Ultimento’s Optimized Magento Check-Out Extension

Magento checkout extensions are always very popular. Once you have peaked the interest of your customer and they have selected the product they want, you do not want to lose them because of a cumbersome checkout process!

The problem is that many Magento checkout extensions are potentially harmful to conversion rates and checkout usability.  Several Magento checkout extensions we’ve seen out there are very bad in terms of load speed, conversions, and stability.

Others just make it too complicated: You should only have one step for the check-out but make it easy to use!

Don’t combine checkout steps into a single crowded step

We have no idea why so many checkout extensions we see combine the checkout steps into a crowded 3-column design and promote this as if it’s a positive thing.

Here’s a screenshot taken from one such extension to illustrate the point:

Even the savviest shopper can get confused with such a layout! Not to mention most internet shoppers are eager to complete their purchase quickly and move on. Which fields are you supposed to fill out first? Why are there so many options everywhere? It’s really overwhelming – especially if you’re just buying a shirt or a pair of shoes!  It doesn’t get much worse in terms of usability and conversions in our opinion!

Don’t overwrite Magento’s functionality

Many extensions also completely overwrite Magento’s checkout functionality which is a big no no in terms of ability to safely upgade, stability and security.

What that means is that you’ll run into countless issues and problems with new Magento versions and other 3rd party extensions (such as payment methods, shipping methods, etc) down the road.

Don’t weigh down your checkout page

In addition these extensions add their own style files, template files, and layout files to the checkout page which will affect load speed and page performance, resulting in slowing down one of the most important page of an online store!

Don’t trust anything but numbers

If you’re trying out a Magento checkout extension, you should make sure to test conversion rates with A/B testing (you can use Google Website Optimizer for that if you want a free and quick implementation). One company did test conversion rates and saw a huge decrease in conversion rates when compared to the original Magento checkout process! We don’t find the result surprising at all.

Look for an alternative

You can stick with the native Magento checkout functionality and that’s fine. Except for one thing: The very first step is very confusing to users. We don’t believe you should ask customers to think about anything but paying for your product when they reach the check-out stage:

Fortunately this first step is seamlessly removed with Ultimento’s fully integrated Magento theme with an Optimized Checkout Extension. The benefit is that the check-out extension does not affect any of the checkout functionality and all the possible scenarios you could want to include.

If you want users to sign up for your newsletter at checkout we have enabled that through the newsletter check-box with a bunch of possible scenarios you can configure in the admin.

The Commative Team