almost 20% by fixing it! 

Creating a trustworthy checkout environment is an easy fix with WooCommerce. The Default Checkout helps you maintain trust through the entire checkout process with clear, safe and secure checkout forms that reassure customers that their transaction is secure.

Visuals matter here, too. Use trust seals and graphics that reassure the customer they can purchase with confidence.

Complaint 5: Too long/complicated checkout process (17%)

Customers don’t like long forms or being asked to input information multiple times. The interesting point is in checkout length vs. checkout effort – the number of steps isn’t the most important consideration: it’s the level of effort the customer has to expend. 

Streamline the checkout page so that people can quickly make their purchases and move on. Tips for streamlining your checkout page include:

• Don’t ask customers to register until after the purchase
• Be transparent about shipping information and other costs
• Make the form as straightforward as possible
• Remove the navigation bar so the customer doesn’t click away 
• Offer as many payment options as possible
• Limit distractions and clutter on the checkout pages

Complaint 6: I couldn’t see/calculate the order total upfront (16%)

Just as with unexpectedly high costs, the answer to this complaint is transparency.  Your checkout flow may not be intentionally misleading, but if the customer can’t see a running total or is surprised at the last step, about 15% of them will click away. 

Complaint 7: The website had errors / crashed (13%)

Sometimes website problems are beyond your control. Every eCommerce merchant knows the importance of robust hosting; if your site is experiencing technical issues, consider shopping for a better host. Review your plan before busy season and do what you can to avoid problems due to traffic spikes.

Complaint 8: The returns policy wasn’t satisfactory (12%) 

The main thing people don’t like in a return policy is paying for return shipping. 69% of shoppers don’t want to have to pay if they are going to return the item.  Some won’t make the purchase in the first place, or they will buy from a competitor that offers prepaid shipping return labels. 

On the flip side, you can increase customer loyalty here. 96% of shoppers will become repeat customers if they have an easy return experience, and 90% highly value free returns.

Complaint 9: There weren’t enough payment methods (9%) 

With WooCommerce payment extensions, it is easier than ever to offer various payment methods. If you only accept Visa and PayPal, you may be losing almost 10% of your sales. Keep in mind that digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay, Venmo and WooCommerce wallet are increasing in popularity with customers.

Complaint 10: Declined credit card (4%) 

You can’t control your customer’s credit situation. However, you can send follow-up emails to remind them to come back and try again! 

Ready to Optimize your WooComerce Checkout? 

Optimizing your WooCommerce Checkout is a combination of psychology and technology. Customers with intent to purchase abandon shopping carts for two main reasons – the experience of checking out becomes annoying, or they don’t like your policies. 

Review and test your checkout process from start to finish: as you can see, small improvements can yield significant increases in your conversion rate. We have even more tips on improving your conversion rate here, or for some personalized advice, you can set up a call with a WooCommerce consultant today.

The post The WooCommerce Checkout: What Does Optimization Mean? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

But suddenly you start getting some unusual orders. They come in waves and they don’t look quite right. The email addresses don’t look quite right, but the payments are successful so you aren’t sure what to do.

Then it starts: You get a chargeback notice from your payment processor. The transaction has been reported as fraud. Soon afterwards you get more and you realize all of these orders are fraudulent. 

You may be a victim of a practice called carding. 

Carding is when a scammer obtains a list of stolen of credit cards and uses your website to validate them. Some of the cards have already been compromised and have been disabled. And some of the cards have advanced security – if they try a big purchase, the credit card company may alert the cardholder and they won’t be able to make any purchase.

So the scammer solves the problem by finding a store that has low cost products that they can “purchase” to test whether the card works and also start to build a pattern of online purchases that will allow a larger purchase to go through unnoticed.

How do you stop carding attacks on your WooCommerce store?

Stopping carding attacks on your WooCommerce checkout page is about fundamentally two things:

1. We want to stop the attacks!
2. We don’t want to impede normal customers. 

With that in mind, here are 3 strategies you can use to block or prevent carding attacks.

Best option: Use Cloudflare to protect against bots.

We are huge fans of Cloudflare at CheckoutWC. We use it for all of our sites. 

Cloudflare acts as your DNS name server for your website. When configured properly, all traffic to your site goes through their servers on its way to your server. 

This has a number of benefits:

1. It hides your server’s real IP making direct attacks more difficult.
2. They cache your static assets such as CSS, JS, and images and serve them from their servers – basically a powerful CDN.
3. They detect and mitigate attack attempts automatically.

For example, here’s a 24 hour snapshot of the threats they stopped on our website:

If Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) doesn’t successfully stop your carding attacks, there is another feature you can deploy: Custom WAF Rules

With Custom WAF Rules, you can change the level of security on a particular page. We would recommend starting with a rule that enables a Managed Challenge on your checkout page. 

This uses JavaScript to test whether the browser requesting the checkout page is a real person or a bot. If a bot is suspected, it will make the user complete a captcha challenge.

Here’s a screenshot of what this looks like:

You can add additional settings, such as setting the Security Level to High. However be careful with these rules. Our goal is to avoid impeding real customers and setting your security level too high will result in customers having to complete captchas before they can access the checkout page.

A Managed Challenge should work most of the time.

Next best option: Enable Merchant account protections

Your options here will vary substantially depending on who processes your Credit Card payments. If your merchant services provider doesn’t offer advanced security, it might be time to consider another option. 

This is WooCommerce after all – you can use any payment processor you can imagine!

What you are looking for is the ability to configure security thresholds. Here at CheckoutWC, for example, we use Stripe to process credit card payments. Stripe has a feature called Radar which allows us to set our risk tolerance. 

Here’s what our Radar setting looks like:

Even if your merchant services provider doesn’t have a fancy machine learning system like Radar, they likely let you configure additional options such as requiring the purchaser to enter a billing zip code and provide the correct CVV for the card.

Additionally they may have options like 3D Secure, which can add additional security. 

Less is more here. We don’t want to add friction to the checkout process. 

Worst option: Recaptcha for WooCommerce

If you have exhausted your other options and you’re still getting hit, you can try adding a reCaptcha to your checkout page. 

But this is really your worst option. It will decrease your conversion rate and you will get fewer legitimate orders. 

But the good news is we have fully tested reCaptcha for WooCommerce with CheckoutWC and can confirm it works. 

But this probably isn’t the right option.

It isn’t always the bots.

Not every carding attack on your WooCommerce checkout page is coming from bots. Some scammers are manually entering orders. Their goal after all is to soften up the card for a bigger attack later. Staying under the radar is important.

In that case, you may need to review orders before approving them. Sometimes human intuition is more powerful than machine learning. 

If you get a lot of suspicious orders, it may be safer to cancel them and refund them before you get hit with chargebacks and financial losses. 

How have you stopped carding attacks on your WooCommerce store? 

If you have found an effective way to prevent carding, drop us a comment below. We would love to hear your story!

The post How To Prevent Fraudulent Carding Attacks On Your WooCommerce Store appeared first on CheckoutWC.

CheckoutWC 7.0 is a pivotal version for us. With the refactors in this release, we moved the project into a better trajectory – one in which we hope to do fewer substantial refactors and focus more on long term stability.

Now let’s dig into the release notes!

Better Optional Address Fields

Sometimes the most exciting things are the little things. Optional address fields will now be hidden behind a link by default. Research indicates that users are often confused by fields such as Address Line 2, which are infrequently filled out and often filled out incorrectly.

By hiding these fields behind a link such as “Add Address Line 2 (optional)” or “Add Company (optional)”, we can reduce customer confusion and improve our conversion rates.

A New Full Name Field

Another area of usability we are addressing is the number of form inputs which can be especially costly to fill out on mobile.

Namely we are providing a new optional feature to combine the first and last name fields as a single Full Name field.

We parse the full name into the respective first and last name fields so everything else will work the same. And our parsing library understands a large variety of names. 

Example 1:

Entered Full Name: Dr. David Livingston Jr.

First Name: David

Last Name: Livingston

Example 2:

Entered Full Name: Olivia de Havilland

First Name: Olivia

Last Name: de Havilland

We are excited to hear from customers like you on whether this boosts your conversion rates.

Field Rendering Jujumagumbo

7.0 also includes a big directional change regarding how we render fields. Since our first version, we used a separate function to render input field markup: cfw_form_field()

In 7.0, we are reversing course. We are using the raw input markup from woocommerce_form_field() and making minor adjustments to it. This should cleanup a lot of lingering edge cases where plugins expect fields to be rendered a certain way and then they are not rendered that way.

This should be completely invisible to the user.

Inline Postcode Validation

We have heard your feedback! The way we validate the shipping and billing post codes is not working.

Consequently, we’ve redesigned the whole process. This is how post code validation will work in 7.0:

Inline Email Domain Validation

How many times do you get an order where the customer entered the wrong email address, leaving you unable to reach out to them and leaving them frustrated, wondering where their receipt and updates are?

In 7.0 we’re going to help fix this by validating email addresses in real time. What we do is take the domain name from the email address and make a DNS request for the MX records associated with that domain. If no records come back, we display an error to the customer. It looks like this:

A New Login Flow

We are going back to the drawing board with logins. 

As CheckoutWC has become more complex, we have started to question the usability of our login system. The way it works now is that if a user either enters a known email address that matches an account OR they click on ‘Login’, a Password field and Login button was revealed underneath the email address field. 

This process worked pretty well, but it had some quirks. For example, when the login button was revealed, the email field functionally became a username OR email field. But it was still validated as an email field. This was confusing for some users.

On top of this, there were logistical issues with the other functionality that was co-located in that area of the form, such as creating an account and when to show a password field for that purpose.

The New Login Modal

Beneath the hood, there is more going on here. 

1. We’re still checking for existing accounts. If a user enters a known email address, we will open the login modal with their email address pre-filled. And we change the language: It looks like you already have an account. Please enter your login details below.
2. Clicking “Lost your password?” seamlessly opens the Lost Password modal.
3. We only prompt the user to login (by opening the modal automatically) once per 7 days.

New Admin Settings Design

Ok, I’m definitely biased but don’t these new admin screens look sexy?

But it’s more than just a new look. We took care to categorize settings into useful groups that pair similar types of settings together

It’s also clearer when a setting is dependent on another setting.

We have more to do here but we’re really happy with how it turned out.

House Number and Street Name

We’ve been asked a lot about how to better handle addresses in certain European countries. The pain point is that WooCommerce doesn’t offer discrete fields for Street Name and House Number.

This is problematic for certain jurisdictions where culturally people think of Address Line 1 as two components, and when they see ‘Street Address’ they instinctively write their street name, resulting in an incomplete address and sometimes a failed shipment.

We’ve solved that by allowing merchants to enable discreet Street Name and House Number fields. In additional to enabling the fields, you can also choose the order in which they appear.

On submit, we stitch them back together into one Address Line 1, following the country based formatting rules we apply for Google Address Autocomplete.  

New Free Features

7.0 also makes some common features free for everyone:

• User Matching
• Order Review Step
• One Page Checkout
• Php Snippets

Now that we have thoroughly vetted these features and no they don’t increase our support load, we’re comfortable making them available to all license holders.

New Order Bump Feature

In 7.0.9 we added a quick new feature: You can now choose what happens when an Order Bump becomes invalid.

Example, say someone adds a T-Shirt to the cart and they get offered a second T-Shirt at 50% off. They accept the offer and then they decide to remove the original T-Shirt from the cart.

Previously the second T-Shirt would revert to the normal price and they would no longer get the discount. However now you can configure this on each Order Bump. You can elect to remove the Order Bump from the cart if it no longer meets the conditions required to show it.

This is helpful for stores that offer unpublished products as Order Bumps and don’t want people to be able to purchase them at any price without the requisite conditions being met.

That’s It For Now

We have more coming in 2022. If you would like to be notified about updates, subscribe to our e-mail list by signing up in the box below.

The post CheckoutWC 7.0 Released appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Today we are going to do a deeper dive and talk about all of the new features to expect in CheckoutWC 7.0.

Better Optional Address Fields

Sometimes the most exciting things are the little things. Optional address fields will now be hidden behind a link by default. Research indicates that users are often confused by fields such as Address Line 2, which are infrequently filled out and often filled out incorrectly.

By hiding these fields behind a link such as “Add Address Line 2 (optional)” or “Add Company (optional)”, we can reduce customer confusion and improve our conversion rates.

A New Full Name Field

Another area of usability we are addressing is the number of form inputs which can be especially costly to fill out on mobile.

Namely we are providing a new optional feature to combine the first and last name fields as a single Full Name field.

We parse the full name into the respective first and last name fields so everything else will work the same. And our parsing library understands a large variety of names. 

Example 1:

Entered Full Name: Dr. David Livingston Jr.

First Name: David

Last Name: Livingston

Example 2:

Entered Full Name: Olivia de Havilland

First Name: Olivia

Last Name: de Havilland

We are excited to hear from customers like you on whether this boosts your conversion rates.

Field Rendering Jujumagumbo

7.0 also includes a big directional change regarding how we render fields. Since our first version, we used a separate function to render input field markup: cfw_form_field()

In 7.0, we are reversing course. We are using the raw input markup from woocommerce_form_field() and making minor adjustments to it. This should cleanup a lot of lingering edge cases where plugins expect fields to be rendered a certain way and then they are not rendered that way.

This should be completely invisible to the user.

Inline Postcode Validation

We have heard your feedback! The way we validate the shipping and billing post codes is not working.

Consequently, we’ve redesigned the whole process. This is how post code validation will work in 7.0:

Inline Email Domain Validation

How many times do you get an order where the customer entered the wrong email address, leaving you unable to reach out to them and leaving them frustrated, wondering where their receipt and updates are?

In 7.0 we’re going to help fix this by validating email addresses in real time. What we do is take the domain name from the email address and make a DNS request for the MX records associated with that domain. If no records come back, we display an error to the customer. It looks like this:

A New Login Flow

We are going back to the drawing board with logins. 

As CheckoutWC has become more complex, we have started to question the usability of our login system. The way it works now is that if a user either enters a known email address that matches an account OR they click on ‘Login’, a Password field and Login button was revealed underneath the email address field. 

This process worked pretty well, but it had some quirks. For example, when the login button was revealed, the email field functionally became a username OR email field. But it was still validated as an email field. This was confusing for some users.

On top of this, there were logistical issues with the other functionality that was co-located in that area of the form, such as creating an account and when to show a password field for that purpose.

The New Login Modal

Beneath the hood, there is more going on here. 

1. We’re still checking for existing accounts. If a user enters a known email address, we will open the login modal with their email address pre-filled. And we change the language: It looks like you already have an account. Please enter your login details below.
2. Clicking “Lost your password?” seamlessly opens the Lost Password modal.
3. We only prompt the user to login (by opening the modal automatically) once per 7 days.

New Admin Settings Design

We are not quite ready to demo this one, but we’re redesigning our admin pages again to be easier to navigate. We are organizing settings by category to keep like settings together.

We will share more about the new admin screens design soon.

House Number and Street Name

We are not quite ready to show this one, but we are working on a feature that our European friends frequently request: Separate house number and street name fields

It comes up a lot. We think we can solve this elegantly and help stop orders with missing house numbers.

When will CheckoutWC 7.0 launch?

We plan to launch 7.0 this coming Friday, February 25th Friday, March 4th.

You can help test our beta.

If you would like to help test our beta, just reach out to support and we will send you the latest build.

The post All About CheckoutWC 7.0: Making WooCommerce Checkouts Better appeared first on CheckoutWC.