One Page Checkout: Love it? Hate it? Fine with it?
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Forum Name: Using ProductCart
Forum Description: Running your store with ProductCart
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3586
Printed Date: 04-December-2024 at 9:46pm
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Topic: One Page Checkout: Love it? Hate it? Fine with it?
Posted By: Guests
Subject: One Page Checkout: Love it? Hate it? Fine with it?
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 1:17am
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One of the major things EI tried to push forward with v4 is the One Page Checkout. Having consulted with them a bit on it, I know they really did their homework on OPC theory and that one of the exemplars in the industry they were comparing against is Gap.com (though one must keep in mind that the Gap is just one company with a lot of money with their very own business rules, while PC is a generic shopping cart system that must accommodate all kinds of possible business rules, so that makes a BIG difference in why PC v4 OPC is not just like the Gap.com).
I think it is generally a good idea, and is definitely industry trend and in theory should mitigate against abandoned carts because of "form fatigue" (customer see too many fields at once) and because of posts backs between steps (having to keep submitting back to get to the next page; may take more time for some users or sites on overloaded shared servers, etc.). What is more, it's not truly OPC if one is using a payment gateway, as that would be extremely difficult to do the way PC integrates gateways, and changing that would be prohibitive given the scores of gateway integrations, not to mention those with custom gateway integrations PC doesn't support Out of the Box. Finally, I'd really rather not mix up OPC with Guest Checkout, as these are completely different issues, and v4.1 will address that (or for the "must get out of that now" crowd, our Guest Checkout Eliminator will tide you over). So, with all of that as intro, I'm really curious what feedback folks have one the v4 OPC. I'm curious because I've heard some folks says they've tracked an increase in abandoned carts since they upgraded. I find that surprising. Also, I've currently a client who keep sending me examples of things that are not even OPC, but he things they are because most of the fields are all open without needing to "continue" (not to be confused with causing a post back like on pre v4 PC stores). I'm sure that EI would be curious too as they are ramping up for the release of v4.1, no doubt. PS: It's also true that v4 OPC makes customizing even the smallest thing way more challenging for developers. Might be worth a different thread for feedback there. |
Replies:
Posted By: benpate
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 1:11pm
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I have seen cart abandonement drop from 75% down to 60%. I think some of that could have resulted from fixing errors since we were running 3.051 and then upgraded to v4. As we do not have any errors showing in the error report but we use to have them everyday before. The biggest problem I have with OPC is that if you are running a payment gateway then its not really a true OPC. And if you are running offline payment processing then it would actually be considered a two-page checkout. login and OPC The second issue is that EI has not upgraded Google Analytics (GA) to the new Async code which allows for event tracking and other useful features. For me this is a must because you need to be able to track the sales funnel and see where people are dropping off. The previous checkout was very easy to setup the funnel in GA but the new OPC is not. If you dont mod anything then all you can see in the funnel is viewcart, opc, authorize, and orderComplete. Obviously, there are a lot of steps that occur in the OPC and you are blind as to whats happening there and where people are dropping off. I am in the process of implementing the new code now. I havent looked at the gap.com website and I am not sure who developed it but I personally would have looked elsewhere for inspiration. For example, amazon.com, buy.com, or elasticpath. Speaking of elasticpath, they have a VERY interesting case study that can be found http://www.getelastic.com/single-vs-two-page-checkout/ - here where the original version was very similar to the current OPC with offline payment processing. They call this a two-page checkout. I have no doubt that EI put a lot of thought and resources into creating the OPC, but I think that they may have put too much thought into making it cool and nifty instead of brain dead simple. I also agree with you Sean that modifying the OPC is much more difficult then the previous. With all that being said, I am still very happy with having chosen EI as our shopping cart provider  ------------- http://www.web1seo.com - ProductCart SEO - Resellers and Affiliates welcome |
Posted By: Greg Dinger
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 1:33pm
Posted By: Brett
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 2:02pm
| My dad hates the one page checkout. He argues that it's not one page when you have to press a continue button so many times. I agree, ditch the Ajax, it's just a gimmick. Give us a simple checkout form and use Ajax only for validation. One long page where a person can enter all of their info would br superior. |
Posted By: katharina
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 2:14pm
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I agree with Brett. Keep it simple, and stop the confusion. We have way to many inexperience online shoppers. We cannot just have them all call us for phone orders, because they are confused. I'm all for several pages. Billing and shipping on one page, select the shipping option on the next, display total order and enter coupon/discount, continue to payment page. The only other option is a very very long page. EI indicated in one post that they may work on the option of choosing which checkout method for the store owner with one of the next releases. Please do. I know it is a lot of work, but it will satisfy many store owners. Katharina ------------- Katharina ******************* www.GermanPlaza.com ******************* |
Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 02-April-2010 at 2:29pm
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Thank you for your feedback. Of course, we are listening. That said:
(1) Negative feedback on One Page Checkout has been very, very limited (2) As we said before, we have actually received positive feedback on the drop-off rate, not negative, just like Ben Pate reported above (although he indicated it might have also been driven by a more robust, error-free checkout process). (3) The "guest checkout" login problems (confusing messages when logging in) have already been solved and will be part of the upcoming v4.1. In addition, Guest Checkout has been turned into an optional feature. We are considering posting a patch for v4 with these changes. (4) Developing One Page Checkout was a project that required hundreds of development hours. Creating a new checkout system will be no different. The number of variables and scenarios to keep into account is astonishing. This is absolutely not something that we will work on in the short term. All in all, we have yet to see any evidence of stores reporting an increase in the drop-off rate from switching to version 4. Quite the opposite. And that - at the end of the day - is what counts (and the reason why so many of you loudly requested this substantial structural change to ProductCart while v4 was in development). ------------- The ProductCart Team Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software |
Posted By: mattprice
Date Posted: 03-April-2010 at 11:08am
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I like the One Page Checkout but ...
1. like a couple of others have mentioned I would prefer not to have the Continue button at each stage. It jumps the customer around the page a bit too much for my liking and I think before the customer presses the process order button at the end of the page they would like to just have a quick scroll up the page to check their data.
2. In the forthcoming V4.1 I would like to see the password field for the "Guest Checkout Disabled" option back down where it was originally under the Payment and Other Information section. I dont think it makes sense to have it under the Billing Address.
Matt
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Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 03-April-2010 at 2:04pm
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Hi Matt,
(2) This has been corrected already. ------------- The ProductCart Team Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software |
Posted By: loracady
Date Posted: 03-April-2010 at 3:32pm
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We really like the OPC. The continue buttons are very fluid and intuitive. The only complaint I have is the order of the fields for the addresses. When taking a customer's order by phone, it is odd to enter the city, zip code, country, and then state - just isn't a natural method for entering address data. No one else on this forum seems bothered by it, though, so very likely my customers aren't bothered by it either. (I know why the fields are in this order, but I still don't like it.) Overall, we're very pleased with this! ------------- www.TheSleepShop.com |
Posted By: whizzinpc
Date Posted: 05-April-2010 at 2:02pm
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We like it... but it seems like customers are confused with the continue buttons on each step. I do have 1 recommendation. I think the select a shipping drop down should be radio buttons instead.... so it takes up a little more room and a customer can easily spot it out. Basically, they will see the options for add new shipping address or use billing address without having to click a drop down menu.
Also we get a lot of calls on "How do I gift wrap this item?" Now that a customer actually has to go to checkout to add gift wrap they never find it because they assume it should happen when adding to the cart or at least in the viewcart before clicking checkout. |
Posted By: Greg Dinger
Date Posted: 05-April-2010 at 2:31pm
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 05-April-2010 at 2:52pm
I too am in favor of that simple change. |
Greg Dinger wrote:Posted By: caughlan
Date Posted: 07-April-2010 at 7:39pm
| I'm not too thrilled with the one page check-out at all, I feel that the name itself is a misnomer. When a customer clicks the continue button they no longer see the fields they've just filled in so in effect they think they are on a new page altogether. I dislike the scrambling of the page when you click continue - oh, have I mentioned I dislike the 'click continue' feature altogether? I wish for a true one page, all fields expanded, no need to click continue checkout. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07-April-2010 at 8:39pm
I understand the idea behind using the accordion effect, but I do agree that it's rather disorienting while moving through the process. Should still be able to use AJAX to populate the conditional issues coming up further down the process (for example, shipping options depend upon the shipping address entered) without having to use the accordion effect. However, here's the puzzler: what event will define when to trigger the necessary AJAX without using a continue button? For example, when would the shipping options be retrieved? After entering country? But things are also limited by state and zip code (potentially) in addition to country. How to know when to go retrieve the appropriate shipping options? In this example, a "continue" type button might be absolutely necessary. But moving from Billing Info to Shipping info? Not so much. Similarly with entering discount codes. That has to trigger a recalculation of the cart. What event would trigger this? OnBlurr (after mouse focus is moved from this field)? These are tricky things to work out to find that balance between presentation and easy of use in the interface and the hella complicated logic that goes into much of this. |
Posted By: caughlan
Date Posted: 07-April-2010 at 10:01pm
| When looking carefully at the accordion/continue issue I realize its more the layout of the default design that's bothering me - ie there's no indication of whats ahead and what's been done, the page layout is confusing etc. And that might just be a matter of altering the actual design and layout rather than the AJAX itself. One site I saw says "use this address?" instead of 'continue' and its those little things that might make the page a whole lot friendlier - maybe it just needs a designer/ecommerce-guru's touch. |
Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 07-April-2010 at 10:44pm
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Who says that a really long page is preferable? Are there studies that show that a long page that leads to significant vertical scrolling is preferable to an "accordion" layout? As we have pointed out before, among many leading Web stores that we studied while developing "One Page Checkout" is Gap.com. Well, they use "accordion" panels and "Continue" buttons and they do one billion in sales on the Web. One billion dollars. So, to answer the comments in the posting above:
But suggesting that the current layout should be dropped and replaced by a long checkout page that will force customers to perform substantial vertical scrolling while trying to checkout is not correct in our view and not something that we will implement. ------------- The ProductCart Team Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07-April-2010 at 11:56pm
While I've a few clients that confuse the long page/all fields revealed layout with One Page Checkout theory/practice and they seem to think that would be preferable, I disagree with them and agree with EI here. While I don't have studies at my finger tips at the moment, I've read them and I've as many other clients that know that the full set of fields is psychologically traumatizing to end-users and does lead to abandoned carts. However, I think the issue here should be about balance. Merchants have a concern here, and I think some of them are not unjustified. Comparing with Gap.com is not exactly an apples to apples comparison as they have business rules that make things simpler for them whereas PC has to handle a very complex array or possible business rules. So it is different that than Gap.com and is a bit different from one PC merchant to the next. There are many cost/benefit analyses to be made here in an effort to move towards a bit better balance that leads to the most "abandoned cart resistant" OPC in this context. I hope that this thread contributes ideas that can make a more refined version that approaches a better ideal of what this PC OPC can be. Bottom line: I think it is indeed all going in the right direction, but it also could use some refinement to dial it in really well. There's probably not going to be any way to make everyone completely happy, but then PC is a generic shopping cart meant to handles ALL KINDS of business models, so it would be unreasonable to expect this from it. Merchants that aren't completely happy with what results from this have the option to get PC developers involved who can customize the functionality to match their preferred behavior based upon their specific business rules. I'm going to listen more here on this thread and then do a new top to bottom evaluation and add my recommendations next week (I hope; time provided). |
Posted By: caughlan
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 12:16am
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wow - I'll have to assume there was some mystery post other than mine that you're referring to. [edit: referring to the EI comments] What I said was that on further reflection my issue was just design related. And I thought I posted it quickly enough after my original post to state that I see what Sean was referring to and I gave it more thought. Makes me afraid to contribute to the conversations guys. Stacelynn FYI This is what I'm implementing... I just think its a little easier to follow, what can i say  |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 12:59am
@caughlan You are making good contributions here; please don't shy away from contributing further. There are many threads on issues related to this topic. That might be why you are feeling that more has been said here on this than you see on this thread. Also, I think EI is responding more generally here than to just you even on this thread. The checkout process is super crucial. It takes a log of work to build a good site, populate it with product, optimize is for SEO/SEM/SMM, get the traffic and then convert that traffic to sales. That last part is hugely dependent upon the checkout process -- real shame to see all of that effort to get a client to this point and then maybe lose them. So, all the input we that can be gathered here on this thread will definitely help to make the next upgrade of PC all that much better. |
Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 2:22am
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Stacelynn, Thanks again you for your feedback. We considered your suggested layout (screen shot above) as a possible candidate for One Page Checkout during development. Sean will probably remember this as well. There are many reasons why it did not make the final cut. Among them:
------------- The ProductCart Team Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 3:01am
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I agree that the option to create an account to log into existing account should not be part of the OPC. Many things could be happening here in the background, and it is less psychologically traumatizing.
I'd go so far as claiming this isn't really part of the OPC; it's more about recognizing who a customer is before getting into that process. For example, if someone shopping as a wholesaler hadn't logged in yet, that would change a lot of what is displayed in the OPC. Maybe more important is this option itself and this stage of process so's new customers aren't overwhelmed. |
Posted By: caughlan
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 11:26am
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Thank for your feedback - All very good to know. I understand how complex the checkout page is and didn't mean to minimize the efforts that have gone into it. The guys got my upgrade fee so that I could get the code after all :) I still think that applying some design and layout to my own site will give it the feel I'm looking for (similar to the feel of hosted shopping cart checkouts) without conflicting with the superior features and options PC offers over those other carts. The page just isn't what I expected visually so I know I have my work cut out adding some styling to match some of my wishes, but will be limited by the existing code and that's fine. So to reiterate before I leave it to rest, the features are what I'm here for and I'll work with what's given to me. I think OPC is far superior to other checkouts. I recognize that my primary issues were design related and I can customize the look to my customer base without conflicting with features. And I trust that EI is always looking for ways to improve and if there's a way they will. I've always been more than happy so far. |
Posted By: amgqmp1
Date Posted: 08-April-2010 at 11:52am
We love OPC and Guest Checkout. We used to get phone calls every day with people that needed help ordering from our shop (PC 2.76p). Those are thankfully gone now with PC 4.0. |
Posted By: benpate
Date Posted: 21-April-2010 at 1:01pm
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Some interesting on-topic stuff found at link below
http://www.proimpact7.com/ecommerce-blog/one-page-checkout-5-reasons-why-not/ ------------- http://www.web1seo.com - ProductCart SEO - Resellers and Affiliates welcome |