How to skip the cart and go straight to the checkout on WordPress?
As a free eCommerce software that makes selling products and services online easier, WooCommerce bloomed in recent years. This was especially visible in the last two years after the Covid-19 pandemic when everyone started buying online.
But the recent pandemic was not the only reason for that.
Shopping online is convenient and practical and requires less effort from purchasers who can buy from their homes while on the sofa, resting after the exhausting work week. It is also faster, and the product will arrive at their address in a few days.
And because of the increase in the number of online purchases and in the number of online stores, it is becoming harder and harder to attract customers to your site. That’s why your store has to be optimized in the best way and give the best customer experience to visitors.
One of the crucial steps in that process is to optimize the checkout process, which is, at the same time, the problem for most online stores.
In this article, you will find out how to optimize your checkout process to attract more customers.
Why is it important to optimize the checkout process?
The average cart abandonment rate is 69.82%.
This is what a study by Baymard Institute found. Also, the average conversion rate for eCommerce businesses is around 2%, which shows how difficult it is to turn store visitors into buyers.
A significant number of people leave the store during their checkout process because they simply change their minds or because of the complicated checkout process.
The typical checkout process looks like the following:
- The customer adds products to the cart
- The customer goes to the cart to proceed to the checkout page
- They fill in their shipping and billing information
- Customers pick the shipping method
- They choose the payment method
- They add payment information
- They complete their purchase
As you can see, this is many steps one person has to take to order a product. So imagine what happens if this process does not run smoothly and the customer faces issues during checkout.
Yes, you are right – They are likely to leave the store and leave their cart.
If you wish to increase your conversion rate and stop leaving money on the table, you must optimize your checkout experience.
One of the most convenient and well-known strategies is through skipping the cart.
What is skipping the cart for eCommerce brands?
Skipping the cart is the way to shorten the checkout process described above. You can remove the cart page from the process in your store and take customers directly to the checkout page. This will make the purchase for customers simpler and faster, and they are less likely to leave their carts.
How to skip the cart and go straight to the checkout?
There are three possible ways to do this:
- Setting up skip the cart in a WooCommerce settings
- Installing a plugin that will enable a direct checkout tool
- Using coding snippets (requires some technical knowledge)
All of these options will get the job done, but if you want to make your customer experience easy going, and if you want something simple, installing the plugin would be the easiest solution.
Many plugins will help you set up direct checkout, but we found the easiest one to use – Direct Checkout for WooCommerce.
Below, you will find out why we think this plugin is the best option to set up direct checkout.
What is Direct Checkout for the WooCommerce plugin?
The direct Checkout plugin helps you add a direct checkout option for your products and optimize your store with only a few easy steps.
With its powerful Buy buttons, you can set up direct checkout for any product in your store. You can put this button on every page of your store (not just the product page), and when the customer clicks it, the product will be automatically added to the cart, and the customer will be taken to the checkout page.
You can set these Buy buttons for any individual products or all products in your store, but the process is the same.
This plugin is compatible with WooCommerce subscriptions, and you can also create a button for your subscription (if your business has them, of course) and put it anywhere on your webpage.
The button works with any WooCommerce product category:
- Simple products
- Variable Products
- External/Affiliate Products
- Simple Subscriptions
- Variable Subscriptions
The only thing you should pay attention to is to disable the Ajax feature for cart buttons. In case you have this enabled, the plugin won’t work.
The main advantage of this plugin is that it’s simple to install and use. Literally, you can set up a buy button if you just use the shortcode: [jemdc id=”1234″] where 1234 is the Product ID. You can find the exact code to use if you go to the Admin Product Page.
How to install Direct Checkout for WooCommerce?
As we already mentioned, installing this plugin is also easy. You will be able to activate it in 3 steps:
- Upload the zip file of the plugin to the WordPress plugin directory (the /wp-content/plugins/ directory)
- In the Plugins menu in WordPress, activate the Direct Checkout for WooCommerce
- Visit JEM Direct Checkout in WooCommerce to see the available options
And that is all. That is how you install this plugin!
Key takeaways – Why is Direct Checkout for WooCommerce the best plugin?
Direct Checkout for WooCommerce is the best option because it is simple to use. You can install in it a few easy steps and set up buy buttons that will optimize your cart experience for users. The plugin is available for all WooCommerce product categories, including subscriptions.
Key features:
- Enable direct checkout for all products in your store
- Enable checkout for certain products and create buttons just for them
Suitable for:
- Everyone, including people without any coding knowledge
