How to Customize the Checkout Page in Shopify
Shopify’s checkout is well-designed, optimized, and effective - but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. If you want to provide the best customer checkout experience, you need a Shopify custom checkout.
Looking to grow revenue, increase average order values, and optimize your conversions? Keep reading to learn how to customize the checkout page in Shopify.
Why it’s worth customizing your Shopify page
Customizing your Shopify page benefits both you and your customers.
They’ll enjoy an improved shopping experience with consistent branding, a streamlined checkout experience, and customizations like alternative shipping options that make getting their products and services a breeze.
You’ll increase your shop’s average order values with upsells and cross-sells while reducing your cart abandonment rate by simplifying their role in checkout and building trust.
Plus, with the right app, it’s easy to make effective changes without any experience required.
Shopify vs Shopify Plus checkout customization options
While all Shopify plans give you access to Shopify’s basic checkout editor, only Shopify Plus lets you customize all aspects of the checkout process.
As a Shopify Plus user, you can:
- Use the Branding API to style your checkout for a consistent experience
- Improve your shop’s functionality with custom apps and a higher API limit
- Add trust elements and other unique modules to improve your conversion rate
- Use conditions to control which fields show based on location or cart contents
- Build custom discounts like bundling or volume discounts
These additions mean more sales, higher AOV, and a better customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.
How to create a customized Shopify checkout page
When you’re ready to design your Shopify custom checkout, you have a few options to consider. The right choice will depend on your needs and your Shopify plan, but you’re likely to use a combination of these strategies to achieve the best results.
Theme editor
All Shopify stores use a theme that sets the structure and outline of your online store. The theme will change layouts, fonts, colors, elements you can use, and much more to be uniform and consistent throughout the site for the easiest use. This includes the checkout page.
By accessing your settings, going to checkout, and choosing to customize checkout, you’ll gain access to a variety of basic elements and styling that you can edit for your checkout. Things like logos, banners, colors, fonts, and button styling are all customizable with a limited interface that can allow you to make Shopify’s checkout a bit more branded.
But, the theme editor alone is not sufficient for more customizations - especially if you’re trying to optimize for conversions or increase your AOV.
Checkout Extensibility and Checkout.liquid
For Shopify Plus merchants, Checkout Extensibility (and previously checkout.liquid) provide the ability to make more in-depth changes to your site. They’re both frameworks for how your checkout page and process will look and function.
Checkout.liquid allows you to edit your theme’s checkout page by going to your theme and changing the page’s code directly. Here you could add elements, change styling, and much more - but you’d need to have coding experience to make sure you didn’t break anything. However, checkout.liquid will be completely deprecated on August 13, 2024, so you’ll need to make the switch to Checkout Extensibility.
Checkout Extensibility is the newer version of checkout that makes it easy to customize elements and the design of your checkout page using apps. Through native features and checkout extensions, you can easily implement just about any visual or functional change to your site that you need to. This could be something as simple as easily changing styling that the theme editor can’t access or being able to add a powerful Shopify upsell at checkout to increase AOV and revenue.
Use a customization app built for Shopify
Apps are the simplest way to customize your store as a whole, including the checkout process. They’re built by developers to edit a wide range of aspects of your checkout page which can include adding, removing, styling, or totally overhauling the page to fit your needs. The only limitation that apps have is that you need to find an app that does what you need, which isn’t always available.
To add apps, all you have to do is navigate to the Shopify app store and add them to your store. They’ll have a user interface to help you use them so that you can make changes yourself without the need for coding experience, making them accessible for all store owners.
Best practices for customizing your Shopify checkout page
Ready to make your Shopify custom checkout page the best it can be? Here are some crucial elements to add:
Upsell options
Do you want to generate more revenue by increasing AOV on your site? Then an upsell at checkout on Shopify is for you.
Upsells and cross-sells are simple but effective ways to increase profits by getting customers to spend more money in your store. They usually consist of a discounted upgrade or additional complementary product that makes sense with the primary item they’re purchasing - or any other way to increase the value of the sale.
Upselling and cross-selling can be used at various points of the checkout process, including the cart page, checkout, and post-purchase pages. The right Shopify upsell app will also make it easy for you to create your own offers, use data to generate recommendations for offers to make, and allow you to place the offer at prime locations so that you can achieve the best results.
Important product information
If you want a successful checkout process, you need to do everything you can to avoid customers leaving the checkout page. Once they leave, it’s much harder to close the sale.
As part of your Shopify custom checkout additions, be sure to include important information that’s easily accessible so that customers don’t go looking for it. Return policies, guarantees, shipping information, and FAQs are all elements to consider adding to your checkout page.
Trust badges
A quarter of all cart abandonments are due to a lack of trust, or customers feeling like they cannot trust your shop with their credit card information.
Simply displaying the Norton “secured” badge or featuring the logos of trusted payment gateways such as Visa, MasterCard, or American Express can build your customers’ comfort and confidence so they’re more willing to make a purchase.
Custom fields
Adding more fields creates a more complete checkout experience that doesn't require you to follow up with customers to collect more information.
If the customer has any specific requests, customizations they want, or delivery instructions they need to provide, implementing custom fields allows them to provide this information at the time of their order. With some checkout extensions, you can also use custom fields to add a calendar to your checkout page, letting customers select the delivery date for their items.
Reviews
You’ve almost closed the sale, but with the inherent risks of online shopping, how does your customer know your business can be trusted? That uncertainty can be enough to cost you the sale as they switch tabs to enter your business name plus ‘legit’ into Google for more information.
Social proof like reviews can help build trust with new customers and earn you the conversion.
Display conditions
Every sale is different, so it helps to be able to customize the checkout experience based on who’s checking out. With custom display conditions, you can add another layer of personalization to your store that also helps you manage purchases.
You can use a checkout extension to change the available shipping and payment options you offer based on things like cart totals and customer locations.
If the purchase is a high amount, you may want to point them to a payment method with added verifications. If they’re not local customers, you can remove ‘pay on delivery’ or ‘hand delivery’ options to avoid confusion.
Plus, you can control who is allowed to check out based on cart contents or other conditions, allowing you to limit purchases for limited drops or prevent checkout until they accept your terms.
Timer bar
Use FOMO, or fear of missing out, to your advantage. Time-sensitive phrases like “while supplies last” or “one-time offer” demonstrate scarcity and encourage your customers to quickly take action.
Adding a countdown timer to sales or upsell and cross-sell offers on your checkout page can also encourage customers to accept offers instead of second-guessing their decisions, and that sense of urgency can drive more conversions.
Shipping protection
For your customers’ peace of mind (and your own), Shopify offers shipping insurance for all orders shipped from the United States using labels purchased through Shopify Shipping. Shopify Plus stores get up to $200 of coverage for free with Shopify Payments, which you can pass onto your customers.
You can also offer the option for customers to add additional shipping protection through a third-party app or with Shopify’s Shipsurance offer for added peace of mind.
Frequently asked questions
Is your return policy clear? What about your shipping and processing times? Customers are more willing to make a purchase when important information is available up-front so they don’t have to chase down answers to their most basic questions.
The harder it is to find your FAQ, the more likely your customer is to abandon their cart – or abandon your shop altogether. To drive conversion rates, keep relevant questions (and their answers) easily accessible on your checkout page so customers don’t have to leave the page.
Maintain consistent branding throughout
Whether you’re a multinational corporation or a small e-commerce business, your branding plays a significant role in the way your customers interact with your business. An efficiently customized and crafted checkout page that aligns with your business helps to build trust with your potential customers - and in online sales, trust is everything.
If your branding is too erratic or inconsistent, you risk looking unprofessional and raising red flags that may be enough to turn a customer away. Plus, if it looks like your checkout page is for an entirely different brand (or isn’t customized at all), the rest of your checkout optimizations will be for nothing.
Aim to maintain a similar font and color scheme throughout the entire custom checkout process. Adding a logo to reassure potential customers that they’re in the right place can also help to address concerns.
Use pixels for customer behavior tracking
When trying to maximize your conversion rate, information is essential. The more information and feedback you receive relating to your Shopify custom checkout process, the better you can refine it.
With Shopify pixels, you’re able to track exactly what your potential customer is doing during checkout. Are they reaching the shipping page and leaving because of the costs or delivery date? Is your checkout process too intimidating to even begin? Do you not have enough payment options for the customer?
All of these answers tell you what parts of the process need to be changed and show you where you can improve conversions.
Use a one-page checkout
One of the most common reasons online shoppers abandon carts is that the checkout process is too long or complicated. Rather than clicking through multiple pages to enter their account login, credit card information, and shipping address, your customers want to be able to complete their purchases as efficiently as possible.
Simplicity is key to earning conversions. A one-page checkout requires less effort on your customers’ part and allows them to input their shipping, billing, and payment info all on one page. It also prevents customers from abandoning their carts between loading screens.
Add a why choose us section
Unless your business caters to a very niche audience, there’s a high likelihood that other businesses are offering similar products at a similar price point. If a customer has any last-minute doubts, they may second-guess their purchase and leave, never to return.
With a ‘Why Choose Us’ section, you can tell customers what sets you apart and what guarantees you offer to help solidify their decision to shop with you.
Use multiple payment options
Everyone has a preferred payment method, and offering multiple options increases your chances of a conversion. Additionally, express options like ShopPay or PayPal allow your customers to breeze through the checkout process, making them more likely to make a purchase.
Also, consider offering split payment options that allow customers to make multiple payments over time so they can still complete a purchase without the stress of making a major investment.
Don’t overload your checkout page
The more information you require from customers, the less likely they are to complete their purchase. Shorter forms that eliminate unnecessary fields have been proven to generate higher conversion rates,
Plus, adding excessive elements to your checkout page, like images, text, banners, or unnecessary checkout fields makes it harder to find the important elements, making high-value elements like upsells stick out less. These additions may lead to confusion that prevents shoppers from placing their orders quickly, reducing conversion rates.
UpsellPlus: your trusted custom checkout app
Your checkout page is a crucial element of your online business. You need to move leads through the checkout process to secure the sale, so if you’re not inspiring action with your page, you need a Shopify custom checkout.
By including essential information and reassurances on your checkout page, you’ll convert more leads. But, your custom checkout doesn’t just need to convert sales - it should also help you generate them.
UpsellPlus is the best Shopify upsell app for your store that can help you make the most of your checkout conversion optimization. It will help you to build effective Shopify upsells and cross-sells so that you can increase your average order value and maximize profitability. UpsellPlus can also be easily branded to fit your store so that you ensure cohesion and uniformity that instills confidence in your customers.
Get started with a free trial today.
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