Checkout Page Archives - Business Bloomer

WooCommerce: Simplify Free Checkout

If your WooCommerce store occasionally offers free products—whether as part of a promotion, a free trial, or a lead magnet—you may have noticed that the default checkout still displays all billing (and shipping) fields. This creates unnecessary friction for customers who don’t need to enter full address or payment information just to get something for free.

Thankfully, there’s a simple way to customize this behavior and show only the checkout fields you truly need. With a few lines of code, you can conditionally reduce the checkout form when there’s no payment required. This improves the user experience, boosts conversions, and keeps things clean and relevant.

I actually use this exact snippet on Business Bloomer whenever someone “purchases” one of my free WooCommerce mini plugins—just a name and email, no extra hassle.

In this example, we’ll indeed keep just the billing email and billing first name fields when the cart total is zero. You can easily tweak the snippet to include any other fields depending on your needs.

Here’s how to make it happen.

WooCommerce: Prevent Duplicate Orders

Sometimes customers accidentally submit the same order twice, or there may be a temporary issue with a WooCommerce payment gateway or a plugin conflict—such as the Sucuri Firewall problem in March 2025.

This can result in duplicate charges, refunds, chargebacks, admin costs and a poor user experience.

I recently ran into this issue myself and decided to create a simple solution. By checking if the same customer placed an identical paid order within the last 2 minutes, we can block the second attempt and show a helpful message.

If you’ve experienced something similar or want to proactively prevent it, here’s a quick snippet you can add to your site to avoid duplicate WooCommerce orders.

Displaying Country Names in Multiple Languages on WooCommerce Checkout

In a recent Business Bloomer Club discussion, a user faced a challenge with WooCommerce’s country dropdown on a Bulgarian-language site. While the checkout country field displayed country names in Bulgarian by default, international customers needed to search using English names, creating a usability gap.

The user sought a way to add English names alongside Bulgarian in the dropdown, allowing search functionality for both languages.

Through a collaboration in the forum, the user leveraged the woocommerce_countries_allowed_countries filter to display country names in both Bulgarian and English. By setting up an array of English country names and merging them with the default Bulgarian names, they successfully enabled bilingual search functionality in the country dropdown.

Running Custom Server-Side Code on Checkout Field Blur in WooCommerce

A recent query in the Business Bloomer Club asked for advice on executing custom server-side code when a user enters their email address during checkout in WooCommerce, specifically after the field loses focus (similar to how the cart updates for coupons and shipping).

This setup can be useful for verifying user input dynamically without a full page refresh.

Here’s a guide on how to achieve this functionality using AJAX and JavaScript.

Customizing WooCommerce for Medical Test Orders: Simplifying Customer Data Collection

In a recent Business Bloomer Club discussion, a member sought guidance on handling customer data collection in a WooCommerce store selling medical tests. Unlike a typical eCommerce setup, this store doesn’t require standard order processing or payments.

The challenge was to streamline the checkout page, enabling customers to input information like names and dates of birth for each test purchased, without proceeding through traditional payment or shipping processes. Below, we’ll explore the best approaches to configure WooCommerce for this unique use case.

Handling WooCommerce Shipping and Local Pickup Confusion

A new Business Bloomer Club member recently sought help with a common WooCommerce issue: clarifying the checkout process when local pickup is selected. Their prospective client faced confusion among customers who believed they were selecting a shipping option when they actually chose local pickup. To address this, the member aimed to:

Disable the checkout button unless customers either select “local pickup” or enter a postcode in the shipping calculator.
Update the checkout page header to reflect “Billing Address” only if local pickup is selected.
Remove the “Shipping to” text on the order summary when local pickup is chosen.

Let’s explore possible solutions to address each of these challenges, helping streamline the checkout process and avoid customer confusion.

Adding a Description Under WooCommerce Shipping Method Title on Checkout Page

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a WooCommerce user sought advice on adding a description text below the “Free Shipping” title on the checkout page.

This customization aims to provide customers with additional details about the shipping method, like delivery time, in a non-bolded, regular text format beneath the bolded title.

Here’s a guide on implementing this feature, including sample code to get you started.

Troubleshooting Customers Seeing Someone Else’s Address @ WooCommerce Checkout

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a developer encountered a complex issue with a WooCommerce site where user address details at checkout were occasionally displaying previous customers’ data.

The issue seemed specific to the default language, Dutch, raising concerns about cache-related problems and potential conflicts with WPML.

Here’s an overview of possible causes, steps to troubleshoot, and a provisional solution that might help if you’re experiencing a similar situation.

How to Avoid Defaulting to Local Pickup in WooCommerce Checkout

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a WooCommerce user needed help with shipping zones and methods for a store offering UPS shipping across the U.S. and Local Pickup in California.

The issue was that “Local Pickup” automatically appeared as the default option in the checkout for California customers, often causing them to miss it and requiring refunds.

Here’s a solution to avoid defaulting to any shipping method, prompting customers to actively choose a preferred option.

Switching Billing and Shipping Address Sections on WooCommerce Checkout with Blocks

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a WooCommerce user wanted to reorder the checkout page so that the Billing Address section appears first, with a checkbox option to use the same address for Shipping.

Currently, this customization is challenging if you’re using WooCommerce’s new Checkout Block, as it doesn’t yet support the reordering of sections or fields.

How to Set the Default Country to USA in WooCommerce Checkout

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member asked how to set the default country to the United States on the WooCommerce checkout page.

By default, WooCommerce may set the country field to a different option, depending on settings or user location, but it’s possible to customize this to ensure the United States (or any other country) appears as the default in both the billing and shipping fields.

Here’s a quick guide on how to adjust the default billing and shipping country fields to streamline the checkout experience for US-based customers.

Unlocking WooCommerce’s Full Potential: Addressing Its Weaknesses

Greetings from a seasoned WooCommerce user, developer, and advocate with over 12 years of experience!

I “play” with WooCommerce daily and believe there’s room for improvement. Simply catching up with competitors isn’t the right goal—STANDING OUT (yes, in all caps) is what we should be aiming for.

When you’re focused solely on closing the gap, you risk being seen as “the alternative to” rather than a standout in your own right. WooCommerce, with its unique ecosystem and flexibility, has the potential to thrive by embracing its strengths instead of chasing a moving target. By stepping away from the “catching up” mindset, you can create a truly exceptional product—one that isn’t just comparable but incomparable, one that leads rather than follows.

So, let’s take a step back.

I believe ecommerce software should let you sell ANYTHING (products) to ANYONE (customers around the world), while getting PAID and being able to DELIVER the package asap.

If Woo can address all that, it can really become outstanding, a piece of software that is worth talking about, and that doesn’t need to be compared to others. Because it’s unique.

There’s a reason why you can’t compare pears to apples—yet you could argue that diamonds outshine gold.

So, here’s an overview of key areas where WooCommerce might have weaknesses compared to other ecommerce platforms, together with some context.

Restrict WooCommerce Checkout Based on Product and Shipping Country

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member asked how to restrict a specific product in WooCommerce based on the customer’s selected shipping country. This type of restriction is essential when logistics or compliance prevents certain products from shipping to specific regions.

To achieve this, you can deny checkout if a restricted product is in the cart and the selected shipping country is not allowed. Below, we’ll go through the code and approach needed to implement this functionality in WooCommerce.

WooCommerce: Prevent Orders From Blacklisted Email Addresses

In some cases, you may need to block certain customers from completing orders on your WooCommerce store.

This could be due to fraud prevention, policy violations, or simply wanting to prevent repeat offenders from making purchases. Thankfully, WooCommerce provides the flexibility to implement an email blacklist with just a few lines of code.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add a simple email blacklist using a custom function that checks the customer’s email at checkout. By adding these 8 lines of PHP to your theme’s functions.php file, you’ll be able to prevent orders from specific email addresses efficiently. Enjoy!

WooCommerce: Add Checkout Fee Based On Shipping Class

Whether you’re dealing with bulky items, fragile goods, or specific shipping items, you can leverage WooCommerce’s flexibility and implement a fee structure that accurately reflects shipping complexities, improves profit margins, and enhances overall order management.

This tutorial gives you a practical solution – dynamically adding checkout fees based on whether a given shipping class is in the cart.

Enjoy!