Shopify recently announced the launch of its totally new checkout system, Responsive Checkout. Their checkout prior to this was secure and simple, but they realised that mobile is on the rise and so completely rebuilt the system from the ground up.

Here are the main points to take from the upgrade:

It's optimised for all devices

Times are changing. 50% of all traffic to E-commerce sites now comes from mobiles and tablets. With half of all customers using these devices, it seemed a natural step for Shopify to design a checkout system that is fully optimised for all of them.

It doesn't just scale the checkout page to different sizes, but goes beyond that to intuitively move components of the page to fit the dimensions of various screens. For example, on a mobile phone where screen space is limited, the order summary is moved from the right of the screen to the bottom of the page. These instinctive alterations ensure that your customer has a fast and easy checkout experience, which is good news for any online retailer.

It has been thoroughly tested and researched

Shopify carefully considered every factor that makes up the process of buying a product online, and used that information to design an experience that was as smooth as possible for the customer.

They have spent thousands of hours testing the system on a select group of merchants before putting it out to all Shopify users, and have created a deceptively simple checkout process as a result. One merchant actually noticed their checkout conversion rate jump from 58% to 65% after upgrading to Responsive Checkout.

The design is customisable to your brand

Making the transition from the online store to the checkout should be as seamless as possible. The customer should feel that the two are connected rather than being totally separate entities, so Shopify have introduced easy design controls that allow you to customise the look of your checkout page to your brand. No skills in design or coding necessary.

You can change the background colour, edit the header, add your logo, even put in a tagline. Your checkout's primary, accent and call-to-action colours can also be customised to ensure that the checkout totally represents your brand.

It's Shopify's most secure checkout yet

Responsive Checkout uses Level-1 PCI compliant security so your customer payments are always safe. That may just sound like jargon, but it's the same security used by banks around the globe.

You can upgrade this very moment

Responsive Checkout is ready to be used by all Shopify customers. If you want to preview it first before committing then follow these simple steps:

How to preview Responsive Checkout on your store:

1. Open your Shopify Admin page.
2. Click Settings, then Checkout to go to your Checkout Settings page.
3. Click Learn more on the banner inviting you to "Activate Responsive Checkout".

4. Click Preview Responsive Checkout.

5. Add a product to your cart, and proceed to checkout.

How to upgrade to Responsive Checkout:

1. Open your Shopify Admin page.
2. Click Settings, then Checkout to go to your Checkout Settings page.
3. Click Upgrade.

Conclusion

Enjoy the new system, it's a really brilliant upgrade that will make sure more people complete your checkout! There's more information from Shopify here.

(All images are taken from Shopify's blog)