Checkout Improvements

[Mike Hughes]

I'm seeing a bit of criticism about the new checkout so have started this thread as a place where users can suggest ways to improve it.

Personally, I'm not that surprised to see a few issues arise. The new checkout is fresh out the door so there are bound to be a few problems that haven't been thought of.

Here's what Actinic said about the new checkout prior to release

The main changes planned are:

1. The initial page requesting country information is eliminated. In keeping with most other stores, the checkout makes a sensible assumption about the shoppers location, based on information from the cookie if present, or customer account information, or the nationality of the site itself.

2. The layout of information is rationalized; with address details captured on the first page, and other information captured on the second.

3. The list of US States will no longer be presented to non-US shoppers. The county / state list will be country dependent.

4. Provided JavaScript is enabled, separate invoice and delivery addresses will be displayed together on the same page.

5. The third page is an order confirmation, displaying a summary of all the information provided, with options to change each part if required.

6. The PSP bounce page will be eliminated.

7. The overall design and appearance of the checkout will be improved and updated.

So the new checkout will have two data entry pages, and three pages overall; compared with the current four data entry pages, and five pages overall where a PSP is used.

Issues I've seen raised so far include (and I'm ignoring bug reports as I'm sure Bruce has picked these up already):

1. It's no shorter than before.

Darren, any details on this? Did Actinic get it wrong.

2. Possibility of using the old style checkout if preferred.

I wonder what Actinic does when no Javascript is present and would there be a way of forcing this behaviour if the store owner wanted?

Any other thoughts on this?

Mike

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I was 85% commited to purchasing V10 until I saw and was disappointed by the new checkout process.
I admit it is much improved, mainly by having the delivery and invoice address on the same page.
I still think there are too many pages and would prefer to see it reduced further although I believe Bruce mentioned previously that there were techincal reasons preventing one problem being the 5% of customers with javascript turned off.

I would like to see address details, shipping options and payment method all on one page rather than split over 3 as they are in V10, with the next page as a confirmation page requiring no data entry other than the click of the confirm button. I would like to see the confirmation page as optional as some like it but personally I would be happy not to have a confirmation page when the details are already displayed during the checkout process.

I quite like the layout of this example checkout page: http://www.getelastic.com/wp-content.../treatment.jpg
I think there is room to make better use of the full page width with most sites now around 1000px maybe the order summary could fit to the right of the address fields as shown in the example I linked to above.

I also like to see a move to incorporate newer technologies ASP, PHP, Ajax, etc.

The checkout pages are one of the most important pages on a website and need to be the absolute best they can be be.

[bentleybloke]

1. The option that an order isn't created if the PSP payment is cancelled/returned. Seems to work this way with GC but not AP.
   
2. Get rid of the PSP bounce page which comes back if the AUG radio payment choices has been implemented.
   
3. Add to cart buttons on cart marketing lists.
   
4. Use of actual duplicate name and link to duplicate in cart.
   
5. Better handling of optional components in the cart - so that optional components can be removed without having to remove the parent product and start again.
   
6. New optional confirmation page which works like Amazon's upselling page which appears after you've added something to the cart.
   

[Darren B]

1. It's no shorter than before.

Darren, any details on this? Did Actinic get it wrong.

Did they get it wrong?

Well that depends on what your looking for in a checkout i guess. But the option to remove the last page (page3) before PSP would be good, the page that summerises the order, although all the information has been on the two previous pages, IMHO this is a "lets give you another option to cancel at the last minute" page.

Some might want this page personally i would be happy to have the option to not show it. The only problem is what do you do with the PSP choice. But to make the payment its a 4 page checkout, although i find it a big improvement, i know some dont, its still one page to long for me.

[bentleybloke]

Is the last page (with the summary) not required to add the shipping option chosen previously to the total before going to the psp?

[Darren B]

dont see why it needs to be, if you dont tick the accept terms it will update the shipping with the charges on the address page, i dont doubt someone can do all this with some clever ajax so the last page is not then required.

Im no expert in this side of things and as always its easier said than done, i am merely saying i am not happy with the current 4 page checkout.

[brucet]

Thanks for the posts, it is helpful to have everything in one place. Improvements to the detail of the checkout are certainly possible in future, and I will definitely watch this thread with interest and follow up any specific requests that attract good support.

TBH I did already answer several of the questions here in the v10 chat, and the answers haven't changed. But to recap...

1. We did consider a single page checkout, but it would have resulted in a very long page with excessive vertical scrolling. We did canvas the idea very widely, but the majority view was strongly against it and in favour of a more streamlined checkout with 2-3 pages. We also looked at several of the most highly-regarded checkouts in the industry. All of them were multiple pages. We considered offering both, but it would have doubled the size of the project and we did not have the resources for that. So we went with industry best practice and the strong majority view. TBH I still stand by that decision.

We were unable to keep the old checkout as an option for much the same reasons. The majority were in favour of the kind of changes we proposed, and offering more than one checkout option would have massively increased the size of the project.

2.

So the new checkout will have two data entry pages, and three pages overall; compared with the current four data entry pages, and five pages overall where a PSP is used.

That is actually exactly what we delivered - except for the 5% of customers who have Javascript disabled, and there's nothing we could do about that. The basic checkout is two pages. The final confirmation page is pretty much accepted best practice nowadays, but it's also unavoidable. The checkout script cannot calculate the total cost of the order until the delivery address plus the tax and shipping information has been gathered. And you can't ask a customer to confirm the order until you have told them what you are going to charge them.