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Best Practices for Checkout Page Design

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Your checkout page is the final step between browsing and buying. Customers expect a checkout experience that is secure, frictionless, and intuitive, which all impact whether they finish purchasing.

This article will guide you to design a checkout page that's beautiful and functional, ensuring a seamless experience to help you earn sales. Here’s how to optimize your checkout to create a smooth, professional experience your customers will appreciate.

What makes a good checkout page?

A checkout page is your final chance to make an impression before a sale. A smooth checkout experience leads to happy customers. Someone is more likely to complete transactions with your checkout page if they feel it meets the following criteria.

  • Trustworthy: Professional, branded design

  • Secure: Secure checkout experience and payment options

  • Intuitive: Easy to follow, for a positive user experience

  • Professional: Order summary and product details clearly listed

  • Error-free: Review step before final submission

Just as delays and issues at the grocery store checkout stand can be incredibly frustrating, problems with your checkout page can discourage online shoppers. They may:

  • Get to the very end with a full shopping cart, only to abandon their purchase

  • Find your process so confusing that they exit and don’t come back

  • Make the purchase but feel dissatisfied to the point of leaving a poor review for your business or not returning

The best way to avoid these negatives is to carefully consider your checkout design to get it right. Think of online shopping experiences you’ve had. What makes them good? What makes them frustrating? Tap into your own shopping expertise to avoid pitfalls with your checkout page.

What goes on a checkout page?

A well-designed checkout page provides a seamless purchasing experience, minimizing friction that causes someone to reconsider or click away. Here are the key elements that contribute to an optimized checkout flow.

  • Guest checkout option: Offer a guest checkout option for those who want to make a quick purchase. 

  • Payment methods: Offer a variety of payment options that cater to different preferences, like card, digital wallets, or buy now, pay later options. 

  • Secure checkout: Ensure your payment tools offer secure gateways to process sensitive data.

  • Contact and shipping information: Gather essential customer information for order confirmation, shipping, and billing.

  • Order summary: Present details of products, quantities, and prices for the customer to review before finalizing their purchase.

  • Shipping options: Display shipping costs based on the order size and destination.

  • Promo code field: Allow customers to input discount codes, if applicable, before final checkout.

  • Clear progression: Guide customers through the checkout process with a progress bar or clear steps.

Checkout page design best practices

Want to create a checkout experience that delights your customers and boosts your sales? Follow these best practices to optimize your page’s design, user experience, and ability to convert shoppers.

Create clean, branded design

Keep your checkout page minimal to keep the focus on the payment process. If you’re planning to include images, like logos, make sure that they’re high quality, to reinforce your professionalism and trustworthiness.

Keep your design:

  • Easy to read and visually uncluttered

  • Mobile-device friendly

  • Intuitive from one step to the next

  • Matched to your website branding

Prioritize user experience

In Squarespace user interviews, some of the most successful entrepreneurs highlight their focus on customer experience. Identify any issues in your checkout flow by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and going through it yourself. 

As a general practice, it’s recommended to:

  • Test the checkout process regularly.

  • Ensure steps are clear to prevent confusion.

  • Find opportunities to speed up the process.

  • Ask customers only the information you need.

  • Add security features like secure SSL checkout.

Offer payment flexibility

Some people abandon the checkout process when they don’t see their favorite payment option available. For customers, it can be a matter of trust—they recognize a payment company that’s widely used—or the convenience of not having to find payment card information. 

Also consider:

  • Offering different delivery or pickup options

  • Making shipping details and pricing clear on your checkout page

  • Linking to shipping and returns information

  • Adding a discount field

Add cart abandonment features

Cart abandonment is when a customer makes it to their shopping cart or checkout page and doesn’t complete the purchase. This can happen because someone gets distracted, checkout is too slow or confusing, or because they’re second-guessing their decision to buy.

You can try to recapture these customers by setting up automatic abandoned cart emails for users who leave a transaction part way through.

With these emails, you can:

  • Remind shoppers about what they were considering and create a fear of missing out.

  • Offer a discount to convince them to come back and finish buying.

  • Share reviews or testimonials from satisfied customers.

  • Highlight flexible payment options, return policies, and benefits or value propositions.

Ways to customize a Squarespace checkout page

Every platform is a little different. Squarespace lets you make customizations to the visual design and functional details on your checkout page.

Stylistic options

We recommend customizing your checkout page with minimal color and emphasizing high contrast for easy readability. Include your logo and ensure buttons to move through steps or complete a purchase are prominent. 

Customization options include: 

  • Colors: Adjust colors for your background, title, header, and border.

  • Logo: Add your site logo, but make sure the image is clear.

  • Alignment: Choose where you want to display the title or logo relative to the header.

  • Buttons: Select colors that make buttons like Continue or Apply stand out.

Learn how to style your checkout page

Functional options

Squarespace provides robust tools to tailor your checkout process to your business needs. That might mean giving customers flexibility in delivery choices, displaying your shipping or return policies, or offering add-ons, like gift-wrapping.

Features to customize or add include:

  • Minimum order amount: Establish a minimum purchase value for orders.

  • Receipt details: Customize the information included in customer receipts.

  • Payment methods: Accept a wide range of payment options.

  • Gift options: Allow customers to include personalized gift messages with their orders or add gift wrapping for a small extra cost.

  • Delivery instructions: Provide a field for customers to specify delivery preferences or choose local pickup and delivery windows.

  • Express checkout: Streamline the checkout process for single-item purchases by letting shoppers bypass the cart.

  • Promo codes: Enable or disable a field for customers to enter promotional codes.

  • Cart abandonment emails: Configure automated emails to re-engage customers who abandon their carts.

  • Policies: Clearly display links to your terms of service, return policy, and privacy policy.

  • Custom fields: Add fields for any details you need to complete an order, like customization information.

One thing to note is that the Tax and Shipping fields will always appear at checkout for products, even if shipping is free, and even if you don’t need to collect taxes. This helps ensure shoppers are aware that there will be no surprise fees later.

Checkout page example

The checkout example above, from Squarespace’s Montclaire template, is a good example of minimal, straightforward checkout page design. The color palette isn’t distracting, and text and buttons are high visibility.

Every step of the checkout process is clear. The flow clearly leads customers through choosing delivery and payment options and displays pricing on the right throughout. Shoppers get an option to review before finalizing their purchase. Finally, there’s a small Secure SSL Checkout indication on the page, signaling to customers that their information is safe. 

Cart page vs. checkout page

While both play vital roles in online shopping, the cart and checkout pages have distinct functions. 

  • The cart page is the online shopping cart. It gives the user the opportunity to shop, add items, remove items, change quantities, and more.

  • The checkout page is the final step of the purchase. Here, the user typically provides contact info, selects payment type, applies coupons, reviews the order summary, and places the order.

Think of your cart page as the online equivalent of your grocery shopping cart, where you can add and remove things while you shop, and your checkout page functions like the checkout stand, where your purchase is finalized and payment is collected.

Both pages should match your branding and be simple to use and navigate, but how you accomplish that differs between the two.

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