Top 5 Shopify brands with great checkout experiences

There’s even a couple of nifty bonuses for first-time customers, including the option to add a free t-shirt for first orders, and the automatically applied 10% discount based on order size. The smoothness of Huel’s checkout is likely to ensure customers happy with the product won’t dread coming back for more. 

Once the user clicks the checkout button, they’re greeted with the option to express checkout using Paypal, or the customer can input their address details, which uses Loqate’s lightning-fast extension to capture accurate addresses and ensure the delivery reaches customers, first time, every time.  

Huel’s nutritious product ensures customers have everything they need to meet their dietary requirements, so it’s great to see that the same attention to detail has been applied to their checkout process, which does the basics with consummate ease. By presenting key information to users and making it easy to checkout in multiple ways with different payment methods, Huel remove typical barriers to purchase and deliver one of the smoothest checkout experiences we’ve seen.  

The name Gymshark is familiar to most people who frequently exercise, and for good reason. The gym merchandise retailer has developed a reputation for high quality, durable and trendy fitness wear, enabling them to grow rapidly since being founded by then-student Ben Francis, and becoming what is now a $1.3bn brand. 

More importantly – at least for this article’s purposes - however, is that key to Gymshark’s success has been building an unrivalled checkout experience for customers using Shopify. Let’s take a look at how they do it. 

Like Huel, Gymshark have chosen to keep their checkout process as clear, crisp and easy to read as possible, with a black-and-white theme enhanced by their logo. A clear step-by-step process is outlined atop the checkout page, making it clear to users where they are in the process, while Express Checkout offers 3 alternative ways to quickly pay using digital wallets. As for the checkout process itself, finding and validating a customer address occurs within a few keystrokes, as Gymshark trust Loqate’s solution to streamline checkout entry. 

In an ever more competitive digital retail space, Gymshark have built their online reputation on delivering a checkout experience that’s just as reliable as their clothing for online customers, and using Loqate ensures deliveries can be made successfully -  first time, every time.  

As one of the UK’s fastest-growing beauty companies, Tropic’s niche in a crowded market is their commitment to deliver visible clinical results using all-natural, nutritious ingredients within vegan and cruelty-free products. What began as a market stall side-hustle for founder Susie Ma is now a global business with yearly income of over £100m. 

And looking at their online store, it’s clear to see the attention to detail and commitment to quality reflect in Tropic’s checkout experience, too. Marked by a slimline style of iconography with titles clearly legible in uppercase, Tropic has a unique design theme which is consistent in its checkout experience.  

With a clean layout in the branded olive green and white colours, Tropic’s checkout makes it clear exactly what the user has ordered, with quantities and dimensions included alongside product descriptions. Similarly to Huel, they also keep the user engaged by alerting them to discounts available – in our example, the product we’ve chosen is eligible for free delivery and Tropic notify us above the order summary. 

Lastly, the user has the option to either log in, which would save their delivery details (and therefore a chunk of time in future orders), or guest checkout, while a blurb beneath those options answers any further questions users checking out may have, from a reminder of delivery time to consumer rights, as well as a clean list of logos to indicate supported payment methods. No stone has clearly been left unturned by Tropic in their consideration of user requirements during the checkout phase.  

There’s even a nifty pop-up which appears on clicking the ‘check out’ button allowing users to access further discount by mentioning a brand ambassador (which is also a subtle way to boost the social proof of the brand, highlighting that beauty influencers also love Tropic’s products).  

Not to be outdone, Neom are another cracking beauty brand who have developed their own approach to shine in a crowded marketplace. Trained aromatherapist and founder Nicola Elliott learned to generate 100% natural pure blends of essential oils to help her relax and unwind, and she took every bit of her experience into business when founding NEOM in 2007. Now with a retail sales value of over £20m, it’s fair to say that the risk paid off and an ever-growing, loyal customer base now trust NEOM’s all-natural products and cosmetics to help them unwind and take better care of their skin.

Like our other brands, NEOM have prioritised clear and legible information within their online shopping journey, and they’re also great at letting users know about offers and discounts available to them. First-time users are greeted with a pop-up offering a discount for subscribing to the brand’s newsletter (as well as letting them know about free delivery on orders above £50). Right from the moment a product is added to their checkout, they also showcase other available offers and other similar products are suggested, making it easy for users to find other items they may like: 

Onto the checkout then, and what is perhaps most notable about the page, apart from the consistency and legibility of NEOM’s striking black-and-white colour palette, is how the brand makes it easy for customers to find exactly what they need to make sure their order is perfect.  

Let’s take a closer look…

From the moment the user lands on the Oddbox website, it’s obvious that their journey to making a purchase has been carefully thought through. The homepage invites the user to enter their postcode, which is then checked to ensure Oddbox cover the user’s area (an important step which helps avoid customer frustration later at checkout). Then, once they navigate to the products area, one of the most helpful and comprehensive sidebars we’ve seen pops up to help users make the right choice:  

Proceed to the checkout, and the clear, crisp design of Oddbox’s site continues to shine, from the funky orange CTAs and chat box to the subtle grey boxes with additional information. Users are prompted to sign up and reminded again about the rewards and recipes they’re entitled to receive, along with the (ever-important!) reminder that they can cancel at any time. There’s also the option to connect further with the brand with text notifications and offers. And if there are any further questions that Oddbox’s extensive FAQs and thoughtful copy leave hanging, there’s even the option to ask any last-minute queries to the company’s helpful support team using the Chatbox function. 

All in all, Oddbox’s attention to detail give customers a sweet flavour of a company who truly care – both about the environment and about delivering great products to shoppers.  And after delivering such a great first impression to shoppers, the surplus veg shop can also be confident in meeting delivery expectations too, knowing their tasty food boxes will speedily reach real and validated addresses thanks to the Loqate extension for Shopify.  

Shopify and Loqate – a great platform for e-commerce brands

Well, that wraps up our tour of pioneering ecommerce brands who use Shopify to deliver seamless customer checkout journeys. Despite our chosen brands being very different in scope, with different audiences ranging from  gym-goers to nutritionists to lovers of cosmetics, all of them have one thing in common: the clear intention to understand what customers want and what their sticking points may be. The innovative ways in which these brands answer those doubts directly during the checkout process not only help to smoothen the buying journey for users right there and then; they also build the foundation for a lasting relationship between the brand and customer.  

Hopefully this article has helped share a few ideas about what your business can be doing to receive similar glowing feedback from your checkout process. From handy reminders to discount codes, newsletter signups, live chat and similar items, there’s a ton of different ways you can ensure your customer’s needs are met at checkout, and Shopify, as exemplified within this article, is flexible enough to support whichever direction you choose to go in.  

Finally, we’d be remiss not to  mention that all of our brands featured in this article go a step further in helping smoothen customer relations: they all use Loqate’s new extension for Shopify to validate addresses in real time. What this means is that their checkouts don’t only look good and answer user questions during the process. They also fundamentally perform well – in other words, retailers can be confident parcels will get to where they need to, on time. That leads to positive user feedback, which builds brand image, and more importantly than that, secures repeat business. The combination of Loqate and Shopify can be a potent one for ecommerce businesses, as our top five brands today have hopefully proved! The only question is – will your business be next?