Anyone using a different or custom checkout page

[yourcablestore.com]

Is anyone out there using something other than the default 3dcart checkout pages? I think the current default setup with login, create account and shipping information all on one page is a bit confusing for customers. I would like to see something more like what many of the big online merchants use which is a landing page that has all their options (Login to to account, Create account, Guest checkout and then Google / Paypal checkout).

Has anyone does something like this with their checkout pages that I can take a look at?

Also does anyone know if it is possible for 3dcart to setup a demo store or something for existing customers so changes can be tested before making the changes live to all customers?

[yourcablestore.com]

I also checked out the single page checkout page for the first time today. I don't really like single page checkout as a buyer but I find 3dcarts single checkout page pretty simple and straight forward and think it is far less confusing then the default multi step checkout pages. In particular the first checkout page in multi step is what I have a problem with. I have been having several novice shoppers run through my checkout lately along with a fellow eCommerce merchant and I have to explain to all of them how to checkout as a guest.

[cashmore]

I added text to checkout step 1 trying to explain to the customer how to use this page of the checkout. But then again, a lot of people don't read this stuff anyway :rolleyes:

I also modified the layout. I found the original was a little to cramped, so I spread things out a bit. Added a blurb on privacy and security. Included shipping policies at the bottom. Changed phone number to optional.

I welcome any suggestions or feedback as well.

[maksum]

I've done a bit of footwork on researching multi-page vs single-page checkout, including tracking conversions on my own store using one and then the other. Read through this if interested:

http://forums.3dcart.com/chit-chat/1...-checkout.html

If you just want a summary, I found single page to be no better than multi-page for conversions. Keep in mind this is just my own testing. But I did find some great sources that support that.

I customized my own checkout pages and I am pretty happy with them. One thing I implemented was a graphical progress track at the top of the pages, so customers can see where they are and what is to come. I don't know if I'm explaining what this is too well - you can just go to my site and put something in your cart and start the checkout process to see what I mean.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Good luck!

Mike

[rrw]

Charlie, I think it looks fine. As a customer, I would have no problem going through the checkout process.

Mike, I really like the custom work that you've done on your site--very clean and professional presentation. Great work!

[yourcablestore.com]

Thanks Mike. I think your checkout looks really good. How did you go about testing changes?

One of the issues I have is that all changes I make to template are live immediately. Did you have a way of testing changes before rolling them out for everyone to see?

The only thing I can think of doing right now is asking 3dcart support if they can create a non expiring demo site to test changes or signing up for a second account to test changes.

[cashmore]

Thanks for you comment, rrw.

Yes, Mike, your site looks very nice. I will have to bookmark it so I can get inspiration from some of your design :)

BTW, by default 3dcart will remove the right bar on the checkout pages while displaying the left bar and, as far as I know this behavior cannot be changed from the control panel.

Even though you have the check boxes for hide left bar and hide right bar when you go to Settings > Design > Title and Content > Check Out 1, etc., they do not work. I just went over this with tech support and they confirmed that those check boxes do not work on the checkout pages.

Well, I wanted to remove the left bar on checkout pages so customers would not get distracted by all those links in the left bar, but I wanted to display the right bar because it had all the comforting security messages, toll free number, credit card logos, etc.

In case anyone is interested, the work around I ended up using was to simply change the frame file to call out the left bar as the right bar and call out the right bar as the left bar. And, voila, the right bar is displayed and the left bar is removed on the checkout pages.

[maksum]

Thanks for the kind words! :) I appreciate it.

Thanks Mike. I think your checkout looks really good. How did you go about testing changes?

Yeah, that's one of the things I was hoping to see when I signed on with 3dcart, is some sort of "sandbox" so I could freely play around and see how things look without the rest of the world seeing. Perhaps this is something they will implement, but for now we just have to throw it up there and let the public see things as we mess around :) When I was tweaking things I just tried to do so late at night when fewer people were shopping.

Nowadays, since my designed is pretty much nailed down, any tweaks I make are so minor that it's no big deal to do it at any time.

Hope that helps.

Mike

[yourcablestore.com]

Just wanted to let everyone know that the response from 3dcart support is that a copy of your site can be setup for testing and you will be charged $19.99 a month for that site (the mini plan).

[yourcablestore.com]

If anyone is interested I think I have come up with the solution I am going to use. It involves using java script to change checkout-step1.html into a two part page where you choose your checkout method (if the customer is not already logged in).

I am still working out the exact code but you can take a look at the link below. Just add a product to your cart and click checkout. Any feedback is appreciated.

https://yourcablestoretest.3dcartstores.com/

(note the credit card, Google Checkout and PayPal checkout options are live and you will be charged if you place a order that way, if you want to place a test order use the test order payment option)

Also if anyone knows how to get the create account page to redirect back to the shopping cart any help would be appreciated. It is the next thing I will be looking at since it will make the checkout process more seamless for the customer who chooses to create a account.

[mondo]

Nathan,
Found your page in work interesting and just spent time manipulating buttons so decided to play around with this.

P.S. thanks for bringing up the create account page, I missed it on my button changes. :(

Anyway I created a account on our site to see where it went (account verify page). This seems logical to review.

I would maybe suggest instead of redirecting to try placing a 'continue shopping' and 'go to check out button' on top of the verify page and see how it feels.
If they were checking out they would hit checkout and go back to the checkout page with the info filled in ready to go to shipping calc. With the redirect if the were just signing up while shopping and had nothing in the cart they would go to your cart is empty.

Just a thought.

Mike, like your checkout 1. planing on doing our similar soon w/email in shipping info but just moving the password block all by itself at the bottom.

BTY: where do your sign ups go? (didn't want to make a fake on your site)

[yourcablestore.com]

What I want to do is only redirect to the shopping cart if the customer came in from checkout step 1 otherwise the page would work like the normal create account page. I am not sure this is possible (I think I need to access the HTTP headers to do it and don't know if I can do that with java script). So I might have to try writing a separate create account page for checkout or go with your button idea.

[yourcablestore.com]

Looks like I will have to go with a link to redirect the customer back to checkout. Not a seamless solution but it is good enough.

You can use javascript to tell what page the customer came from (document.referrer). However the submit button on the page calls register.asp and then redirects to the account create page (thankyou.asp). As a result the referrer is always register.asp so you can not tell if the customer came in from checkout.

[yourcablestore.com]

Just a little update. There probably isn't enough data right now to judge the results but it has been a week since we rolled out the updated page for checkout step 1. So far there has been no significant increase or drop in conversion rates according to Google Analytics (initially there was a drop but that seems to have been temporary).

[yourcablestore.com]

Based on about a month of data in Google Analytics it looks like the changes had some impact but not a whole lot.

Our conversion rate from J1/01/2010 to 4/30/2010 was 4.21% and the conversion rate for 5/26/2009 to 6/30/2009 was
3.86%. We rolled out the change on 5/26/2010 and the conversion rate from 5/26/2010 to 6/30/2010 was 4.81%. We did run some promotions during the time period that spiked the conversion rate for short periods so I think the actual rate that can be attributed to the change is closer to 4.5%.

BTW looking at the numbers it looks like the roll out of version 3.2 had a positive impact on conversion rates. Our conversion rate from 7/01/2010 to 7/14/2010 is 6.46%.