Custom Shopify Checkout App Development: Optimizing Checkout Experience

Around 61% of carts are abandoned on the checkout phase and in mCommerce with the rate being as high as 85.65% the checkout optimization plays a crucial role in a business’s overall success.

Hence, the revamp of the general Checkout pages to deliver a better user experience is a must for eCommerce merchants to survive in the competition. Further, with platforms such as Shopify offering unique and customizable checkout pages implementing a Shopify custom checkout experience can prove to be a profitable endeavor and help them in providing a better user experience.

Reasons to Develop Shopify Custom Checkout App

To empower e-commerce merchants in implementing a perfect checkout experience Shopify already provides an easy-to-use checkout page. Custom Shopify app development companies can further aid merchants in improving the Shopify checkout page by introducing features such as automatic address suggestions, storing card information, etc in their Shopify custom checkout app. This can aid sellers in improving their overall checkout process, which might cause a significant decrease in the cart abandonment rate as well. 

Recently, one of our cherished clients also decided to take their Checkout experience to the next level with a custom-designed Shopify Checkout app. For this, we implemented a number of custom features to optimize the checkout experience for both website and mobile devices.

Shopify Custom Checkout: The Project Plan

Generally, when a customer places an order on the Shopify website, he is taken to a secure checkout page in Shopify where the following steps take place:

(i) A customer fills in the shipping information which includes the delivery address.

(ii) The customer then chooses the appropriate shipping method: standard ground, expedited ground, or the airway bill.

(iii) After this, he chooses a payment type such as credit payment, debit payment, wallets, or cash on delivery.

(iv) An order preview is generated.

(v) Lastly, when the order is completed, a ‘Thank You’ page is displayed to the customer.

After carefully analyzing these default Shopify checkout features, we decided that we could further provide simplicity and speed to the Shopify checkout app experience to help the client in decreasing the cart abandonment rate.

Further, Our team of expert developers at The Brihaspati Infotech decided to optimize the Custom Shopify checkout features for the web browser and mobile devices as well. Since a large fraction of buyers mainly use mobile devices to access products and services.

Key Features in the Custom Checkout App

After hours of discussion and debates our team decided that to amp up the conversion and decrease the cart abandonment rate we will implement the following features for the Shopify custom checkout app:

1. Address Suggestion

Google Maps Suggestion integration is one of the most effective features for improving the experience of the Shopify Checkout app. With the help of this functionality, users can access full address suggestions based on the characters entered. This makes the filling of checkout form much faster for users which in turn speeds up the purchase process.

2. Integrating Multiple Payment Methods

With the emergence of digital wallets, the cash payment modes are taking a back seat these days. To facilitate this changing scenario, we also made the Shopify custom checkout app compatible with different payment methods as well. As a result, with the help of a custom checkout Shopify app, buyers were able to make payments easily with their chosen payment method.

3. Making visually appealing by using Trust Badges

The trust badges can add an extra layer of proof for a brand’s authenticity and can have significant effects on the overall conversion rates. So, we added visually appealing security badges as well in the Custom Shopify checkout app for improving the conversion rates.

30-days money-back guarantee, 100% guarantee satisfaction, and secure payment guarantee checkmarks are a few examples of the badges to make your checkout more appealing.

4. Providing better UI

The best part of the Shopify custom checkout app is that it empowers merchants to provide a pleasant and easy to navigate UI to their buyers. For this, we implemented a column layout that provided users with a guided checkout experience. This helps the customers to know which exact step they are on so that they don’t feel lost at any time of the checkout process. Adding Stepwise tabs keeps the customer motivated about completing the transaction.

5. Showcasing Discounts

Discounts rule the purchase decision of a buyer to a great extent. Hence, showcasing automatic discounts during the checkout phase in the Shopify custom checkout application can also motivate the buyer to hit the checkout button. 

Many would contest that such a level of customization is only possible in Shopify plus, the good news is our Shopify development team achieved this in Shopify.

How to modify checkout page in Shopify

After finalizing the features we needed to implement for the Shopify custom checkout app, We geared up for the development process to implement the features needed. Our development plan was divided into the following stages:

Redirecting the Buyers to Customized Shopify Checkout Page

In the default phase, the checkout information was entered in the Checkout > Additional Scripts section of admin with the default URL of https://yourstorename.myshopify.com.

However, in the case of the Shopify app to customize checkout page,  we had to redirect the buyer to our customized checkout section while preserving the URL. For this, we used Shopify’s App Proxy feature which allowed us to hide the backend functionalities from the buyers.

Using Shopify API for Passing the Cart Information to Checkout App

We used Shopify API to pass the information from the customer’s cart to the custom Shopify checkout app. The API basically transfers the product information from the cart to the Checkout page, where buyers also get to fill out the checkout form to make their purchase.

Shipping Method selection:

Request the Payment Gateway for Payment Processing

Further, to make the payment processing more convenient, secure, and faster for the users we added a local payment gateway. This process orders of the buyer based on the payment details entered by the customer.

Payment Gateway Response Page

Once the process for payment is completed by the users and we receive the response for the generated transaction, we programmatically hit the Shopify API for upgrading the transaction ID along with order details in the database

Displaying ‘Thank You’ Page

After the whole process of order completion is done, we also created an interactive and custom ‘Thank You’ Page.

After this, the transactions done by the customers are routed to the issuing bank (purchaser’s bank) for requesting transaction authorization. The payment status of orders is reflected on the local payment provider’s admin whether they are paid, pending, or cancelled. Lastly, the issuing bank or card either authorizes or declines the transaction.

Challenges During the Development Phase

Although our team has created a number of successful projects on Shopify such as Shopify product customization app, creating Shopify custom checkout was still a learning experience for us.

During the development process, Our greatest dilemma was to decide between either customizing Shopify’s pre-existing default checkout page or creating our own Shopify custom checkout app.

We could customize cart pages of Shopify by using the Default theme editor or liquid file. However, for this altering the checkout page format, which is placed at yourdomain.com followed by a number and “checkouts” can become very complicated. Further, the process of requesting Google and Shopify for adding required fields is also a very time-consuming process with high chances of rejection in it.

So, we decided that creating a custom checkout app would be a more viable solution. As the checkout page of Shopify is quite restricted in terms of its UI and security.

Advantages of Custom Shopify Checkout App

Our Shopify Custom checkout application also provided the following unique perks to our clients:

• You can integrate this custom checkout page with any payment gateway.
• Modify the page as per your business requirements.
• Integrate with any shipping gateway.
• It eliminates the need to purchase the premium Shopify Plus account by creating a custom checkout

What’s more? Upsells can be configured wherein the merchant does not use several third-party apps which adds to the complexity of the code. With the custom Shopify checkout app, customers can also add additional products to their original order with just one click without the need of entering payment info again. This can help you persuade customers to make impulse purchases.

To make the Shopify checkout app a success we used  Agile development and in-depth testing. This experience helped us to expand our own perspective and enabled our developers in acquiring a deeper understanding of the checkout process.

Conclusion

Our Shopify app to customize checkout page helped the client achieve the desired conversion goals and provide customers with a seamless and interactive checkout experience.

As of July 2021, the app caters to more than 20 global ecommerce stores to smoothen the checkout process. The experts have further customized the solution to align them with the respective stores.

If your business also needs solutions similar to the custom Shopify checkout app development, contact us now to discuss your thoughts. Hire Shopify developer from us for implementing any solution that involves third-party API integration and Shopify cart page or checkout page customization.