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Checkout

Checkout is the process where a customer's selected products are finalized into an order through delivery, customer, pricing, and payment information.

Checkout is the process where a customer's selected products become an order.

It commonly collects the information needed to calculate the final total, accept payment, and determine how the order will be delivered.

What Checkout Can Include

Checkout may collect or calculate:

  • Contact information
  • Shipping address
  • Billing information
  • Delivery or pickup method
  • Shipping cost
  • Taxes
  • Discounts
  • Payment method
  • Final order total

The exact requirements depend on what is being sold.

Checkout vs. Payment

Payment is one part of checkout.

A checkout may need to resolve:

Where is the order going? What does shipping cost? Is the item still available? What tax applies? Which payment methods are available?

before the Payment Gateway and Payment Processor can complete their work.

Stripe provides a hosted and embedded Checkout product designed to manage payment collection and related checkout flows. Stripe's Checkout documentation

Why It Matters

Checkout sits at one of the most important transitions in an e-commerce system.

The customer has already expressed intent to purchase.

Unnecessary friction at this point can prevent the order from becoming a Conversion.

Accessibility

Checkout is also a critical Website Accessibility workflow.

Forms need:

An inaccessible checkout can make purchasing impossible rather than merely inconvenient.

Common Problems

Common checkout problems include:

  • Requiring unnecessary information
  • Unexpected costs appearing late
  • Poor form validation
  • Errors that do not explain how to recover
  • Mandatory account creation without a business requirement
  • Payment failures losing the entire order
  • Address and shipping rules disagreeing
  • Important controls inaccessible by keyboard
  • Third-Party Scripts affecting Website Performance

How to Improve

Ask for only the information needed to complete the order.

Make totals and delivery expectations clear, preserve entered information when an error occurs, and test the complete flow on real devices.

Measure the funnel from cart through successful order rather than optimizing individual fields in isolation.