Let’s start with the motivation behind the attacks on a website and their consequences for your business:

1. Sending spam. It’s not that popular nowadays, but people still do it. Consequently, your hosting or SMTP accounts can be blocked.
2. Infecting customers’ devices with malware. This is a more typical case. As a result, you may lose revenue and customers because of antivirus warning messages. Your SEO position and reputation are on the line.
3. Testing credit cards, also known as carding. Hackers can use the checkout page on your site to determine if stolen credit card data is valid. It’s the primary reason for spam orders. The payment gateway usually blocks your account if this issue is not resolved quickly. Switching a payment gateway, especially with subscriptions, is not the experience you want to have. This can also result in massive expense – if your store is connected to a 3PL, products could be shipped automatically. And worse, you may end up having to pay for hundreds of even thousands of disputes if you are unable to cancel or refund the transactions before they are disputed.
4. Stealing credit card data. This may have the worst consequences for your business. The fines can be as much as $5,000 to $100,000. PCI compliance testing is not enough – you are responsible to keep your customer’s data safe on your site.
5. Other motivations, like using your server to attack other sites.

As you may see, there are more than enough reasons to consider your store security seriously.

How the attack is performed

It all starts with getting access to the server. There are a few main ways how sites are hacked:

1. Vulnerability in a plugin, theme, or WordPress core. Outdated plugins is a common vulnerability in WordPress sites.
2. Using non-genuine (nulled) versions of plugins and themes. A lot of them contain malicious code or a backdoor.
3. Stealing the password or cookies from the admin user – this is often performed using an XSS (Cross Site Scripting) attack. Browsers attempt to prevent these types of attacks, but they are still possible, especially if your site has insecure plugins.
4. When another site on the same server is hacked. It’s important to not host eCommerce sites on shared hosting. While most hosts have good isolation of sites to prevent one site from accessing another site, it is still a possibility and no hosting service has perfect security.
5. By brute-forcing logins and passwords. In this case, a hacker tries to log in under well-known logins and passwords. Using a script, they can try thousands or millions of common username and password combinations. In fact, it’s likely that your WordPress site is currently being attacked this way right now – you just don’t have the tools in place to detect it.

Once the hackers get access, they do the following:

1. Upload special scripts to different folders and attach the malicious code to files. Those scripts grant access to files from the web.
2. Some of them create additional admin users to ensure continued access.
3. Add malicious code doing all those bad things I described before.

How to prevent security breaches

There are a few steps to avoid being hacked:

Update WordPress core, plugins, and themes regularly. To help avoid issues, you should have a staging site where you test updates before deploying them to your live site. Starting with WordPress version 6.2, it is now easy to rollback plugin updates if an update causes a problem.

Use complex passwords and do not open suspicious links, even if they point to your website.

Use a web application firewall (WAF). It blocks suspicious requests and network attacks.

I suggest using Cloudflare WAF. It’s easy to configure, has a decent free plan, and does not generate additional load on the server.

If you can’t use Cloudflare for some reason, consider a security plugin for WordPress like Wordfence, Sucuri, or Solid Security Pro. It makes sense to use them only if you need features like 2FA and a malware scanner in addition to a firewall.

Please note that those plugins are heavy and can cause additional server load. Having them just for the firewall does not make sense.

I prefer Wordfence because it offers a decent free tier, a reasonable malware and file modification scanner, 2FA, and many other features.

Here are some notes about the Wordfence configuration:

3.1. Enable two-factor authentication for administrators and your account. It’s located under the Login Security menu:

3.2. I recommend turning off the XML-RPC authentification. This is an older, obsolete API for accessing your site that you almost certainly don’t need, but hackers love it.

3.3. I recommend enabling security scans. You can find those settings on the All Options page:

Make sure that the sensitivity is set to Standard Scan or High Sensitivity. Also, check the list of excluded files. Sometimes, hackers add their scripts there!

3.4. Make sure the firewall and brute force protection are enabled:

They are beneficial against attempts to find the passwords and logins.

3.5. In some cases, it makes sense to enable rate-limiting:

It’s essential when you have a DDoS attack or when your server is experiencing many requests from a few addresses.

Note that Cloudflare WAF offers way better protection against DDoS than any security plugin can provide!

As for the other settings, they are less common.

You can use the invisible reCAPTCHA for checkout and payment pages. It helps prevent credit card testing (carding) attacks and spam orders.

Please note that any captcha implementation can negatively affect your conversion rate. Use reCaptcha only if you have problems with spam orders or see unusual activity in your payment gateway account.

If a full interactive reCAPTCHA is required, I prefer using the reCAPTCHA for WooCommerce plugin. It works smoothly with CheckoutWC.

Setting up reCAPTCHA is fairly straightforward:

4.1. Go to the reCaptcha Admin Console:

4.2. Specify the label for the key, type (V3 is best for new sites), and domain

4.3. You will be given a Site Key and Secret Key, which you will enter in the plugin’s settings:

4.4. If you need reCAPTCHA, it makes sense to enable it for the checkout page:

4.5. It also makes sense to enable reCAPTCHA on the Add Payment Method page to prevent card testing attacks.

Please remember that reCAPTCHA may slightly decrease the conversion rate. Use it only if you have a problem with spam orders or see some weird activity in your payment gateway account.

You may find more information about similar tools here: How To Prevent Fraudulent Carding Attacks On Your WooCommerce Store.

Keep your server’s software up-to-date – this is especially important if you manage your server’s software yourself.

How to detect if the store was hacked and how to fix it

The easiest way to detect if your store is compromised or hacked is by using the Wordfence malware scanner.

It’s not perfect, but it can detect most issues. Here is what it looks like if your site has been hacked:

As you may see, the report shows that a WordPress core file has been modified. This is very common on a hacked site.

Let’s click on the View Differences button:

As this is just an example, the file changes are not important. If this was a real example of a compromised site, you would be able to click the Repair button to restore the original and correct version of the file.

If you have out-of-date plugins, you will see a Medium priority alert for each one. Don’t disregard these – remember that out-of-date, insecure plugins are the primary way that WordPress sites are compromised.

Unfortunately, the Wordfence scan does not scan the content of some widgets, posts, and plugin settings. You may need to check these things manually.

For example, if you use a plugin like Custom CSS & JS to add code to the page you will need to manually check those snippets to make sure they have not been corrupted.

Often, malicious code snippets may look like a valid code, but it’s not:

If you find a snippet that is corrupted, you can remove the malicious code, or remove the entire snippet.

As you have no doubt noticed, determining whether a script is safe or not requires some knowledge and expertise. But if you are following our recommendations, the chance that you will have a compromised script is very low.

Keep your site safe

Keeping your WooCommerce site secure is important even if you have a relatively small store.

Wordfence and regular updates offer good enough protection against most attacks.

Has your WooCommerce site been hacked before? How did you resolve it? Share any tips you learned in the comments below.

I hope you’ve learned something!

Follow me on Twitter for more WooCommerce security tips: Andrii Toniievych (@TwistedAndy)

The post WooCommerce Security – How to protect your store appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Our loyal Facebook community has been eagerly following along with development, but it’s high time we share with everyone what we’ve been working on. Allow us to introduce you to Groove, the latest CheckoutWC template.

Meet Groove, the latest CheckoutWC Template

Inspired by the sleek design of Stripe Checkout, Groove is our first template to feature dynamic colors. You can customize the Cart Summary sidebar to any background color, and all of the other colors will automatically adapt. Check out how amazing Groove looks with both a light and dark background color.

Here’s Groove with a light background color:

Cart Variation Editing

But that’s not all! We’ve added even more exciting features, such as the ability for customers to edit variable cart items right from checkout:

Variable Order Bumps

You can now offer your customers the option to add a complex variable product as an Order Bump offer. With this new feature, customers can select all of the product options available on the single product page, making it easier than ever for them to get exactly what they want. Whether they’re looking for a specific color, size, or style, they can now add it to their cart with just a few clicks.

New Order Bump Options

We’ve also added a slew of new output locations and actions for order bumps, so you can customize the experience to fit your store perfectly.

And we also added Order Bump Actions!

You can define a list of products that should be removed from the cart when an Order Bump is accepted, as well as apply free shipping.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

But perhaps the biggest addition to CheckoutWC 8.0 is the Abandoned Cart Recovery feature. Designed to help WooCommerce store owners recover lost sales, this feature sends customizable email reminders to customers who have abandoned their cart, offering them incentives like discounts or free shipping to encourage them to complete their purchase. Not only does this feature help increase sales and revenue, but it also improves customer retention and satisfaction. Check out the Abandoned Cart Recovery Dashboard, Emails, Settings, and Tracked Cart Browser to see how easy it is to use.

We’re also integrating with SendWP, the best email deliverability service for WordPress, to ensure your emails always make it to your customers’ inboxes. But if you prefer a different email deliverability service, you can easily choose one that works best for you.

Suggested Products Carousel

We’re also excited to announce a new option for the Side Cart: Suggested Products Carousel.

Suggested Products Carousel can be customized with cross-sells, upsells, or just random products. Boost your Average Order Value and help your customers find the right products for their purchase.

Store Policies

Another long overdue feature we’re adding to 8.0 is Store Policies

Store Policies allows you to define a list of links to your policy pages that open in a modal window at checkout. Here’s a video of the feature in action:

Email Address Domain Autocomplete

This is a feature we have had planned for a long time, and it’s finally ready for CheckoutWC 8.0: Email Address Domain Autocomplete

With Email Address Domain Autocomplete, as soon as a user starts typing their email address, we’ll start showing them common email service providers.

So if they type bob@g we’ll automatically suggest bob@gmail.com.

Here’s a quick demonstration:

Post Purchase Order Bumps

We’re also working on Post Purchase Order Bumps. This feature will allow you to set up any Order Bump to appear after a customer clicks Complete Order. We’ll be demoing this feature soon, so stay tuned for more information.

When will CheckoutWC 8.0 be released?

We’re targeting April 28th as our release date, but keep in mind that this is subject to change. In the meantime, you can download CheckoutWC 8.0 Beta 2 from your account under Downloads to test out some of the features before the official release.

Note: The current beta build doesn’t have all of the functionality we discussed today. We’ll be releasing a new beta build next week.

Stay tuned

We can’t wait to get CheckoutWC 8.0 released and we hope that you’re just as excited as we are. If you have any questions add a comment below or reach out to our support team.

The post Introducing CheckoutWC 8.0 appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Is your checkout set for 2023?

What is checkout optimization?

If we were to sum up checkout optimization in a few words, it would be removing friction from the customer experience. Every single click, scroll, form field or instruction is a potential roadblock where a customer might choose to abandon the cart. You’ve got to create an intentional experience.

The ultimate goal of checkout optimization is to improve ecommerce conversion rates. To achieve this, you need to minimize distractions and take care of common issues that lead to cart abandonment. These include surprise fees (such as the cost of shipping), being forced to create an account to checkout, a slow checkout process, and more.

Has much changed with checkout optimization?

One thing we encourage all ecommerce merchants to consider is that checkout optimization isn’t something you do once. If you want to ensure your shopping experience remains optimized, you need to keep up with changes and updates.

As technology has evolved, so have the realms of what is possible for checkout optimization. It may be small things at a time, but those factors can all add up to a big deal for the overall customer experience.

We can speak from the perspective of CheckoutWC and some of the changes that have been implemented in just the last year, including:

     – Local pick-up options. This has been a huge area of demand since the pandemic and if it makes sense for your business, may be an important feature to have.

     –  Simplified options to edit the cart on mobile screens, including removing items from the cart.

     –  Order bumps. A simple way to upsell or cross-sell in the cart.

     –  Displaying trust badges horizontally in the checkout.

     –  Side carts. This is where the sidebar is replaced with an eye-catching cart that appears on the page when customers add products.

Principles of checkout optimization

Based on what customers say causes them to abandon the cart, there are some basic principles that hold true for checkout optimization. We suggest that merchants always prioritize these aspects, while including updated checkout technology where possible.

Those basics include:

Avoid surprising customers with extra costs

“Extra costs were too high” is the number one reason given for cart abandonment according to Baymard Institute studies. 48% of shoppers have abandoned the cart for this reason.

Those extra costs include things like shipping, taxes, and fees. People hate arriving at the cart unaware of what those costs will be. In fact, 75% of shoppers globally are influenced by free shipping as a factor in their purchase decision. Ecommerce giants such as Amazon have conditioned people to expect free shipping, so expectations of ecommerce stores are high.

Do you have to always offer free shipping? Not necessarily, but it definitely helps. You can find ways around it such as stating “free shipping on orders over $40.” This can help you to increase your average order values too, as people often add something extra to meet the minimum for free shipping.

It’s also worth noting that you can find other ways to set your business apart, even if you do need to charge for shipping. 80% of customers say they’re willing to pay more for better service, which can be your opportunity to stand out.

The bottom line is, whatever you need to charge for the products you sell, keep all costs transparent and upfront. If you always charge for shipping, look into whether a flat rate will work. If customers see “$9.99 shipping on all orders,” at least they know before they get to the cart. It may even encourage them to order more items to make it worthwhile.

Allow guest checkout

The second-biggest reason customers give for abandoning the cart is that they were forced to sign in or create an account in order to checkout. This is a simple one – don’t do it. Always offer guest checkout so that customers without accounts don’t have that roadblock before they can check out.

What if your goal is to have more customers with accounts so you can continue to send them offers? Have an option to create an account after checkout. The first-time shopper has at this point already entered key details such as their name and email address, so offer a simple option to create an account using the details they’ve entered.

Clean up your checkout process

Customers hate it when the checkout process is too long or overly complicated. One mistake that many ecommerce stores still make is to ask for too much. You need a certain amount of information in order to be able to process a sale, but do you really need details such as the customer’s date of birth, or a survey about their product interests?

Cut back form fields to the absolute basics and use autofill options where possible. For example, have the customer start to type their address, then get autofill suggestions based on their location.

It’s also a good idea to show the customer where they’re at in the checkout process. This helps to reassure them that they’re almost done, and not on page one of twenty!

Give options for payment and shipping

“Shipping was too slow” and “they didn’t offer my preferred payment option” are also reasons customers give for cart abandonment. While you can’t always help issues that crop up with shipping suppliers, you can offer customers options to pay for expedited shipping, just in case they really need a product quickly.

On the payment side, at least offering a selection of the common popular options is a good idea. These might include:

     –  Debit and credit cards.

     –  Shopping apps like ShopPay and PayPal.

     –  Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Venmo.

     –  Buy now, pay later options such as Affirm or Afterpay.

Display reasons to trust you

When a customer who has never shopped with you before arrives on your website, they’re looking for why they should trust you. “I didn’t trust the website with my credit card information” is the fourth most common reason given for cart abandonment.

Display trust badges such as certifications and secure checkout badges in the checkout. They help to give your brand legitimacy and communicate the message that customers can trust you.

Final thoughts

Checkout optimization is an essential part of owning an ecommerce store. That is, if you want to maximize your chances of getting customers to buy!

Your goal should be to minimize potential friction in the checkout process so that you encourage more customers to follow through to the end.

CheckoutWC is here to help WooCommerce merchants. Our optimized checkout for WooCommerce smooths the process for customers and helps to boost your conversion rates. Check us out here.

The post What Does Checkout Optimization Mean in 2023? appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Considering that 88% of customers are unlikely to return to a site with a poor user experience and businesses lose 35% of sales due to bad UX, your user experience could be costing you money.

In the highly competitive ecommerce scene, it’s easy enough for customers to take their business elsewhere, so what can you do about it? We’re looking at how ecommerce sites can improve the user experience and keep more customers:

What is UX?

UX refers to the “user experience.” When you optimize your website for UX, you’re attempting to get inside the minds of your typical customers and create an ecommerce experience that is simple, logical, and enjoyable for them.

This starts by anticipating shopper needs at every step on your website. Every little interaction goes into the bigger picture that makes up your overall UX. This leaves a lot to consider, from website loading time, to navigation, to the accessibility of your store functions.

UX is an ever-evolving process. As technology has shifted, so have definitions of what constitutes optimal UX. For example, recent trends include AI integrations and voice assistants. Even if you opt for simpler technology, if you haven’t updated your website in a few years, there’s a good chance that there’s more you could be doing for UX.

Why improve your ecommerce user experience?

There are several good reasons why you should look at improving your user experience, including:

• Building more credibility with customers. Sites that offer good UX tend to be seen as more trustworthy and professional.
• Making things easy for your customers. People don’t tend to hang around trying to figure out websites that they find difficult. Removing barriers helps to keep customers on your site.
• Improve retention and loyalty among your customers. Loyal customers tend to refer new customers to your business.
• Expanding your market reach by ensuring mobile users can easily access and use the features of your website.

Prioritize your #userexperience to help build trust and credibility with your customers
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Key attributes of optimized UX

What exactly are ecommerce customers looking for? What kind of site will provide them with a great user experience? Here are some typical areas where you should focus your attention:

1. Website and page load speeds. For more than 70% of customers, page load speeds impact their willingness to buy from online retailers. Various studies have shown that ideal load speeds are between zero and four seconds, with ecommerce sites that load in zero to two seconds enjoying the highest conversion rates.
2. Offer a seamless experience. This covers a lot of ground, but essentially, the steps the customer needs to take should be logical and easy to understand. Navigating your site should be simple, and it should always be clear what their next step is.
3. Keep your website up-to-date. This includes aspects such as design, function, and content. Many features have been updated or improved over the last few years, especially with regard to delivering a good experience on mobile devices.
4. Answer common customer questions upfront. Customers need to trust an ecommerce business before they’ll make a purchase, so providing easy access to FAQs such as product information, return policy, and any warranty information is important.

4 Ways to improve UX on WooCommerce

Here at CheckoutWC, optimal WooCommerce websites are our specialty, so we’re honing in on UX tips for WooCommerce. However, these still hold true as general principles for other types of websites too:

#1. Speed up page load times

A great place to start is to know what your load times are. A tool such as Google Pagespeed Insights can help you to identify pages that could be improved.

There are several elements that can contribute to poor load speeds, including media elements that are data-intensive, your web hosting, and the coding of your theme and any plugins you use. With that in mind, here is a quick checklist to help:

1. Always use high-quality hosting. Your provider should specialize in hosting WordPress websites as this means they will know the technological specifications required for optimal performance. This also means you should be able to get expert help if you need it. Your host should also provide you with enough bandwidth to suit your needs. Low-quality hosting often tries to crowd too many websites onto the same server, slowing sites down when there are traffic fluctuations. Like many things, the general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for.
2. Use a cache plugin. Caching helps to reduce the amount of data being sent between the user’s browser, the database, and the server so that future requests for that data are served to the user faster from a stored copy. Some examples of WordPress plugins for this include W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket.
3. Compress your images. One cause of slow speeds can be large images that take too long to render properly on the user’s screen. In fact, they can make up 50% of a page’s load time. You can either take care of this manually by only uploading images that you’ve already compressed in file size, or you can use an image compression plugin such as WP Smush.
4. Use a content delivery network (CDN). These are best described as a framework of distributed servers that each store your website. When a customer visits your website from a location near one of those servers, the content doesn’t have as far to travel, prompting a faster loading time. Some well-known CDN services include Cloudflare and Sucuri.

#2. Prioritize site functionality

Flashy design does not always equal a good UX. In fact, there are many examples out there of design that looks good on-screen, but is a pain for customers to navigate.

WooCommerce gives you a lot of design flexibility, which is one reason so many ecommerce stores choose it. However, that also means it’s entirely up to you to make good choices in terms of your navigation and functionality.

For example, you should use clear language and obvious menus. This means shoppers should understand exactly what sorts of products are in a category and how to quickly navigate to where they need to be. WooCommerce provides some tips here for improving your navigation.

#3. Optimize the checkout experience

Shopping cart abandonment continues to be a big issue for ecommerce retailers and the cart is a key area to optimize to help prevent this.

You shouldn’t use WooCommerce’s default cart settings. There are many reasons why these settings aren’t optimal, including that they can lead to a confusing experience. Shoppers give a variety of experience-related reasons for abandoning the cart, including that the checkout process was too complicated, or delivery was too slow.

The solution for WooCommerce sites is to use a cart and checkout page that has already been optimized for UX. CheckoutWC is an option to look into.

#4. Offer convenient help

If customers have questions, that’s a key moment where you could lose them. Most people want answers fast – 52% expect customer service responses in under an hour . On top of that, 83% factor in customer service quality when making a decision to buy.

You might not have 24/7 customer service available, but you can offer convenient options for customers to get help. Self-service options such as a knowledge base offering FAQs are one way to help customers. There are several WordPress plugins for creating a knowledge base, such as Heroic KB Plugin or BetterDocs.

Another suggestion is to offer chat options, which have become increasingly popular. Chat can be offered with a combination of live chat and AI options. Again, you’ll need a plugin and there are several options to integrate with WooCommerce. LiveChat and Zendesk Chat are two of those options.

Conclusion

Your ecommerce user experience should be a priority to optimize. The bottom line is customers don’t hang around for a poor experience and improving UX can improve revenue.

Your user experience tells a story about your brand. It can either attract or repel customers, improve or reduce their trust in you. Your choices matter for the overall success of your store.

Lastly, UX should be an ongoing process, not a one-off project. As technology changes over time, so do the features and functions available to smooth the customer experience. Stay on top of your website, and hopefully you’ll avoid having to do a major overhaul.

The post 4 Ways to Improve Your Ecommerce User Experience appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Having the right shipping solutions in place tends to be about the speed of shipping and the price of it, both of which are important to ecommerce customers. In fact, shipping factors heavily into reasons given for cart abandonment. “Extra costs”, including the price of shipping, and “delivery was too slow” are among the top reasons given for cart abandonment.

It’s worth ecommerce retailers spending some time on their shipping strategy and making sure it is designed to attract the right customers. In WooCommerce, you’ve got many options, so let’s break them down in this quick guide:

Shipping solutions for WooCommerce stores

In WooCommerce, you can choose to operate using just the built-in features, or you can add a plugin for your shipping solution of choice. There are pros and cons either way, so it’s important to investigate and develop an understanding of exactly what the solution will mean for you as a business, and importantly, for your customers.

For example, in the last few years there has been a lot of press around huge delays experienced across various US carriers. While your customers may be understanding to a degree, many expect retailers to find alternative solutions that get them their order faster. Having options may be a good strategy for you.

Here are some popular shipping options for WooCommerce stores:

WooCommerce default options

Let’s say you’ve just installed WooCommerce out-of-the-box on your website. By default, it comes with a shipping calculator for the cart page, the ability to select a shipping location, and an option to attach a shipping method to that location.

Shipping rate options include:

• Flat rate shipping – Where you choose one rate for all shipments. An advantage of this is that shipping is kept simple and predictable for your customers. A potential disadvantage is that shipping may actually cost you more than what you charge at times, or the customer may pay too much at other times.
• Free shipping – This can be set up to be triggered by certain rules. For example, “free shipping when you spend $50 or more.”
• Local pickup – Perfect for bricks and mortar businesses that offer local pickup.

These shipping options can be setup from your dashboard under WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping.

WooCommerce Shipping

The WooCommerce Shipping extension allows you to print USPS and DHL shipping labels directly from your dashboard. It saves you time as you don’t need to do any copying and pasting into other programs to generate a label.

Table Rate Shipping

Table Rate Shipping is a paid extension that is helpful when you need some more complex calculations built into your shipping. For example, you can set up multiple tables of rates per shipping zone. You can also set up different types of calculations, such as per order, per item, and per class.

This extension also allows you to add some additional rules, such as weight-based, number of items, and number of items by class and price.

A pro of this extension is that you can add as many or as few rules as you like so that you build a shipping pricing structure that makes sense for your business. The extension also has an easy interface for this, which can otherwise be a downside of table rates. A con of this shipping setup is that it can seem more complex for your business and customers. It’s more likely to lead to “surprises in the shopping cart,” which we know customers don’t like.

Table rate shipping is an option for ecommerce merchants who need to set more complex rules around shipping their orders
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Conditional Shipping and Payments

This is another paid extension by WooCommerce which allows you to use conditional logic to restrict the shipping and payment options available in your store. For example, if you offer free shipping, you can set conditions so that it’s only available for certain products or shipping classes.

You can also restrict shipping methods based on package weight, item count, or other rules. You can set up other restrictions, such as preventing certain products from being shipped to countries, states or ZIP codes. You’ll see this type of rule in action sometimes on Amazon, where they’ll raise a flag in your cart and tell you an item can’t be shipped to your location due to restrictions.

Other conditions include things like limiting some products or shipping types to certain types of customers (such as members). You can also restrict payment methods to certain types (such as when purchasing subscriptions).

Shipstation

Shipstation for WooCommerce is an integration built for subscribers to Shipstation. It’s a paid subscription, made to help ecommerce businesses ship orders faster and cheaper.

A huge advantage of Shipstation is that it can centralize your orders from multiple platforms, such as your website and channels like eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and Groupon. They also have international capabilities for various platforms.

Shipstation aims to get subscribers the deepest USPS discounts available and to provide choices across other carriers, such as FedEx, UPS and DHL. Their app also helps on the customer end, by automatically providing tracking information and notification emails.

Shipstation provides tiered pricing depending on your number of users required, and number of monthly orders shipped. They offer several automations and are a feature-packed solution for ecommerce businesses.

Individual carrier extensions

Individual carrier extensions such as USPS, UPS, and FedEX offer you the ability to fetch real-time rates based on shipping type and location.

An advantage here is that you’re able to charge customers exactly what the shipping costs, rather than taking a stab at a flat rate. This can be especially important for ecommerce stores that ship items which are heavy or a nonstandard size.

Again, a potential disadvantage is that shoppers won’t know the cost of shipping until they’re in the cart.

Amazon Fulfillment for WooCommerce

You can remove the entire hassle of fulfillment and shipping on your end by using FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon). This means that your products get stored in an Amazon warehouse and even if the order comes from your website, it’s fulfilled by them.

The advantage of this is that you don’t have to worry about fulfillment and shipping as this is outsourced to Amazon. Your customers may potentially enjoy faster shipping from Amazon. A disadvantage is that you’ll have lower margins due to the cost of outsourcing your fulfillment.

WooCommerce Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an ecommerce strategy that saves merchants on overhead as they don’t need to buy in inventory, pay to store it, or ship out orders themselves. Instead, when an order is placed on their website, a supplier receives it to fulfill. The trade-off is lower margins on products as a chunk of the sale goes to the supplier.

However, this is a great option for many merchants who prefer to have a lower inventory risk, or even to test out new products before committing to stocking them. WooCommerce Dropshipping is one option for an extension that will connect you with dropshipping suppliers.

Conclusion

Here at CheckoutWC, we’re all about optimizing the shopping cart experience for WooCommerce stores, and shipping plays an important role. Merchants need to strike the right balance so that customers are happy with shipping options, and the business doesn’t lose out on them.

The options outlined are some popular choices for WooCommerce, but as always, there are many extensions to chose from. We suggest making a short list of your must-have needs in a shipping function, and finding the extension that will best meet your needs.

And of course, pair this with an optimized WooCommerce shopping cart experience! Try CheckoutWC risk free today.

The post Ecommerce Shipping Solutions: Quick Guide for WooCommerce Stores appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Why? There are plenty of reasons, from not having to hold inventory to providing a low cost, low risk environment to test ecommerce products. Dropshipping can cover a vast range of product categories and suppliers – if you can conceive of it, it’s probably out there.

The good news for WooCommerce store owners is that it’s relatively easy to get your store set up for dropshipping. There are many options available to help you create a smooth operation.

In this quick guide, we’re exploring the basics of dropshipping and how to get started on WooCommerce – check it out:

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is an ecommerce strategy where you, the store owner, take orders for products you aren’t physically holding in inventory. Instead, a supplier receives those orders and ships them out from their inventory.

Essentially, the retailer is acting as a “middleman,” but the customer doesn’t know any different. As far as their experience is concerned, they order from the retailer’s website and receive their package like any other ecommerce transaction. They don’t know that the order went somewhere else to be fulfilled.

Pros and cons of dropshipping

Dropshipping is one strategy out of a few options for ecommerce and as with anything, there are pros and cons. Here’s a quick rundown:

Pros of dropshipping for ecommerce

• It’s a low-cost option to set up because you don’t have to purchase a whole lot of inventory.
• It’s low-risk in that you won’t have inventory sitting on the shelf that you can’t move.
• You can easily pivot or introduce new products.
• Dropshipping can be a great way to test out products before deciding whether you want to switch to holding your own inventory.
• Dropshipping can offer a way to scale your business without having to take on extra work. For example, whether you have 100 orders or 1000, you’re not fulfilling them yourself – although you can expect to have a higher customer service request volume!
• You really can run your business from anywhere as your part is not location-dependent.

Cons of dropshipping

• One of the biggest cons is that your profits are a lot lower for sales. You make a portion of the sale, while the supplier makes the rest.
• Part of your customer service operation will always be outside of your control. This can be a pro or a con, depending on how reliable your supplier is!
• You can lose touch with the quality of your products, especially if you’re never actually seeing them.
• Sometimes you might find you’re out of the loop when it comes to inventory issues, such as low stock.
• You’re still the “face” of the products, so have to take responsibility for any issues, even if they originate with your supplier.

Dropshipping offers ecommerce retailers a lower-risk sales strategy. #WooCommerce is a great platform to try it out
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Steps to set up dropshipping

How can ecommerce retailers get started with dropshipping? Here are some steps:

1. Decide your product strategy. For example, will you specialize in a particular niche? Will you offer a broader range of products? How will you source those products?

There are typically two main ways that dropshipping retailers source products. One is to go through a marketplace where you can find merchants that dropship. The advantage of this is that it’s easy to find a wide range of products and willing merchants. A downside is that many dropshippers end up offering similar products.

The second way is to source merchants yourself, perhaps from within your geographic region. You can look for merchants with products you’d like to sell who offer wholesale services. Many of these are willing to dropship. It’s more work to find these suppliers, but you may be able to offer customers a more unique, memorable shopping experience.

2. Have a platform to sell from. If you’re reading this, you either already have or are thinking of building a WooCommerce store. You need a mechanism for selling, even if that’s just your social media channels.

3. Have an audience. You can’t sell without having an audience to sell to! You may be coming from a position where you already have an audience (such as a blog or popular social media channels). If you don’t, then you’ll need to build one. Start by defining who it is that you want to attract as your target audience, then find ways to bring them in. For example, this might include creating the types of content that they are interested in consuming.

4. Have a marketing strategy to consistently draw an audience. Even dropshippers who already have a large audience need to be consistent with marketing. Think about how you will differentiate from your competition, e.g. with your content and/or with your unique product catalog.

Dropshipping tools for WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a very flexible, scalable platform and ideally-placed to set up a dropshipping operation. The basic requirements are:

1. A WordPress website with quality hosting.
2. The WooCommerce plugin installed.
3. A dropshipping plugin that is compatible with WooCommerce.

There are three main kinds of plugin that facilitate dropshipping for WooCommerce, these are:

1. Plugins that connect store owners with a dropshipping marketplace from which you can source suppliers. AliExpress is a well-known example of such a marketplace.
2. Plugins that provide the connection between you as the seller, and the supplier. Basically you and your supplier set up the software, each on your own end, so that you’re able to automate the dropshipping process. You need this if you’re seeking partnerships outside of marketplaces. Mothership is one such software that facilitates this setup.
3. Plugins for on-demand designs. These connect you with manufacturers who will produce and send out your custom-designed goods on-demand. For example, Zazzle offers custom apparel and accessories.

We always suggest that you look for a solution that meets your desired product strategy, while having high standards for quality and reliability. The software should have excellent user support available so that you can keep your operations running smoothly. It should also be regularly updated to account for software and security changes.

Next, we’ll look at some examples of WooCommerce plugins that facilitate dropshipping.

WooCommerce plugins that connect you to marketplace suppliers

The following plugins will connect you with marketplaces where you can find dropshipping suppliers:

• Spocket – This plugin helps dropshippers find high-quality US and EU-based suppliers.
• AliDropShip – This connects you to AliExpress for dropshipping, with suppliers mostly in China.
• Dropified – This plugin presents curated products from suppliers, so you don’t spend a lot of time going through multiple suppliers.

WooCommerce plugins to connect with your own suppliers

These plugins allow you to set up custom connections with your own suppliers. Basically, both you and the supplier will need to set up so that your processes are automated:

• Mothership – Set up your own, unique dropshipping relationships and let the software handle the key details. Mothership is known as a well-supported, streamlined software.
• WooCommerce Dropshipping – This plugin allows you to set up with your own suppliers. It also includes AliExpress and Amazon Affiliate support.

WooCommerce plugins for on-demand design suppliers

These plugins connect you to suppliers who produce your product designs on-demand:

• Zazzle – Sell unique items, from cards, to gifts, to home decor.
• Printful – Sell custom-designed mugs, t-shirts, and more.
• Gooten – Another print on-demand solution with a wide range of products.

Conclusion

Dropshipping can be a great way for WooCommerce store owners to enter ecommerce, or to reduce inventory risk for their ecommerce store. It allows you to take orders which your suppliers fulfill, so you don’t have to hold inventory.

A trade-off of dropshipping is that your margins will be lower than if you held inventory and fulfilled orders yourself. Still, if you can attract customer volumes, you can turn a decent profit and offer a range of products.

The post A Guide to WooCommerce Dropshipping appeared first on CheckoutWC.

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.

Your conversion rates are a vital metric for your store. The conversion rate measures the number of people who took the desired action (like making a purchase) out of the total number of visitors. Boosting those conversion rates means a more successful store.

The question is, how can you improve conversions in the highly competitive world of ecommerce?

The answer is where CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) comes in. We’ve put together a quick guide for WooCommerce store owners with some practical tips for improving conversions.

What is CRO?

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, means applying strategies designed to optimize the customer experience of your website and drive more people to convert. You can take several possible actions, from small changes to your copy to extensive website redesigns.

The end goal of CRO is to make your website and its functions more compelling to customers. You want to entice them to stick around and take your desired action, such as buying products, filling out a form, signing up for your email list, etc.

Why CRO Matters

CRO matters because it can genuinely be a game-changer for your overall results. Every part of your website has a job; if it’s not doing that job well, it’s probably costing you conversions.

To give a typical example, let’s say the customer adds products to the shopping cart, but as they go through your checkout process, they find the layout confusing or don’t understand why so many form fields are required. The default WooCommerce checkout has some issues that make it less-than-optimal, including confusing features. This confusion can lead to cart abandonment and no conversion for your store. Worse, the customer may decide to shop with a competitor instead, perhaps one with a better website experience.

CRO matters because it directly impacts revenue, so it’s worth monitoring and taking steps to improve.

Strategies for CRO on WooCommerce

Let’s look at some basic techniques for discovering CRO opportunities for your WooCommerce website.

Know Where You Need to Improve

There are so many potential strategies you can implement, so it’s important to understand where to start. One of the best ways to do this is to measure the impacts of different website functions and find where you could improve.

On ecommerce sites, you can look at your sales funnel, as it’s often helpful to divide your strategy into stages. The makeup of the funnel looks slightly different depending on who you follow. Still, most have some version with steps starting at awareness and moving through to conversion or loyalty (repeat customers). You can see this illustrated in the example from Drip below.

Source: Drip

How will you find this data? Google Analytics or another similar analytics package will help you to pinpoint areas you can improve.

Optimize These Key Areas

Some key areas of importance are common among WooCommerce websites.

1. The home page – This is generally the highest traffic page on any website. An ecommerce homepage MUST entice shoppers to keep browsing. It should include straightforward navigation and menus, as well as attractive imagery. A practical search function can also be helpful for customers.
2. Product pages – You should optimize your product pages with clear descriptions, so potential buyers aren’t confused. SEO keywords can be a beneficial optimization, while high-quality product imagery also helps. Some other optimizations might include things like product reviews or product suggestions.
3. Landing pages – A good landing page should have one very targeted goal. You should set it up to drive visitors to that goal without distractions. Effective landing pages minimize navigation options and include all important information up-front.
4. Checkout – The checkout page is a common area for losing customers. An optimized checkout aims to make the customer’s process as smooth and simple as possible. Fix the common roadblocks like excessive form fields or a confusing order of operations. Optimizing the checkout should be a priority. You can invest a lot of time and energy into optimizing every other area of your website, but that’s wasted if customers find a poor checkout experience.
5. About page – The about page is often the second-most commonly visited page on a website. When people shop online, they want to know to whom they’re giving their business. They want to know they can trust the company and its expertise.

Examine the Whole Customer Journey

The customer journey refers to the steps a person typically takes with your business, from discovery to purchase and all the interactions between those steps. Some of that journey will usually happen outside your website, for example, if they email customer service or make a phone call. The diagram below is an example from Delighted:

The point is that part of CRO should examine the steps that happen off your website, too. While the above example shows a bricks and mortar retail store, functions such as email responses or other customer service actions are very relevant to ecommerce. For instance, if your goal is repeat business, look at the customer’s experience. Strategies such as email automations may come into play.

WooCommerce owners: Examine CRO across your entire customer journey for a practical approach.
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Recover Abandoned Carts

While cart abandonment is common, the good news is that you can save at least some with the right abandoned cart recovery strategy. This optimization is one all ecommerce stores should have as it’s often “low-hanging fruit.” You already know the customer is interested in your products, so a nudge may be all they need to return.

Abandoned cart sequences are typically emails (or even text messages) designed to draw the customer back. They may involve an incentive or highlight the product’s benefits so well that the customer just has to have it.

WooCommerce Tools for CRO

Here are some top tools for enabling CRO on your WooCommerce website:

WooCommerce Google Analytics

You have to know your key metrics and which areas of your sales funnel are underperforming to understand where to start with CRO. WooCommerce Google Analytics is the extension to help you measure your data and understand your customers better.

CheckoutWC

That’s us! Optimizing the WooCommerce checkout is what we do. CheckoutWC removes the pain points associated with the default checkout and presents your customers with a simple, easy checkout flow. Take a look at features like order bumps to help boost average order values, express checkout options, and a built-in side cart.

WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart

An automated abandoned cart recovery sequence is a must for optimized ecommerce sites. This extension for WooCommerce will send emails to members or guests who abandon the checkout. It includes several templates store owners can select.

WooCommerce 360 Degree Image

If your product pages need extra optimization help, images are crucial to consider. WooCommerce 360 Degree Image adds a dynamic, 360-degree rotating product image so customers can look from all angles.

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce

Every ecommerce store should include customer reviews. They remain a hugely influential factor in customer buying decisions and help lend trust and legitimacy to your ecommerce business. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce is one option among the extensions to add review functionality to your store.

FOMO for WooCommerce

Generating FOMO (fear of missing out) is an excellent way to optimize any ecommerce store. People hate missing out! This extension automatically displays recent purchases so customers can see which products are flying out of the door.

WooCommerce Product Search

We mentioned that a good-quality search function is an important optimization. Customers use them and expect to get reliable results. WooCommerce Product Search is an extension, meaning you can add that search functionality.

Conclusion

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, is a must for every WooCommerce store. Conversions keep you in business, so strategies to improve your chances should be part of your ongoing business maintenance.

Use data so that you understand where you need to prioritize optimizations. You can use many possible strategies, so it’s essential first to find the most critical areas.

Finally, WooCommerce has loads of tools and extensions that can help on your CRO journey. We’ve mentioned a few here which can help to get you started.

The post What is CRO? A Quick Guide for WooCommerce Stores appeared first on CheckoutWC.

Since COVID-19, this description has applied to more and more businesses, from hardware stores, to small retailers, to local restaurants. Many adapted with a combination of curbside pick-up or BOPIS (buy online, pick-up in-store).

What has happened since? Perhaps unsurprisingly, customers have taken to this method of ordering and now, many still prefer it. This means that more businesses have looked to offer a pick-up solution, even seeing it as a competitive advantage.

In the world of WooCommerce where we operate, there has always been a solution, but up until this point, it was clunky for the customer. As business owners know, any sort of bump along the road can lead to customers abandoning orders, so we’ve developed a solution to make customer pick-up orders better on WooCommerce.

Here, we’re looking at the state of customer pick-up as an order preference, and how you can now offer this seamlessly from your WooCommerce store. Check it out…

Customer pick-up ordering: Here to stay?

From most reports looking into the state of retail, a large percentage of customers prefer having the option to order online and pick up either in-store or curbside. In fact, 33% of adults under the age of 50 who used pick-up ordering during the pandemic say they plan on continuing to use this method of shopping.

The 2021 holiday period between Thanksgiving and Christmas demonstrated this preference. Figures show that digital sales were up 36% in the US, and curbside pickup dominated those numbers. Sales rose 52% for retailers who offered curbside pickup as an option, compared to a 36% rise for those who didn’t offer pickup.

Retailers are finding that consumers have many reasons to prefer either curbside pickup or BOPIS, even if it began as a solution for reducing contact with people due to health concerns. Some people just prefer low contact with others, some with disabilities find pickup saves them from long walks in large stores, and for many, it’s a way to quickly and conveniently pick up what they need while avoiding crowds or checkout lines.

For many retailers, there is evidence to show that offering curbside pickup or BOPIS may give them a competitive advantage. This quote is from HBR:

“To better understand the impact of a BOPIS omnichannel strategy, we analyzed 49 million online and in-store transactions from a national retail chain before and after a competitor launched a BOPIS service (this research was all conducted prior to the pandemic). We found that the company’s sales dropped by 4.7% online and 1.8% in-store, and the decline in in-store sales was greater the closer a store was to one of the competitor’s BOPIS locations. This suggests that by launching BOPIS, the competitor was not only stealing the company’s online sales, but also their in-store traffic.”

As this indicates, there were already moves toward curbside pick-up and BOPIS pre-COVID, but the pandemic helped to accelerate adoption. Given consumer preference and the data to show the advantages that offering BOPIS gives to businesses, it’s more than likely that it is here to stay.

Consumers are showing a preference for local pickup options, even post-pandemic
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WooCommerce and customer pick-up orders

Retailers who operate WooCommerce websites can offer curbside pickup or BOPIS as an ordering option. However, with a standard WooCommerce checkout, the process is somewhat clunky for customers.

The problem in WooCommerce “out of the box” is that local pickup is implemented as a shipping method for customers. This means that customers have to enter their shipping details to get to a point where they see local pickup as an option.

Understandably, this is confusing! Logically, a shopper looks at the checkout process and says “but I don’t want shipping, I want to pick up.” This is a point where, if they’re confused, they may simply abandon the cart.

CheckoutWC solution for local pick-up in WooCommerce

We’ve made some updates to CheckoutWC, our optimized shopping cart for WooCommerce, so that local pick-up – curbside or BOPIS – is obvious and simple for your customers.

If you have CheckoutWC installed, customers get to choose during checkout how they would like to receive their purchase. If they select ‘pick up’, then the shipping address and shipping step will be hidden, and all verbiage on the page updates to reflect a pick up order.

Among the advanced features, retailers with multiple local pickup options can set those up. For example, if you have different store locations, or if you’re offering curbside pick-up or BOPIS. Notably, some businesses are now charging a fee for curbside pick-up, so this can be configured in your checkout.

Tips for a customer-friendly experience

Curbside pick-up or BOPIS are about meeting customer demand for omnichannel options, and a wider aim to be competitive with your customer experience. Delivering a customer-friendly experience is more important than ever, whether your business is online, bricks and mortar, or a hybrid option. Here are some of our tips for delivering the best possible experience:

Optimize your website

The term “optimize” covers many possible strategies for streamlining how your website operates. The idea is to remove or mitigate as many potential ‘bumps’ as possible for the customer. For WooCommerce store owners, here are some ideas:

• Streamline the shopping cart. The WooCommerce cart that comes “out of the box” has a few bumps in the road for the customer, which is why we created CheckoutWC. You can read more about why default WooCommerce shouldn’t be your default setting here.
• Speed up your page load times (and run speed checks regularly). The user experience suffers when pages or features load too slowly, and people are more likely to click away.
• Test your site for mobile optimization. Almost 59% of website traffic comes from mobile devices and it’s worth making sure your mobile customers are getting a good experience.
• Make it easy to search your website. Customers will often use the search function to speed up their process, but not all do a great job. Test your search function and make sure it delivers good results.
• Do UX testing on your website interface. You might assume that your UX is fine because you can navigate easily, but it’s important to get feedback from the perspective of the customer.

Make customer pick-up a great experience

Here are some ideas and observations for customer pick-up:

• Give the customer clear instructions for how pick-up works. Do they need to park in a designated spot? What do they need to do once they arrive?
• Give an ETA if possible, or offer specific pick-up time slots. The customer experience tends to be diminished if they have to wait a long time for their order to come out.
• Consider using text messaging instead of email communication, as it tends to be easier for customers.

Conclusion

If you own a bricks and mortar store, customer pick-up is a clear preference among many consumers. Look for customer-friendly solutions that make every step easy for them, especially if you’re running a default WooCommerce checkout.

Not yet offering customer pick-up? Now may be a good time to survey your customers and find out if they would like it offered. Not all businesses have the capacity to offer local pickup, but if you can do it, you may find it’s a differentiator from your competitors.

Take a look at CheckoutWC’s solution for local pick-up on WooCommerce sites here.

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