What is one-click checkout and how can it benefit your business?

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To push customers closer to purchase completion, retailers pull from a diverse bag of tricks. From attention-grabbing window displays to floor tiles psychologically oriented to direct you towards the checkout, brick-and-mortar stores deploy strategies that turn browsing shoppers into paying customers. E-commerce outlets don’t have access to the same real estate, but there are still methods that can be implemented to guide your customers towards a frictionless transaction.

And in the intensely saturated e-commerce market, a seamless buying experience isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ — it’s a non-negotiable.

This is because the average checkout requires customers to make 22 distinct clicks before completing — but now more than ever, online shoppers aren’t committing to such an arduous process. Instead, they will simply navigate away from your site and shop with a more straightforward seller.

What is one-click checkout?

As the name suggests, one-click checkout is a purchasing process that requires users to make just one click to buy their cart of goods online.

A one-step checkout enables customers to complete their transaction without any extra hassle, instead of having to fill out any lengthy shipping, billing or contact detail forms each time they shop with a specific store. This way, the customer journey is simplified — reducing the time and effort it takes to complete a purchase and removing the single largest friction point that stops a sale in its tracks.

In recent years, one-click checkout has grown increasingly popular among merchants. Amazon first patented the system back in 1999, and subsequently sued any other retailers that attempted to emulate a fast one-click checkout akin to their own. This is just one of the factors that has made Amazon the retail juggernaut it is — while other e-commerce platforms had to make do with comparably sluggish checkout processes in the meantime.

However, the patent expired in 2017, and some of the most popular e-commerce sites have since introduced their own iteration of the system. Now, e-commerce stores of all sizes and verticals can capitalise on the benefits of a truly streamlined, truly fast one-click checkout experience.

How does one-step checkout work?

The exact details of the one-step checkout process will vary a little depending on the provider. However, each maintains the same core tenets: storing customer information on a secure network and automatically passing on this info to the merchant when a shopper presses the ‘buy now’ button.

So, what does that process look like? To answer this question, we need to take a look at the checkout journey through the lens of a shopper.

It might go a little something like this:

1. The shopper browses the e-commerce store and finds items they like.
2. They add these goods to their virtual shopping cart.
3. They click (or tap, if they’re on mobile) the one-step checkout button.
4. They provide their basic billing and shipping information if it’s their first transaction with the provider. No password is needed, and the information is saved and never asked for again.
5. The purchase is completed.

The first time that a shopper uses Simpler, for example, this is what they’ll see.

And when they return to use it a second time, or a third or a fourth, it’s even more straightforward.

With Simpler’s one-click checkout, there’s strictly no re-entry of the data a shopper has already provided. In one condensed window, our secure platform auto-fills their preferred shipping and payment details so that they never have to fill out a tedious checkout form on your site again. We’re partnered with more than 1,000 online stores so that when customers see Simpler on a checkout page, they know they can make their purchase in seconds.

This might have left you with a couple of questions, however, so let’s take a look at some FAQs.

1. Will shoppers have to re-enter their information on every new store they visit?

No. When shoppers check out with Simpler, they’ll only need to provide their basic information the first time that they use the service — no matter what merchant site they’re using it on. This means that users can avoid making a new account for every online store they shop with, which is key in the fight to reduce cart abandonment.

Instead, shoppers who have purchased from any other store using Simpler can complete their purchase with one click — and an average turnaround time of just six seconds.

2. Why doesn’t one-click checkout require usernames or passwords?

The magic behind one-click checkout isn’t really magic at all — it’s called payment tokenisation. This is a security technique that protects sensitive payment information when it’s transferred online. It works by replacing a shopper’s actual payment card details, such as their card number, expiration date and security number, with a uniquely assigned code, or ‘token’.

Each time a shopper makes a payment, their token is used for the transaction, rather than their actual payment details. This means that your payment system can securely process the purchase without the customer having to re-enter their card info.

How could your business benefit from one-click checkout?

One-click checkout systems offer countless benefits on either side of the buying process. On the customer side of the transaction, users have grown accustomed to one-click checkout for benefits such as:

• Convenient repeat purchasing
• Mobile-friendly transactions
• Less time-consuming checkout
• Enhanced user experience
• Secure payment gateways
• Reduce cart abandonment

However, one-click checkout also offers a host of benefits to the merchants. Let’s take a closer look at what a fast one-click checkout can do for your business.

1. Reduce the length of your shoppers’ journey

In its current state, your store’s checkout page could be turning customers away. Lengthy forms for contact, billing and shipping details, account registration and poor optimisation can add friction during the final moments of purchase, prompting customers to terminate the process. 

If checkout is unnecessarily time-consuming or complicated, your prospective customers may grow frustrated, run out of time, or begin to dwell on the necessity of their purchase — leading to a decrease in impulse buys.

One-click checkout eliminates up to 90% of the steps involved in a traditional checkout, reducing the time spent and improving the overall user experience. It allows customers to check out directly from the product listing page rather than following the tedious traditional checkout sequence.

Compared to standard checkout, it’s frictionless; even for first-time users. Simpler’s one-click checkout platform has minimal fields and requires as little personal information from your buyer as possible to complete the order. On average, it takes first-time shoppers half the time to complete a fast one-click checkout form than it does a regular checkout. In fact, we have seen over 70% of orders come from the product and cart pages as shoppers find it extremely easy to complete the purchase directly rather than pass through several other steps.

2. Lower your cart abandonment rate

A high cart abandonment rate suggests that your checkout process is stopping users from completing their purchases. We’ve written a whole guide about why customers abandon their shopping carts, which you can read here — but one of the largest determining factors is a complicated checkout process, accounting for 7 out of 10 shoppers who terminate the purchase after adding to their carts.

A one-click checkout process bridges the gap between browsing and buying, offering a frictionless path towards conversion. While adding to their cart may be painless for users, completing the transaction may not be. By streamlining the checkout process and removing the labour of setting up an account, filling the cart and completing endless forms, you could minimise your cart abandonment rate and prevent your shoppers from withdrawing from their purchase during those last steps.

Simpler’s one-click checkout platform can effectively reduce cart abandonment by 20%, protecting your long-term revenue and creating lifetime customers out of your prospective shoppers.

3. Increase your site conversion rate

Bringing traffic to your website is an investment — and a large one at that. Across paid ads, social media, print marketing and more, your omnichannel advertising efforts are made worthless if the visitors they bring to your site aren’t converting into paying customers. This lowers the return on investment attained from marketing and increases the cost of acquiring customers who might never again re-enter your sales pipeline.

Increasing your conversion rate with one-click checkout helps you to capitalise on the investment you’ve already made to bring traffic to your site, making the most of what you already have.

Streamlining the customer buying process is one of the most effective ways to boost conversion rates because shoppers are much more likely to complete a process that is easy for them to complete. With Simpler, merchants have seen up to a 35% increase in conversions within just a few weeks of installation.

And that's not to mention the lifetime value taken from the customer once they’ve made a purchase — with Simpler resulting in 66% higher repurchase rates, too. In tandem, these effects have resulted in a massive improvement in overall revenue for our partners.

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4. Incentivise low-cost purchases

Certain markets present a more viable opportunity to reap the rewards of one-click checkout. One example is in low-ticket purchases — your consumables, clothes, personal care products, etc. These lower-value goods are purchased both more casually and more regularly than larger-ticket wares like furniture or other electronics. The reason is, customers find it easier to justify a quick, small cost than a larger one, and so will be more likely to check out low-value purchases with one-click checkout than they will a high-value cart.

Shoppers need a little more time to deliberate over the more expensive purchases, so offering one-click checkout if you work across these verticals may not be so effective in increasing sales. However, for smaller price points, customers neither need nor want to overthink their purchases. As a result, implementing a one-step checkout can help you to build a brand-loyal customer base, increasing your long-term sales and revenue.

With Simpler, first-time customers have to enter their basic personal information just one time, and after this, we’ll do the heavy lifting to pre-fill all the forms that you need to get their goods to them. This way, you can make your store the go-to retailer for convenient, efficient purchases — and your customers will return to order their necessities without any of the hassle.

Add one-click checkout to your store with Simpler

Time and time again, off-putting checkout processes are a blind spot for otherwise well-oiled e-commerce platforms. Online shoppers expect efficiency in their buying experience, and if your store won’t provide it, there’s a familiar outlet out there that will. Even if your product or service is superior, ease trumps everything else.

So, as one-click checkout becomes the norm across the e-commerce landscape, your business could benefit from its implementation — lowering your cart abandonment rate, increasing conversions, and driving revenue growth in, quite literally, the click of a button.

This is where Simpler comes in.

Our one-click checkout platform is the simplest way for your customers to shop online. Driving 35% more conversions than the average checkout, we’re the ones to beat when it comes to removing friction from the customer experience. Simpler integrates all major payment options, including buy now, pay later schemes and digital wallets, and stores preferred shipping and billing methods for use every time that a buyer visits your site.

But we don’t just provide a good user experience for your customer — we’ve got you covered, too. Simpler can be installed on your website within minutes, and supports all major e-commerce platforms.

When you’re ready to get started with Simpler, get in touch with us and learn more about how the simplest checkout platform on the market can unlock your business’ growth potential.

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