A One-Click Checkout is supposed to make shopping easier for the existing users/customers of any ecommerce site. In just a single click a customer is able to place an order and the platform in the background extracts the saved billing/shipping address and the preferred payment details for that customer and use it for the new order request.
Amazon started using this technique since 1997 and in 1999, they finally received a patent on this iconic One-Click Checkout – they owned the “1-Click” trademark. Quite interestingly, over the years a lot of companies tried to bypass their patent by trying to formulate a similar feature, but Amazon was super protective of its signature offering.
In fact, Amazon sued Barnes & Noble in the year 1999 for patent infringement as they offered the one-click feature naming it Express Lane. It was finally settled in 2002 but the terms were not disclosed.
Apple Inc., in the year 2000, officially acquired the license for one-click Checkout from Amazon for using on their online store.
This patent expired this year on September 12th, 2017 opening a world of possibilities to all ecommerce technology providers. Magento, Bigcommerce and many other leading ecommerce platforms confirmed right away that they will be offering the feature in their solutions as soon as possible.
Shopify launched a similar version of this feature in April with their new payment method – Shopify Pay.
It was not exactly a One-Click Checkout but rather a two-click. A customer buying from a Shopify store needs to agree for having his/her details saved with Shopify Pay. From next time when they buy from “any” Shopify based store all they need to do is make one click and then just feed in the 6-digit verification code sent directly to their phone. Not the typical one-click approach, but still this greatly decreased the friction experienced during checkout by customers.
But Magento appears to be the first proper adopter of Amazon’s One-Click festure. Magento has introduced this new feature with their newly launched Magento 2.2.2 version and they are calling it Instant Purchase. The customers would only need to click on the “Instant Purchase” button on a product detail page and they would be directly taken to the confirmation page without asking for billing/shipping/payment details. Click ‘’Ok” on the confirmation page and the order is placed. This will not only decrease the friction found in traditional checkout process but also trigger an impulse buying among the customers.
The customer would need to be logged into the site and his account should have the default billing and shipping address. A stores payment should also be there associated with the account.
For now, following payment methods can be used for providing secure access to saved credit card details:
- Braintree Credit Cards
- Braintree with PayPal Enabled
- PayPal Payflow Pro
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