The Art of Seamless Checkout Pages and Shopping Experiences

Checkout pages, also referred to as payment pages, allow buyers to complete their purchase. Any time they click a “buy now” button while shopping on your website or payment link, the checkout page takes the stage.

A hosted checkout page refers to a page hosted by your payments provider or another third party. There are several benefits to using hosted checkout pages.

• They are typically more secure as providers must adhere to strict, higher-level compliance regulations than most businesses.

• They offer a fully optimized checkout flow.

• They provide a convenient environment for customers to input their payment details.

• They can significantly reduce development time and costs for your business.

You also have the option to build and host your own checkout page, which gives you complete control over aesthetics and functionality. The disadvantage of this approach is that it increases your costs and compliance burden, requires more development time and resources, and slows down time to market.

If you’re like most e-commerce businesses, you put a lot of effort into optimizing your website and creating a user-friendly storefront that encourages shoppers to buy. But often, the checkout page isn’t given the same treatment.

This is a mistake.

Why? Two words: checkout abandonment.

The checkout page is where most would-be buyers jump ship and switch destinations.

Buyers are on a journey

Think of online buyers as tourists exploring the big virtual world and your store as a tourist attraction. While there are lots of tourists, there’s also an abundance of attractions. Whether a tourist has a set itinerary or they’re casually exploring, your job is to capture, and most importantly, hold their attention.

But this is where things get tricky.

As an online “attraction,” it’s much easier for buyers to move on to the next big thing if they aren’t getting the experience they’re looking for. Even if they’ve gone as far as adding a product or service to their cart, it can all be left hanging in the wind if the checkout experience isn’t seamless.

The best chance of preventing buyers from abandoning checkout is with an optimized checkout page.

The most effective way to get buyers to the finish line is a smart page design. While aesthetics are important, buyers care most about speed and convenience. You want your page to match your brand and be visually appealing, but you don’t want to distract from the purpose of the page—which is to complete the transaction.

The best checkout pages take the less is more approach.

For example, a checkout page with heavy graphics can create slower load times or even confuse the buyer when all they want to do is pay. At this stage in the journey, it’s better to take a minimalist approach with a clear call to action.

With a provider like Finix, you have access to prebuilt, securely hosted checkout pages designed for conversions that you can white label to match your business’s look and feel. We also include all the elements a buyer needs to see throughout the checkout process, such as product images and details. This helps create consistent experiences and instills trust in your brand—all while maintaining a minimalistic style.

When it comes to payment information, less is more here too.

Be cautious about the amount of information or effort you require from customers at checkout. A survey by the Baymard Institute found that 18% of checkout abandonments resulted from overly long or complicated processes.

To avoid issues like this, good form design is key. You can still get the information you need using an optimized and logical flow that leads the buyer to the “complete purchase” button.

Here’s how checkout pages look at Finix:

Always keep buyers in the know

You can also reduce abandonment with embedded data validation and input error notifications in your payment fields. Doing this ensures customers see an input error right away, rather than after trying to complete their transaction.

Another thing to keep in mind is transparency. Make sure your customers always know shipping details and final costs. Not being able to calculate their final total causes as much as 17% of customers to drop mid-checkout (Baymard).

How payment pages work behind the scenes

It doesn’t stop at front-end page design. How your payment page operates on the back end is just as important. Your page needs to be fueled by a fast and reliable payment processor. The longer the payment process takes, the more likely a customer is to abandon the process without completing the purchase.

Here’s how the technical side of checkout pages works at Finix:

When a buyer initiates a purchase and fills out the checkout form, your system sends the details to Finix. The Finix API automatically creates the checkout page and returns the page URL to you.

Your system then sends the buyer to the checkout page, where they can enter their payment details and complete their purchase. After the transaction is complete, the buyer is redirected to your website.

All of this happens seamlessly behind the scenes in seconds. As far as the buyer is concerned, they never left your site and their purchase was almost instantaneous.

The most crucial thing to remember is that the page your buyers land on to complete a purchase can make or break the sale. You don’t want to neglect this stage of the buyer’s journey because when push comes to shove, it’s this final stage that matters most.

Checkout page best practices:

• Clean, simplified page design

• Distraction-free page

• Conversion-optimized payment form

• Custom fields for different payment use cases

• Data validation and input error messages

• Transparency with shipping and purchase details

• Secure data handling

• Reduced PCI compliance burden

• White label capabilities to keep your brand at the forefront

• No-code/low-code options for easier integration

• Support for multiple payment methods

• Responsive design for different screen sizes

Following these guidelines will help you provide better experiences for your customers and lead to higher checkout conversion rates for your business. And that’s a win-win in our book!