An introduction to platform checkout
Platform checkout is an optimised checkout experience for your website and includes click & collect functionality for your customers.
The customer experience is completely customisable through your ShopWired account.
The checkout experience for your customer's consists of the following steps:
- Account login, register or guest checkout (this step is optional and can be disabled)
- Shipping address entry/selection
- Billing address entry/selection
- Payment
- Confirmation
Each step has been optimised after research into checkout behaviour by ShopWired in order to decrease customer drop-out during the checkout process.
Checkout design
Checkout header
Platform checkout has been designed with a minimal header to remove the potential for customers getting distracted during the checkout process.
The header consists of a 'secure checkout' mark, your company logo (or name), a phone number (optional) and a 'return to shopping cart' link.
Checkout footer
To minimise distractions for the customer, platform checkout has no footer.
Order summary
During every stage of the checkout process, a summary of the customer's order (the products it contains and the order totals) is displayed.
Progress indicator
A progress indicator is displayed to the customer as they move through the checkout process, this reassures the customer that the checkout process is simple and will be quick to complete.
Forms
Forms and fields are clearly labelled and idenfitied, with required fields kept to a minimum and marked with an asterisk.
Payment
A simple and trustworthy payment process is essential to maximising conversion rates on your checkout. Platform checkout is designed with this in mind.
If you offer multiple payment options to customers, they can choose their preferred option as shown in the example below.
Customers are then presented with a simple form to enter their card information.
Customisation
Each aspect of platform checkout can be customised through your ShopWired account.
Customisations can be split into two types:
- How platform checkout displays (colors, fonts, logos etc.)- How platform checkout works (what questions customers are asked, whether they are prompted to login to accounts etc.)
Consult the next help guide for details on how to customise platform checkout on your website.
Click & collect
Important!
Please note that platform checkout's click & collect functionality currently only works for ShopWired accounts within the United Kingdom.
Platform checkout provides inbuilt support for click & collect functionality on your website, and is particularly useful if you have more than one location that customers can collect from.
Customers are asked to enter their postcode or town/city.
Click & collect locations that you have created will then be displayed to the user to select (in distance order).
Click & collect functionality combines with the delivery rate system so customers are only prompted to select a click & collect location if they choose that delivery option on the shopping cart page. Locations can also be tied to delivery rates.
Consult the click & collect help guide for more details.
Advanced customisation
Platform checkout allows for you to enter custom CSS and custom JS if you wish to.
Custom CSS can be used to make more advanced display customisations that the inbuilt system provides for, whereas custom JS can be used to add in additional functionality (for example adding in JS code provided by Trustpilot to display a trust widget).
Custom CSS and JS can be added on the platform checkout configuration page within your ShopWired account.
Browser compatibility
To use ShopWired's checkout feature, and most of the features on its websites, your customers need to use an up-to-date web browser.
If visitors don't use the latest version of a browser they may not be able to use your website or checkout properly or use all of the features available.
ShopWired's checkout feature supports recent versions of all major browsers:
• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari for MacOS
• Microsoft Edge
• Opera
• Apple Safari for iOS
• Google Chrome for Android
ShopWired does not support old website browsers which are deemed 'end of life' by the vendor or would pose a security risk to the integrity of the ShopWired platform or your website (particularly when handling sensitive data such as credit/debit card information).
In 2020, Microsoft's Chief of Security Chris Jackson stated that users should no longer use Internet Explorer (the last version of which was released in 2013 and in 2015 it was deemed 'end of life' by Microsoft). ShopWired websites and their checkouts may not function properly for visitors using Internet Explorer.