Sales Strategy

What Is Headless Checkout, And How Can It Help You? September 29, 2021 (0 comments)

San Francisco, CA—No, it’s not a 21st century iteration of the Headless Horseman. Image: Fast.co

Headless checkout is a technology that allows consumers to click on a product anywhere they see it, and immediately buy it from that site, without redirecting to a merchant or brand website. It eliminates the need to set up new accounts and passwords and enter credit card information. 

As Domm Holland, CEO and co-founder of Fast, an online checkout technology firm, explains, online merchants lose billions of dollars in sales from shoppers abandoning their carts, and checkout is a major point of friction. ‍

Headless checkout allows buyers to eliminate extra clicks to get to a checkout page, and instead make the purchase instantaneously when they discover [a retailer’s] product, he explains. The buyer never has to navigate to a new website. He says:

“Imagine you’re reading an article with a roundup of gift ideas for Father’s Day, and you’re feeling inspired to buy your Dad that smart meat thermometer; you click once to purchase it on the spot instead of being redirected to yet another website that leads you down a long and cumbersome journey of creating passwords and entering credit card numbers."

But don’t retailers want customers to have to come to their site? Not necessarily, says Holland. A happier customer now is more likely to become a long-term customer.

“I know what you’re thinking, this seems completely counterintuitive to the idea that merchants are trained to draw buyers to their website. But the days of measuring e-commerce success by clicks to your website are gone - so shake off that 2008 e-commerce vibe, and remember what the ultimate goal is: to sell your products and services. And if that can be done best while your customer is on someone else’s website, embrace it. A sale is a sale, and in this case, it’s a sale to a customer made happier because they didn’t have to click through to another site with an antiquated checkout process.

By enabling buyers to purchase immediately after they discover a product, the potential to increase sales and satisfied customers is exponential. Headless checkout will completely revolutionize content and how consumers shop.”

Fast, meanwhile, has launched new headless checkout services to enable one-click purchasing virtually anywhere, including in-person events, online articles, display ads, and connected TVs. The capability is already live on sites run by leading publishers like Apartment Therapy, and The Kitchn as well as AMALIE Arena (home of the Tampa Bay Lightning). Consumers can click Fast Checkout directly from the product review or advertisement, or click a QR code.

"We can completely transform the content industry by eliminating friction and enabling people to get anything they want right at the moment of inspiration, in just one click," said Holland. "Consumers can now instantly buy products from anywhere they are, whether that's online while reading a review about a skincare product, in person while cheering for a favorite team, or from the couch while watching TV."

"By incorporating headless checkout into select branded content features, we're able to offer a seamless purchase process that delivers real value to both readers and merchants," said Lauren Murphy, SVP of marketing and brand strategy for Apartment Therapy Media. "Everyone wins with headless checkout – our readers can stay on the article they're reading while they make a purchase, and our advertisers generate revenue by removing friction from website redirects."

For more information on headless checkout, visit fast.co/headless-checkout.