Every WooCommerce checkout starts with a cart. But for stores where customers typically buy one product at a time — or where you’re driving traffic from ads or emails to a specific product — the cart is dead weight. It’s a detour between intent and purchase.
The TheForge Buy Now Button plugin replaces that detour with a direct route.
The Standard WooCommerce Checkout Flow
Without a Buy Now button, the customer journey is:
- Product page → click Add to Cart
- Cart icon updates → customer navigates to cart
- Cart page → review items → click Proceed to Checkout
- Checkout page → enter details → pay
Steps 2 and 3 are pure friction. The cart page asks the customer to confirm a decision they’ve already made. Every additional page is an exit opportunity.
The Buy Now Flow
- Product page → click Buy Now
- Checkout page → enter details → pay
Two fewer steps. Two fewer exit opportunities. Studies on ecommerce checkout optimisation consistently show that reducing steps increases conversion, particularly on mobile where multi-step navigation is especially cumbersome.
Single Item Checkout: Clearing the Cart
The Buy Now Button plugin has a Clear Cart option. When enabled, clicking Buy Now removes any existing items from the cart before adding the current product. The customer checks out with just that one item.
This is particularly valuable for:
- Landing page traffic — visitors coming from ads who have a specific purchase intent
- Email campaigns — links to a specific product with a direct Buy Now call to action
- Single-product stores — where you sell one main product and want the simplest possible checkout
- Subscription products — where you need to ensure only the subscription is in the cart
Multi-Item Buy Now
If you don’t enable Clear Cart, Buy Now adds the product to the existing cart and redirects to checkout. The customer can still have multiple items — they just skip the cart page review. This is a good middle ground for stores where cross-selling and upselling are important.
The Mobile Argument
Mobile commerce accounts for the majority of WooCommerce traffic in most markets. Mobile users have less patience for multi-step processes and less precise input (fat fingers on small screens). A direct Buy Now → Checkout flow is significantly better on mobile than the standard cart flow.
Questions about configuring the single product checkout flow? Visit the ThePluginForge support page.