Shopify One-Page Checkout: Things People Don't Tell You (+Tutorials)

Outline

• What Is One-Page Checkout
• One Page Checkout: Pros & Cons
• One-Page Checkout vs One-Click Checkout
• How To Implement One-Page Checkout On Shopify 
• Alternatives To One-Page Checkout For Your Shopify Store

I. What Is One-Page Checkout?

Running a business means you have to go to great lengths for the conversion rate. Having many people visiting your website is good, but it will end in nothing if your visitors don’t make a purchase. Hence, the ultimate goal is to boost your business’ conversion rate, which depends significantly on your checkout page. 

So, what is one-page checkout? And how vital is it to your business?

• Anyone who buys things online must go through a checkout process to make their orders. All payment and shipping or billing details will appear on merely one or multiple checkout pages. If this process needs only one page to complete, then the buyers are using one-page checkout. 
• According to Statista, about 70% of online shoppers will abandon their basket of products after browsing. The figure gives a clear message: the more simple the checkout experience is, the better. A complicated checkout process is likely to result in more chances of cart abandonment. 
• Typically, a one-page checkout allows customers to fill out the information in any order. If they forget to enter data in any box, an error note will prompt them to complete those boxes. 
• For example, AliExpress offers its customers a simplified checkout process with very few steps. The site asks for minimal information to place your order!

Read more:

• Shopify Abandoned Carts
• Shopify Fees Calculator - What's The Cost of A Shopify Store?

II. One-Page Checkout: Pros & Cons

You now have in mind what one-page checkout is. In the next step, you might want to acquire an understanding of its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s get started!

2.1. Pros

01. Increased conversion rate

Credible research shows that, among the top 10 reasons for eCommerce cart abandonment, “long and confusing checkout” ranks 5th. Without a doubt, you could increase your business’s total sales just by simplifying the checkout process. Once you allow your customers to make their purchase on a single checkout page, you will notice a surprising boost in the number of completed forms. 

Getelastic did apply A/B testing to compare the user-friendliness of one-page checkout versus their traditional one. The outcome is, using a single checkout page increased their sales by some 21.8%. Though this number is impressive, it should be noted that the results will vary, depending on your product or industry. 

Tips: You can also increase conversion rate by adding "Continue Shopping" Button in your One-Page Checkout Page 

02. Faster processing 

The fact is, people tend to become impatient very quickly in checkout time to get things that they want. Your customers’ experience will turn into their frustration if the checkout procedure is long and slow. So, speed matters!

The good news is, a single checkout page can reduce the average time taken to place an order by half when compared with multi-page checkout. In terms of marketing, we have to make great efforts to grab the shoppers’ attention, but they can change their minds in just a second. That’s why it is necessary to get them through such a process as quickly as possible!

03. More robust site performance

If we take a snapshot of today’s shopping experience, it will look like this: people have an idea, look up information online, and make up their minds, all by using their smartphone anywhere, anytime. In the second half of 2020, 79% of smartphone users made their orders online via a mobile device. With the increasing importance of mobile eCommerce, you must make sure your website is friendly for mobile viewing. 

On a mobile device, the page load time can vary from a few seconds to a minute. Having multiple checkout pages means buyers should spend up to 5 minutes filling out data to get their items. As you can expect, many people will give up before hitting that number!

04. Higher customer satisfaction

The more satisfied your shoppers are, the more likely they are to revisit your site. Psychologically, people prefer things that they consider convenient. Simple checkout has proved to work. That’s why a growing number of big brands have opted for that one-page checkout solution.

2.2. Cons

01. Long-scrolling page

If you have too much information to put on a single page, it will turn out to be an infinite scrolling page. One-page checkouts merely work best in case you have minimal data to display. Otherwise, your customers will be confused by the never-ending scrolling site, which may lead to a rise in the abandoned shopping cart rate. Whether you choose a single-page checkout or not, the consistent goal is to deliver a comfortable shopping experience. 

02. Tough for analytics

For many business owners, analyzing sites is critical. But, it now becomes more challenging as a single URL contains a lot of different content. 

When adopting multi-page, it is easy to track funnel data, which indicates at what point your customers drop off. Whereas one-page checkout makes data analysis more complex, thus the collected data will be less reliable. Consequently, analysts will face difficulties identifying reasons and motivations for cart abandonment to make improvements.

03. Slow page loading speed

It may sound contradictory. Though the overall checkout load time is less by using the one-page solution, the time to load that only page may increase. Again, if you have much information to cram into the process, a single-page checkout might not be a good idea. Hence, it is needed to install a checkout page demo on both PC and mobile devices before any official launching.

III. One-Page Checkout Vs One-Click Checkout

Unlike one-page checkout, one-click checkout allows customers to complete their purchase with a single click only. To make it happen, customers must enter their address and payment details and save them for later use. This solution aims to minimize the amount of time spent by customers to check out, which helps increase stores’ revenue. 

An example of making the best use of the quick-buy feature is Amazon, which owned the patent for one-click checkout until September 2017. This big retailer has shaped the customers’ behavior by enabling them to buy directly from any product page once they signed in. 

Like any checkout solution, one-click ordering has its pros and cons that need weighting before applying to your business. 

3.1. One-Click Checkout: Pros

01. Speed

In a busy world, people can easily get frustrated by going through a lengthy sign-in and re-entering shipping and payment details. One-click buying must be the best option for such impatient shoppers who don’t like wasting time during the shopping process. If you want to adopt the fastest checkout solution to your business, a quick-buy button can’t be more ideal. 

02. Increased conversion rate

Like one-page checkout, one-click checkout brings higher revenue for sellers as it reduces the possibilities of shopping cart abandonment. This benefit is even more critical in the Covid-19 background when many enterprises strive to boost their revenues. 

Besides, one-click purchases could be particularly beneficial for the hospitality industry. As you can imagine, a restaurant can improve its table turnover rate (which means better financial gain) simply by adopting a faster payment solution. 

03. Encourage impulse purchasing

Impulse purchasing indicates the action of buying goods without planning to do so in advance. Research showed that mobile use acts as a stimulus to this habit, which can be further effective with a one-click feature. Everything will be like this: you are using your smartphone to shop around and suddenly get impressed by an item. You’ve already logged in. The price is not bad. By hitting a button, that item is now yours.

3.2. One-Click Checkout: Cons

01. Greater risk

Risk management is one of the biggest challenges for eCommerce businesses. As we know, a quick-buy button allows customers to buy an item instantly without any additional authentication measures (you saved your card details before). It means anyone can make quick transactions via your mobile phone even when they don’t have your card or bank account information. Therefore, before implementing single-click checkout, make sure your business’ industry is suitable for quick buying and your fraud prevention system can detect suspicious transactions well. 

02. More suitable for low-value transactions

One-click checkout gives shoppers no second thought on their decision. Once you hit the button, you have your card charged right away. Thus, features like this raise a concern: businesses that sell high-value merchandise may lose customers. Many shoppers will never buy if they find your checkout fast and risky. As people tend to hesitate to spend a large amount of money, a detailed checkout procedure can give a sense of certainty. For instance, if you sell luxury jewelry online, installing a one-click purchase can be worthless. In such an industry, people like seeing them with their naked eyes and make a payment at stores.

03. Possible misuse

As a one-click checkout doesn’t enable buyers to adjust their shipping information, lots of confusion may happen. They might realize they need to ship the item to a different address or change a receiver’s mobile number after clicking to buy. 

Reade more: Best Shopify Shipping Policy Templates you need to know

IV. How To Implement One-Page Checkout For Your Shopify store?

If you are managing a store on Shopify, you might want to implement a single-page checkout solution for better conversion rates. Technically, those who are using a Shopify plan can’t optimize such checkout to your business. Therefore, you have to pick either switching to Shopify Plus or installing a third-party checkout app.

Let explore further guidance for each approach below.

01. Shopify Plus

Many of you may have no idea about Shopify Plus, so let me explain briefly. Simply speaking, Shopify Plus is a plan that offers all features in the core Shopify version plus more. Some notable enhancements you will get include (but not limited to):

• A Launch Engineer to support your store
• Unlimited staff accounts
• Checkout experience customization
• More control over themes
• More comprehensive analytics options
• Wholesale channels

Of course, the price for this plan is much higher than the usual plan’s. Even when you opt for an advanced solution with Shopify plans, the price will never be more than 299 USD/month. However, prepare to pay 2,000 USD/month minimum or 0.25% of sales volume/month with the Shopify Plus plan.

If you decide to go with this option, steps to embed one-page checkout to your store will be as follow:

• Step 1: Log in to your Shopify Plus’ account

• Step 2: Online Store > Themes

Shopify Plus offers no choices of checkout templates. So, the only way to enable a one-page checkout is by theme-based customizing. 

• Step 3: Edit HTML and CSS > Add a new layout

When you click to add a new layout, you will see a drop-down box. There, you need to select ‘checkout’ instead of ‘theme’. 

• Step 4: Edit code

After step 3, the system will generate some liquid code. This step is reserved for an experienced developer - they will know how to customize it to create your desired checkout.

02. Third-party applications

If you are on a tight budget and want to save as much as possible, the second approach will serve your demand. Besides upgrading to Shopify Plus, you can still add a single-page checkout to your Shopify store, thanks to third-party apps. Some checkout apps from which you can find support are:

2.1. Shopify One Step Checkout

As an extension developed by Magebird, it enables you to combine all checkout steps into a single page. The following extra features might catch your interest:

• Have your current checkout’s settings remained
• Fewer fields for a simple checkout form
• Upsells
• Sidebar promo messages
• Etc

First customers will enjoy a price of 14 EUR/month. You can cancel at any time and ask for your money back within 30 days as promised. 

2.2. Skip To Checkout

With this app, you can skip the cart page and send your customers directly to checkout. The text on the “Add to cart” button is customizable also. Skip To Checkout has an overall rating of 4.6 and receives many positive feedbacks, which dominantly praise the extension’s customer service.

V. Alternatives to Shopify One-Page checkout

Despite some differences, one-click checkout can be an alternative to single-page checkout. This section provides you with a list of highly recommended instant checkout apps, which can be helpful to your enterprise.

01. Fast Checkout In One Click

If you want to install an attractive buy button on your website, this app is all you need. Fast Checkout In One Click allows users to change their original buy-now button into an animated one, which draws shoppers’ attention more effectively. Besides, the extension also has the following features:

• Compatible with most of the themes, which means you barely need to adjust the look.
• Work smoothly on mobile devices.
• A cart page popping up after clicking the buy button or not is up to you.
• App’s installation does not influence your theme’s code.

You can try this app with a 5-day free trial plan. After that, the price will be 4.49 USD/month for the unlimited plan.

Link for installation: https://apps.shopify.com/fast-checkout-in-one-click

02. One-Click Checkout

With this app, you can choose among a wide range of design options for your cart summary popup and a Buy Now button. The “Add to cart” and instant-buy buttons work well together to lead your customers to the checkout flexibly. 

There are three types of plans for sellers: free, basic plan (9.95 USD/month), and priority support (18.95 USD/month). Feel free to call, chat, or email them if needed. The app’s support team promises to respond to your queries within 2 to 5 minutes.

Link for installation: https://apps.shopify.com/one-click-checkout

03. Instant Checkout - Buy button

Instant Checkout - Buy button has an impressive rate of 5/5. Lots of reviews said the app provides excellent customer service.

This option goes perfectly for merchants who don’t have much money to spend. With only 2.99 USD/month for a basic plan, you will receive benefits such as:

• Easy installation without code
• Buy button’s style is customizable, according to the theme’s design. Button’s animation effects are also available.
• Instant-buy button analytics (number of clicks)
• Compatible with ReCharge Payments’ subscriptions

The most expensive plan of this application is for Shopify Plus’ users, at 5 USD/month.

You can have an optimized Buy Now button based on your preference.

Link for installation: https://apps.shopify.com/buy-now-direct-checkout

04. Buy Me ‑ Buy Button

Another one-click checkout app that might work for you is Buy Me - Buy Button. The app has six outstanding features:

• A Buy Now button will appear on all product pages and be visible when customers scroll the page.
• A Buy Me cart will be present on all pages of your store to remind shoppers of checkout.
• Allow customers to purchase directly from Product Listing pages.
• Social media sharable links included on the Buy Me widget
• Customers can see recently added items on their cart with Added Items on Cart Preview.
• A reminder of a pending shopping cart pops up on multiple devices.

You have four options for subscription: free, small (2.95 USD/month), medium (4.95 USD/month), and large (6.95 USD/month) plans. With an excellent rate and more than 800 reviews, this extension is worth a try. 

Link for installation: https://apps.shopify.com/mps-buy-me