Checkout is a crossroads of the purchasing process. Until this step, there was no pressure for the shopper to make any further actions or complicated choices. That’s probably why it is so essential to ensure the checkout flow provides a faster and easier experience to an online consumer.
Out of the box, the Magento 2 checkout process consists of two steps, which are:
- Shipping information
- Review and payment information
What can be done to customize Magento checkout following your unique business requirements? Let’s explore.
List of Available Customizations in Default Magento 2
In default Magento 2, checkout is implemented with the help of UI components. Generally, it is a two-step process except for the checkout of virtual and/or downloadable products. As there are no shipping details needed for these types of Magento products, the flow will be automatically transformed into a one-step procedure.
“According to Accenture, almost 90% of online shoppers will abandon their carts if they find the checkout flow to be complex, and over 50% will abandon the vendor completely. It makes the customizability of the checkout flow quite fateful for an eCommerce business. Good that Magento and its community have a lot to offer to ensure a successful experience,” says Ellie Yantsan, Marketing Executive at Mageworx.
Adobe Commerce explicitly shares the available customization possibilities in its official documentation. Their tutorial includes step-by-step guidelines with pieces of code for your convenience. Thus, you can:
- Add another step
- Customize how an existing step looks
- Add custom payments methods
- Add custom shipping carriers and their validations
- Add new fields to the address form
- Add custom shipping address renderers
- Add a new input form and more
As you can see, these customizations touch on the front-end side of the process and can help better achieve business-specific requirements.
Nonetheless, if you feel like the default checkout flow is too long or complicated for your business, opting for a third-party solution is another option.
Opting for a Third-Party Magento Extension
If multi-step checkout is not what meets your business goals, you should consider building a one-step or one-page process.
It allows gathering all the required details as quickly as possible with fewer clicks and without asking the shopper for additional time-consuming steps.
A basic Magento one-page checkout extension should include the following features:
- Configurable Checkout Fields and Blocks: Although we all are swimming in the same digital ocean, the way we demonstrate, sell and promote vendibles differs. Thus, following business-specific purposes, checkout fields and blocks may and should differ. Such a possibility will let you adjust the checkout page layout to your unique needs.
- Support of all the Popular Payment Systems: While the organization of the whole checkout process should be taken seriously, it’s the number one priority to offer all the possible (though popular) payment methods. The consumer should not have any restraints when having to complete this step. Otherwise, the result can be dismal.
- Guest Checkout: Having to create an account is one of the top reasons behind checkout abandonment. If it’s possible not to force your potential buyers into a registration, leave it for the consumer to choose.
- Responsive Design: Self-evident at first glance, responsiveness may slip under the radar. As the world keeps going mobile-first, your checkout flow must be as intuitive, flawless, fast, and bug-free on handheld devices as on desktop. Make sure to keep an ear to the ground when building cross-platform experiences.
- Compatibility With Other Popular Third-Party Solutions: A must-have! When opting for a third-party Magento 2 extension, double-check how compatible it is with plugins that are already installed in your system. Any seemingly insignificant issue could break your whole store or make it function (look) improperly. To avoid such scenarios, take a moment to study an extension’s user guide. Alternatively, it won’t take long to address a vendor’s support team directly with your question to know for a fact. (Besides, that’s how you can get to know their responsiveness too.
Additionally, some extension vendors offer to intertwine various delivery opportunities into the checkout flow.
Let’s break it down with an example:
You are selling both online and offline, and you are using your offline locations as a pickup in-store delivery option. Integrating the available delivery opportunities into your online checkout flow can increase the customer shopping experience and bring along a variety of added benefits.
(When done right.)
Your online site visitors can navigate between checkout tabs depending on which shipping option they prefer. Thus, they will see the most relevant fields only.
That’s how Nike does it:
Checkout is one of the most important processes in any site’s operation. While you might have more customization requirements, Magento is likely to provide you with the means to achieve that.
Wrapping Up
Magento checkout can be customized in a variety of ways. While prior research and analysis should be made first to make the best decision possible, the platform boats customization options that are portable, fast to install, and safe.
Now that you know more about the process of Magento 2 checkout customization, it’s time to take action. Whether you need to add a new checkout step or turn the whole process into a one-page experience depends on your unique business requirements only.
