As a store owner improving your store checkout conversions can significantly impact your bottom line.
Depending on your market, you might want to set up one-page or multi-step checkout. Both types of checkouts are proven and have improved conversion rates for different online stores.
But have you ever thought about which one is best for your store?
In today’s article, I’ll compare the one-page checkout vs multi-step checkout and show you the pros and cons of each. At the end of this article, you’ll find the best checkout for your store.
Let’s explore each option in more detail to understand the difference and which would be best for your store.
On This Page
One-Page Checkout Pros and Cons
| ProsConsIt reduces cart abandonment rate. | It increases the page loading speed because all the elements are on a single page. |
| It increases the checkout speed. | It provides limited analytics. |
| It has a higher conversion rate. It may scare away potential customers because of the many fields available. | |
| It involves less number of clicks to complete the checkout process. | |
| It has fewer steps to complete the purchase. It is easy to understand because all the details are on a single page. |
Multi-Step Checkout Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| It has a clean and simple layout. | It takes time to complete the checkout. It is a slow checkout process. |
| It provides a good user experience. | It makes it difficult for customers to correct any information by navigating back and forth. |
| It does not increase the page loading speed. | The cart abandonment rate may increase if the checkout process is too long. |
| It gives better analytics. | |
| Its progress bar helps customers discover the steps left to complete the checkout. |
Comparison
1. Conversions
ElasticPath conducted an A/B test that shows one-page checkout has a higher conversion rate than the multi-step checkout.
If you run your own A/B testing, the results may differ depending upon the product, targetted market, and checkout design.
2. Checkout Speed
One-page checkout is faster to complete than the multi-step checkout. It is because users can find all the options on a single page. The users can change any information on the same page without hustling to move to another page.
But ensure you add only a few fields in one-page checkout as it will not give a good experience to customers while checking out, and they may leave the cart as well.
On the other hand, with multi-step checkout, users will need to go back and forth to change any information. They will have to wait for the next step to load and fill up the details. This takes a little bit of time and may cause cart abandonment.
It depends on your customer behavior as to which checkout to use. You can use the A/B testing feature provided by the AIO Checkout to test and find out the best checkout for your store.
4. More Clicks
It is clear that the multi-step checkout requires more clicks to complete the purchase. Hence, the chances of cart abandonment also increase.
But if you use one-page checkout, there are fewer clicks involved. The users just need to go to the cart and checkout pages to complete the purchase. The users can quickly add the products to the cart and complete the purchase without much hassle.
5. Reduce Page Loading Speed
By placing everything on one page, load times are increased. It's common for customers to abandon their online shopping carts at the first stage of the checkout process.
Customers are more likely to cancel their purchase when the page is slow to load.
With the multi-step checkout, the initial first-page load could be faster because the users can complete the checkout in multiple steps.
6. Analytics
With a multi-step checkout process, you can track where your customers drop off and improve your conversion rate with the checkout funnel.
Because the analytics tool requires multiple checkout steps to collect the necessary information, it is harder to obtain this data if your online store only has a single-page checkout.
7. Good User Experience
The checkout procedure is broken down into multiple stages with the multi-step checkout. Customers may feel more relaxed by the fewer fields required at each stage.
In addition, the checkout progress bar shows the customer how far they have progressed through the process and how many steps remain before the order is complete.
With a multi-page checkout, customers have to go back and forth to find the page they need, making it more tedious to make changes.
Also, for instance, when a customer clicks back to a previous page on a Shopify-built store, the inputted information is lost. This is the case with the default checkout. This could be a problem for somebody who isn't enthusiastic about making a purchase online.
Which One is Better?
One-Page Checkout
For digital and downloadable goods, the convenience of a single-page checkout is invaluable. Users can enter their address and shipping information, so your checkout process will be streamlined.
As a bonus, one-page checkouts are great for businesses with many repeat customers or registered users who frequently make purchases.
Finally, one-page checkout typically works better for inexpensive items, even though more and more people are shopping online.
Multi-Step Checkout
In general, multi-step checkout processes are more useful for higher-priced items or those that require more careful consideration.
Customers are more at ease with their purchases when they can verify their order details, shipping address, and price before committing to them.
To make the most of this, ensure customers can review their data before moving on to the next section of the checkout process.
How to Create One-Page or Multi-Step Checkout in WooCommerce?
Although, Woocommerce has a decent checkout page that can be used for any online store. You can optimize it by creating custom checkout pages.
I have already created guides to help you with this. Following are the guides you can follow to optimize the default WooCommerce Checkout.
Conclusion
Both checkouts can be great for your business, but it depends on your goals and the product type you are selling. One-page checkout is best for you if you sell digital products and don’t need deep analytics.
While if you sell expensive things and want a lot more information and analytics, then you should use multi-step checkouts.
Check out the WooCommerce All-in-One plugin to help you create both types.
