Conversion rates stagnating? Try setting up a one-page checkout in WooCommerce and make it easier for customers to buy their favorite products with maximum convenience.
In this guide, you’ll discover:
- How one-page checkouts can improve the success of your online store
- Step-by-step instructions on how to optimize your WooCommerce checkout process
- Suggestions and strategies for making the most of your streamlined checkout process.
Before we dive into all that, let’s begin by answering a fundamental question:
What is a one-page checkout, and why bother setting one up.
Understanding One-Page Checkouts
A one-page checkout is exactly what it sounds like:
The entire purchasing process -from picking a product to paying for it- all consolidated into one streamlined page.
By default, buying a product on a WooCommerce store is a multi-step process:
First, customers visit the product page and add the product to the shopping cart.
Then, they review the items in the cart and click proceed to checkout.
Finally, they fill in the checkout form and place their order.
Here’s the problem:
Every step of that process gives customers another opportunity to back out of the process.
Analytics firm Zuko notes that 65 in every 100 checkout sessions end without a sale.
Even if your sales seem solid, isn’t it a bit disheartening to put all that work into growing your online store, only for 65% of potential customers to abandon cart and leave?
While there are all sorts of factors that contribute to your store’s abandoned cart rate, data from the Baymard Institute reveals that 22% of shoppers leave due to “Too long / complicated checkout process.”
This is where your one-page checkout comes in handy.
How One-Page Checkout Helps
By streamlining the entire checkout process, you make it quick and simple to buy your products.
There’s no more waiting around for each page to load. There’s no more complicated hurdles to overcome. Instead, customers find what they want and buy it there and then.
As a result, abandoned carts go down, customer satisfaction goes up, and, as a result, your conversion rates increase.
What You’ll Need to Get Started
The tutorials below assume that you already have the following two essentials in place:
1. WooCommerce Installation
Enabling a one-page checkout is a simple process that involves expanding the functionality of the core WooCommerce plugin.
So, naturally, you’ll need to ensure that’s fully set up and configured before you begin.
If you haven’t done that yet, you’ll find step-by-step instructions in our guide to building a WooCommerce store.
2. Theme Compatibility
At this point, it’s worth noting that not all WordPress themes are compatible with one-page checkouts.
In a best-case scenario, you’ll have a WooCommerce-optimized theme with built-in one-page checkout features.
At the very least, you’re going to need a theme that allows you to create and use a custom template.
Other Essential Planning Steps
You’ll also make the process by following these best practices before getting into the tutorial:
- Create a Backup – Use a tool like UpDraftPlus to create a backup copy of your store. If something goes wrong, you can simply upload this backup to restore your site to good working order.
- Use a Staging Environment – Another to avoid costly mistakes is to add the new checkout to a staging environment and test it before pushing it back to your live site. That way, you remove the risk that any problems will affect your customers.
- Get Your ‘Before’ Speed Test Results – When you’re all done with this, you’ll want to be sure that one-page checkout doesn’t have a negative effect on site performance.
To do that, use a tool like Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights and test your performance before you start. Later, you can check it again once you’ve customized your checkout process and compare the results to see if anything has changed.
Setting Up One-Page Checkout
WooCommerce offers three main routes to one-page simplicity:
- Using a WooCommerce Extension
- Using Funnelkit with your page builder
- Creating a custom template.
Since simplicity is the name of the game here, let’s look at each option in order from the easiest to the most technically challenging.
Method 1: Using a WooCommerce Extension
As with most things relating to WordPress, plugins offer the most user-friendly approach here.
For this tutorial, we’ll be using the WooCommerce One Page Checkout extension.
A. Install the Plugin
To begin, open up the plugin’s page in the WooCommerce extension directory by pointing your browser to:
https://woocommerce.com/products/woocommerce-one-page-checkout/
Click buy now to download the plugin to your device.
From there, login to WordPress and go Plugins – Add New – Upload Plugin. You can then use the plugin installer to install and activate WooCommerce One Page Checkout.
B. Configure Your Settings
Next, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > One Page Checkout and check that *Enable auto-scroll* is checked so that the plugin will work correctly.
You now have two options:
i. Edit Your Product Pages
With your plugin ready to go, open up a product page and paste the following shortcode at the bottom of your product description:
[woocommerce_one_page_checkout]
When you’re done, hit save and preview the page.
You’ll now find that the default Add to Cart button has been replaced by an Add to Order button. When clicked on, this button sends customers to the bottom of the page where they see two things:
- Confirmation that the product was added to the order
- A checkout form where customers can add their billing and shipping info and pay for their purchase without ever leaving the product page.
Ii. Create a Custom Template
While adding the shortcode directly to the product page is the quickest option, it doesn’t necessarily create the smoothest experience for your customers.
As an alternative, you can create a brand-new product template utilizing existing WooCommerce block and block patterns in the WordPress page editor.
Here, all you need to do is go to Page – Add New and incorporate the shortcode into a layout that works best for you.
Method 2: Using Your Page Builder With Funnelkit
Alternatively, you can use Funnelkit to create attractive landing pages featuring both your product information and an on-page checkout form.
Here’s how it works:
A. Install Funnelkit
Install and activate the Funnelkit plugin on your WordPress site.
You can install the free version from your dashboard by going to Plugins – Add New and searching for Funnelkit, or right ahead and sign-up for FunnelKit Premium.
B. Create a New Funnel
Next, navigate to Funnelkit – Funnels.
Later, this is where you’ll find all of the funnels you’ve created. For now, it’s time to create your first one by tapping the Create Funnel button.
Give your new funnel a name, select any steps you want to add to it, and click done.
C. Select a Checkout Template
You’ll now find yourself on the template selection page, where you’ll find a variety of pre-designed checkout designs built for different page builders.
Here, your options include:
- Elementor
- Divi
- Oxygen
- Gutenberg (select Block Editor for this option)
- Bricks.
Once you’ve found a template you like, tap Import This Template.
Finally, name your funnel and click Done.
Using a different page builder that Funnelkit doesn’t have templates for?
Not a problem. You can simply grab a shortcode to add a checkout form to any page on your site.
D. Edit Your Template
Importing the template will take you the Steps page, which lists each individual step in the funnel template.
Here, we’re focusing on the one-page checkout step included in the Hific template.
To rename your checkout page or alter the URL, click on the horizontal menu and select edit.
From there, double-click on the name of your checkout step to access more options.
Start on the design tab, where you can edit the look and layout of your template in either your page builder or the WordPress editor.
Here’s where you can replace the default placeholders with your own content and refine the style to suit your branding.
E. Customize Form Fields
Next, scroll down to the Checkout Form Fields tab where you can add, remove, and customize fields to create as efficient a checkout process as possible.
F. Add Products
You then need to click on the Products tab and search for a product from your existing inventory.
When you do this, the product is automatically added to the checkout form, further reducing friction for customers by removing the need to manually add it to their cart.
G. Configure Optimizations
Finally, head to Optimizations and enable the Express Checkout option.
This adds a simple one-click payment option that sends users directly to enter their payment details and confirming their order.
Method 3: Custom Development
Creating a custom template requires more technical experience than the other two methods, but it also gives you the complete freedom to create a page that blends perfectly with the rest of your website.
Here’s what to do:
A. Open Up Your Theme Folder
Use whichever method you normally use to access your WordPress files, whether that’s an FTP client, your hosting provider’s file management tools, or another solution.
What you’re looking for is the folder that houses your active WordPress theme. This is typically stored within wp-content/themes.
For example, if you’re using Astra, you would go to wp-content/themes/astra.
B. Create a New PHP File
Within that folder, create a new blank PHP file with a logical name that you’ll recognize, such as one-page-check-out.php.
C. Set the New Page as a Template
Open up your PHP file and paste the following code:
<?php
/* Template Name: One Page Checkout */
get_header();
This registers the page as a template in WordPress.
D. Use WooCommerce Hooks to Create Your Checkout Page
With your new template file ready, you’ll need to add WooCommerce hooks to display the product selection and checkout form on the same page.
At a bare minimum, you’ll want to include the following hooks:
<?php
// Display a product list for customers to choose from
do_action(‘woocommerce_before_shop_loop’);
// Add product selection here or a specific product
echo do_shortcode(‘[products limit=”4″]’); // Adjust the number of products as needed
// Display checkout form
do_action(‘woocommerce_checkout’);
?>
Using this code product selection area and the checkout form are on the same page. Feel free to adjust the product limits or customize these hooks to better suit your site.
E. Ensure proper handling of form submissions and order processing
WooCommerce is designed to handle order submission and processing through its default checkout page, so you’ll need to ensure that your custom template can integrate with these functions properly.
You can do this with the following hook:
<?php
// Ensure WooCommerce processes the checkout submission on the same page
do_action(‘woocommerce_after_checkout_form’, $checkout);
F. Style Your Page
Finally, use CSS to add style elements to your template or customize it using your page builder of choice before testing it using the process in the next section.
Testing the One-Page Checkout
Before you introduce your new and easy checkout process to the world, you need to confirm that it actually works.
Make a few simple test purchases of your own to ensure that the basic functionality operates as expected.
As you do so, put yourself in your customer’s shoes.
- Is this really simpler?
- Is the checkout process intuitive on all devices, especially mobile smartphones?
- Are there any hiccups along the way that you’ll need to correct?
Better yet, solicit feedback from actual customers about their experiences with the new checkout process. Perhaps you could offer a discount coupon to those who take the time to complete a quick survey.
If your testing and user feedback reveal room for improvement, consider making those improvements before you go fully live with your newly optimized checkout process.
Optimizing the Checkout Experience
Now that you’re live, you can further enhance the checkout experience by:
Optimizing for Performance
Your checkout process may be simpler, but is it really quicker?
To find out, run another speed test and compare your results to those you generated prior to changing your checkout process.
Of course, adding new functionality is likely to impact performance, but this impact should be marginal at most. If your page is now taking significantly longer to load, there may be issues to address or it may simply be that your overall site performance needs an upgrade.
Use A/B Testing to Identify Incremental Improvements
Finally, just because you’ve made one big improvement to your store’s checkout journey, that doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller improvements still to be made that could boost your conversion rates even further.
Learn how to run A/B split tests on WordPress and experiment with different layouts and checkout fields to see which yields the best results.
It might be that adding the checkout form to the right of the page produces more sales than leaving it below the main description.
Or perhaps there’s a certain color or CTA for your ‘Buy Now’ buttons that convert more than others.
Run tests on every element of the checkout process and make the highest converter your default. Over time, you should begin to see your abandoned cart rates plummet with each incremental improvement.
Setting up One-Page Checkout for WooCommerce: Key Takeaways
So, there you have it:
Everything you need to know to reduce cart abandonment and boost conversions by configuring one-page checkout in WooCommerce.
To finish, let’s recap the most important lessons to take away from this guide:
- 22% of customers don’t complete a checkout session due to the process taking too long or being too complicated – Switching to one-page checkout reduces the time and number of steps needed to buy a product which could increase the number of completed purchases.
- There are three options for implementing one-page checkout – Use a plugin like One-Page Checkout for WooCommerce, use Funnelkit with your page builder, or build your own custom templates using WooCommerce blocks.
- Test, Optimize, and Test Again – Ensure your new checkout process works correctly on all devices, doesn’t slow down your page load speeds, and provides a truly streamlined experience for your customers.
If you’re looking for expert assistance to implement these changes or further optimize your WooCommerce store, our white-label WooCommerce developers can help.
Looking for more ways to turbocharge your online store sales? Get our free ebook with 100 WooCommerce conversion optimization tips.