Settings › Cart & Checkout
Checkout Settings
The cart page, the steps a shopper goes through to place an order, what you ask them for along the way, the EU withdrawal button, and what happens once the order lands. 11 sections you can search, with every setting named in plain language and its factory default shown beside it.
Quick links
Where to find it:WP Admin › EasyCart › Settings › Cart & Checkout › Checkout
The shopper’s route
From cart to payment
What shoppers can do before they start, the steps they go through, and the last screen before the order is placed.
Cart page
What shoppers can do before they start checkout
15 settingsShipping estimator
Puts a shipping estimator on the cart page so shoppers can see what delivery will cost before they commit to checking out. Unexpected shipping at the last step is the single most common reason a cart is abandoned, so this is one of the more valuable switches on the page.
Estimator asks for a postal code
Asks for a ZIP or postal code in the estimator. Most carriers cannot quote an accurate rate without one, so leave this on unless you charge a flat rate everywhere.
Estimator asks for a country
Asks for a country in the estimator. Essential if you ship internationally, and safe to turn off if you only ship domestically, since it removes a field nobody needs to touch.
Coupon code box
Shows a coupon code box on the cart page. Worth thinking about: a visible empty coupon box prompts some shoppers to leave and hunt for a code they never find. If you rarely run coupons, turning it off can help.
Show the coupon’s message instead of its code
Receipts and order details print the message you saved with the coupon instead of the raw code the shopper typed. Useful when internal codes are cryptic, so SUMMER24B reads as “Summer sale” on the customer’s receipt.
Show discount codes on receipts and documents
Decides whether the documents a customer keeps show the code they used. On, receipts, invoices, order emails, the order confirmation and My Account print the code beside its discount. Off, they show the discount alone, so a private code, such as a one-off code you gave a single customer, never ends up on a receipt that gets forwarded. The cart and checkout still show the code the shopper typed, and your admin always shows it.
Gift card box
Shows a gift card redemption box on the cart page. Only worth showing if you actually sell gift cards, otherwise it is another empty box inviting a hunt for a code.
Gift cards cover the grand total
Decides how far a gift card balance stretches. On, it pays like any other payment: shipping, tax, fees and tips as well as the products, which is what most customers expect from a gift card. Off, it only pays for the products and the shopper pays the rest another way.
Give gift card balances back when an order is cancelled
When you move an order to Cancelled, whatever it took from a gift card goes back onto that card, so the customer can spend it again. Move the order back out of Cancelled, to undo a mistake, and the amount comes off the card again; an order that goes on from Cancelled to Refunded keeps it on the card. No other money goes back by itself: if the customer also paid by card, refund that payment too. Stock from a cancelled order has its own switch, under Settings › Products › Inventory.
Tips and gratuity
Adds a tip option during checkout. Standard for restaurant, cafe and service-style stores, out of place on most retail ones. The wording shoppers see is editable in the language editor.
Suggested tip percentages
The percentages offered as one-tap buttons, comma separated. Shoppers can always type their own amount instead. Three or four options is the sweet spot; more than that and people stop reading and pick the middle one anyway.
Minimum order subtotal
Blocks checkout until the cart subtotal reaches this figure. Used where small orders cost more to fulfil than they earn, such as food delivery or trade supply. Leave it at zero for no minimum, and if you do set one, say so on the store page rather than letting shoppers discover it at checkout.
Continue shopping link
Where the Continue Shopping buttons go. Leave it empty and they return to your store page, which is right for most shops. Point it at a specific category if your store page is a landing page rather than a product list.
Load the cart dynamically
Cart, checkout and account pages fetch their contents with JavaScript rather than being rendered into the page. This is what stops a caching plugin serving one shopper another shopper’s cart or a stale total. Leave it on. If you run any page caching at all, it is doing important work.
Force HTTPS on every page
Redirects your whole site to https. Only switch this on once your SSL certificate is installed and confirmed working, because if it is not, the site becomes unreachable and you will be fixing it from your host’s control panel. Most hosts and security plugins already handle this, in which case leave it off.
⚠️ Careful: Force HTTPS on every page redirects your entire site to https. If the SSL certificate is not already installed and working, the site becomes unreachable and you will be undoing it from your host’s control panel rather than from WordPress. Most hosts handle this for you already.
Checkout flow
The steps a shopper goes through to place an order
6 settingsOne-page checkout
Puts the entire checkout on one page with no reloads between steps, with the order summary beside it. Fewer steps generally means fewer drop-offs. It leads this section, and its three follow-up choices show under it once it is on. Shoppers who need an account, because there is a download in the cart or guest checkout is off, start with their email right there and keep the addresses from that first order. Express wallet buttons sit at the top as one even set: side by side on a wide screen, stacked on a phone. The shipping choices and their prices update as soon as the address, a quantity or a coupon changes, Edit Cart takes them back to the cart, and the page says what it is doing while it loads, signs someone in or saves. It works with the payment methods you take, with two exceptions: PayPal Advanced and Realex HPP cannot take payments on the one-page checkout yet, so a store using either keeps the classic checkout, and the setting says so when you switch it on. Place a test order end to end after you turn it on, as with any checkout change.
Show one-page checkout as steps
Splits the one-page checkout into visible steps with a breadcrumb trail when shipping is needed. Gives shoppers a sense of progress on a long form, at the cost of the single-screen simplicity that made you turn one-page checkout on.
Show the cart before the one-page checkout
Shoppers land on the cart before entering checkout. Off takes them straight in. Showing the cart first suits baskets with several items that people want to review; going straight in suits single-item purchases.
Items can be changed on the one-page checkout
Each line of the order summary gets − and + buttons and a button to remove the item, so shoppers fix their order on the checkout page itself rather than going back to the cart. That removes a round trip that often ends with the shopper not returning. Free gifts and bundles from an offer keep their quantity. Off, the summary shows each quantity on the product picture and nothing can be changed there.
Guest checkout
Lets shoppers order without creating an account. Forcing registration is a well-documented way to lose first-time customers, so this is on by default. Downloads, subscriptions and gift cards still require an account regardless, because the customer needs somewhere to come back to. Either way the checkout starts with the email. A shopper whose email already has an account is offered to sign in right there, and an email whose domain looks mistyped gets a Did you mean suggestion. When the order needs an account, the rest of the checkout opens once the email is settled.
Skip the shipping method step
Removes the shipping method step and uses the first available method. Sensible when you offer exactly one shipping option, confusing when you offer several, since the shopper never sees the choice they were denied.
💡 Note: The two subscription switches under Checkout form, a password after paying and the short subscription checkout, are walked through in How to Sell Subscriptions on WordPress. What shoppers see on the one-page checkout, from the cart to the order summary’s − and + buttons, is walked through in How to Set Up the One-Page Checkout. Card-testing bots attack the checkout itself. Protection against them is on by default and set under Settings › Cart & Checkout › Checkout protection.
Payment page
The last step before the order is placed
2 settingsAsk for the cardholder name
Adds a name-on-card field to the credit card form. Some gateways use it for fraud scoring and some compliance rules expect it, so leave it on unless your gateway explicitly ignores it.
Preselected payment method
Which payment option is already selected when the payment page opens. Most stores should change this to Credit card, since the factory default of Manual billing, the Bill later method that shoppers see as Pay by bank transfer, is the right answer only for invoice-based and trade stores. Whatever is chosen, the order button says that payment is owed, Place order and pay, as EU and UK consumer law requires. Its wording is in Settings › Language; if you change it, keep that meaning.
What you ask for
The checkout form
Which details are collected, which are required, and how the address form handles countries and states.
Checkout form
Which details shoppers are asked for
14 settingsName fields when creating an account
Shoppers creating an account during checkout give a first and last name for the account itself, kept separate from the name on the billing address. Useful when the buyer and the cardholder are different people, which is common on business orders.
New customers choose a password after paying
When a purchase needs an account (a subscription, a download, a members-only page, or a store with guest checkout off), the checkout starts with the email. An email that already has an account asks for its password. A new one normally asks for a password for the new account before going on. Switch this on and a new email goes straight to the address and payment instead. The account is made with that email when they pay, and the next page shows Set a password for your account: the order confirmation, or, for a subscription with a free trial, the subscription in My Account. Customers who skip it set one later with Forgot your password. One less step before paying, which is where sign-ups drop off.
Short subscription checkout
For a subscription that ships nothing, the subscription page asks only for the name, the country, the state or province where the country has a list, and the postcode where the country uses one, with the payment on the same screen: no street, city, company or phone, and no step between the address and the card. The totals follow the country, state and postcode as they are typed. A signed-in customer gets the same short form, filled in from their account. A subscription that ships keeps the full address. It is not used while a tax service such as TaxJar or TaxCloud works out your tax from the street address: the setting then says so under the switch, with Open Taxes, and subscription pages ask for the full billing address.
Secondary email address
Adds an optional second email address that also receives the order emails. Regularly asked for by business customers who want receipts to reach their accounts department as well as the buyer.
Phone number
Adds a phone field to the address form. Couriers frequently need one for delivery, and pickup orders are far easier to manage with it, so most stores want this on.
Phone number is required
Shoppers cannot continue without a phone number. Weigh the delivery convenience against the friction of one more required field. If you ship with a carrier that demands a contact number, requiring it here saves you chasing customers later.
Company name
Adds an optional company field to the address form. Worth having if any meaningful share of your orders go to businesses, since it also flows onto the invoice.
Company name is required
Shoppers cannot continue without a company name. Only sensible on trade-only or wholesale stores; on a mixed store it turns away every individual customer.
VAT registration number
Lets business shoppers enter their VAT number. Combined with your tax settings this can zero-rate VAT on qualifying business-to-business orders, which is a requirement rather than a nicety if you sell across EU borders.
Address line 2
Adds a second address line for apartment, suite or unit numbers. Leaving it off will cost you deliveries in any market with flats and office buildings.
Order notes box
Gives shoppers a box to leave a note with their order, which then appears on the order, the receipt and in your admin. Valuable for delivery instructions and gift messages, but it is also where people write things they assume you will read before shipping, so only turn it on if somebody actually will.
Require terms agreement
Shoppers must tick a box agreeing to your terms and privacy policy before paying. Often a legal requirement, and it gives you a record that the customer accepted them. Set both page links below before you switch it on.
Terms and conditions page
The page the agreement checkbox links to. Pick a page or post on this site, or paste any URL. The factory value is a placeholder that does not exist on your site, so this needs changing the moment you require agreement. No terms page yet? Create a draft page makes an unpublished “Terms & Conditions” page with headings for orders and payment, shipping and delivery, returns and refunds, and contact, and fills in its address here. Write your terms into it and publish it before you go live.
Privacy policy page
The privacy policy the agreement checkbox links to. Same as above: the factory value is a placeholder and must be pointed at your real policy. Create a draft page makes an unpublished “Privacy Policy” page with headings for what you collect, how you use it, payment processing and the customer’s choices, and, if WordPress has no privacy page set yet, makes it the site’s privacy page too.
💡 Note: The terms and privacy links ship with placeholder addresses that do not exist on your site. If you switch on the agreement requirement, point both at real pages first, or every shopper meets a broken link at the last step. To ask something this form does not, such as a delivery date or a tax ID, add your own questions under Settings › Cart & Checkout › Checkout fields.
Country and state fields
How the address form asks for country and state
5 settingsCountry as a drop-down list
Shoppers choose from your active countries instead of typing one. This is almost always what you want, since typed country names are inconsistent and break tax and shipping rules. It is forced on regardless when you use Square, Stripe, Intuit or live shipping rates.
Preselected country
The country selected before the shopper picks one. Set it to wherever most of your orders come from and you save the majority of shoppers an interaction. Leave it unset on a genuinely international store so nobody checks out against the wrong default by accident.
Country field first
Puts the country field at the top of the address form. This matters more than it sounds: the address layout and the state list both key off the country, so asking first means the rest of the form can arrange itself correctly rather than rearranging under the shopper.
State as a drop-down list
Shoppers pick a state or province from a list rather than typing it. Typed values are the usual reason a tax rule or shipping zone quietly fails to match. Forced on with Square payments or live shipping rates.
State list follows the country
The state list updates to match the chosen country, so a shopper in Canada sees provinces rather than US states. Leave it on. Forced on with Square payments or live shipping rates.
💡 Note: Several of these are forced on regardless of what you choose here, whenever you use Square, Stripe or Intuit payments or live shipping rates. Those services need structured country and state values to return a valid rate or authorisation.
After the order
Numbering, withdrawals, stock and recovery
How orders are numbered, the button EU shoppers use to withdraw from an order, the alerts that tell you stock is running out, and the reminder that chases a cart nobody came back to.
Order numbers and statuses
How orders are numbered and the statuses they can move through
1 settingNext order number
The number your next order will be given. It can be raised but never lowered, which is deliberate: going backwards would collide with orders you already have. Stores usually raise it to start at a round number, or to look less obviously new.
Withdrawal button ( EU )
Since 19 June 2026, EU shoppers must be able to withdraw from an order online: a “Withdraw from contract here” button, a short form, a separate confirm step and a receipt by email
9 settingsWithdrawal button
The EU right of withdrawal, online. On, every order it applies to gets a “Withdraw from contract here” button while its withdrawal period is open: on the order confirmation page, on the order in My Account and the guest order view, and in the receipt and shipped emails. The account menu and the foot of every page link to the form too. The shopper fills in a short form, confirms it, and gets a receipt by email; you get an email and the order is flagged. Nothing on the order changes by itself: you arrange the return and the refund. A store whose country is in the EU or the EEA starts with this on; every other store starts with it off. Drafts, unfinished, failed, refunded and cancelled orders and subscription renewals never get the button.
Offer it on
Which orders get the button. The law covers consumers in the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and an order counts when its billing or its shipping country is one of them. An order with no country at all gets it too, so nobody who is owed it misses out. Choose Every order if you give the same right everywhere.
Days to withdraw
How long shoppers have. The law sets 14 days and that is the lowest this accepts; you can give up to 365. The period runs to the end of its last day in your WordPress time zone, and one that would end on a Saturday or a Sunday runs on to the Monday.
The days start
When the days start for items that ship: When the order is delivered, which is what the law sets for goods, When the order ships, or On the order date. Downloads, services, gift cards and anything else that does not ship always count from the order date. Delivery is read from your shipments’ tracking, or from the order reaching Delivered or Order Picked Up. With delivery or shipping chosen, an item that has not shipped yet has no deadline, so the button stays open for it.
Days allowed for delivery
Used with When the order is delivered. When an order has shipped but no delivery was ever recorded, by tracking or a Delivered status, its days start this many days after it shipped instead of never. Set it to how long your parcels usually take to arrive.
Withdrawal page
The page that holds the withdrawal form, with the [ec_withdrawal] shortcode. Left on None, your account page shows the form instead. A page of its own is easier to link from your menu and footer: Create the page, at the bottom of this section, makes a published page titled with the button’s words and chooses it here. Pages that already hold the shortcode show a tick in the list.
Show the button at the foot of every page
Prints the button at the foot of every page of your site, which is the simplest way to meet the law’s “easy to find” rule. It is left off the withdrawal page itself. Once the button is in your own footer or menu, through the WP EasyCart block’s Withdrawal button ( EU ) choice or the [ec_withdrawal_button] shortcode, switch this off so it does not show twice.
Send the store’s copy to
Who gets the store’s email when a withdrawal arrives. Separate several addresses with commas. Left empty, it goes to your store notification addresses from Settings › Email, or to the WordPress admin email when those are empty too.
What happens next
Optional text under What happens next, on the page the shopper sees after confirming and in their emailed receipt. Say where to send the items back, who pays for the return and how and when the refund is paid, so the first question never has to be asked.
💡 Note: Below the settings the section has three more parts. A sentence For your terms and withdrawal instructions, with your withdrawal page’s address in it and a Copy button: the EU’s model withdrawal instructions include it, so add it to your terms. Create the page, which makes the withdrawal page for you. And, once one arrives, Statements that matched no order: withdrawals whose order number and email match no order, usually a typing mistake. The shopper still got a receipt, so find the order and Attach the statement to it, or Dismiss it. A product the law exempts is marked in the product editor, under Type settings › Purchase rules › No right of withdrawal ( EU ). For a step by step walkthrough, see How to Add the EU Withdrawal Button.
Stock alerts
What counts as low stock, and the emails that go with it
3 settingsLow stock threshold
One figure for the whole store. It marks items as Low on the Inventory and Products screens and triggers the low stock email below. Any product or variant that has its own reorder point uses that instead, so this is the fallback rather than a hard rule.
Email me when stock runs low
Emails the store admin address the first time an item falls to the threshold. It does not nag: the alert will not fire again until the item has been restocked back above the line.
Email me when a product sells out
Emails the store admin address when an item hits zero, either a whole product or one option combination. Worth having on even if the low stock alert is off, since a sold-out product is actively losing you orders.
💡 Note: The threshold here is the store-wide fallback. A product or variant with its own reorder point uses that instead, which is set per product rather than on this page. For a step by step walkthrough, see How to Manage Inventory and Stop Overselling.
Abandoned cart
The classic daily reminder email
1 settingReminder email delay
How many days a cart sits untouched before the daily reminder email goes out. Three days is a reasonable default; shorter can feel pushy, longer and the shopper has usually bought elsewhere. This is the simple single reminder. Multi-step recovery sequences are built under Marketing, Abandoned carts.
💡 Note: For a step by step walkthrough, see How to Recover Abandoned Carts.
Collection and contact
Pickup and text messages
Pickup times and locations for restaurant and pre-order products, and SMS updates to shoppers.
Pickup scheduling
Pickup times for restaurant and pre-order products, and multiple locations
11 settingsRestaurant orders can be scheduled
Shoppers can choose a later pickup time for restaurant-style products instead of being limited to as soon as possible. Necessary for anyone taking orders ahead of a lunch or dinner rush.
Pickup time slot interval
The gap between the pickup times on offer. Short intervals give shoppers precision; longer ones give your kitchen room to batch orders sensibly. Match it to how long an order actually takes to prepare.
Expected preparation time
How long an as-soon-as-possible order takes from being placed to being ready. This is the promise the shopper sees, so set it to your realistic busy-period time rather than your best case.
Pre-order pickup instructions
Free text shown in the box where shoppers pick a date for pre-order products. Use it for where to collect, what to bring, or what happens if they are late.
Restaurant pickup instructions
Free text shown in the box where shoppers pick a time for restaurant-style products. Same idea as above, but for immediate collection: which door, where to park, whether to call on arrival.
Multiple pickup locations
Shoppers choose which of your locations to collect from, and products can be tied to particular locations. This needs the multiple locations add-on; without it the rest of this group has nothing to work with.
Separate schedule per location
Each location keeps its own opening hours and pickup windows rather than sharing one store schedule. Add your locations to the schedules first, or a location will appear to have no available times at all.
Ask shoppers to choose a location when the store loads
Asks shoppers to choose a location as soon as they arrive, so the products and schedules they see are the right ones from the start. The alternative is letting them browse everything and discover availability at checkout, which is a worse surprise.
Distance units
Whether distances in the location picker are shown in miles or kilometres. Set it to whatever your customers use, not what you use.
Google Maps API key
A Google Maps API key, used to turn shopper searches and your location addresses into coordinates automatically. Without one you must enter the latitude and longitude of every location by hand, and shopper searches cannot be matched to a nearby store.
Products not stocked at the chosen location
What happens to products the chosen location does not stock. Showing them but disabling purchase is the honest middle ground: the shopper learns the product exists and can switch location for it. Hiding them entirely makes for a cleaner store but a confusing one if somebody followed a link.
💡 Note: Everything below multiple pickup locations needs the multiple locations add-on. Without it the location picker has nothing to offer and the settings have no effect. For a step by step walkthrough, see How to Set Up Pickup, Delivery Scheduling and Restaurant Ordering.
Order text notifications
SMS alerts to shoppers through the WP EasyCart cloud texting service
3 settingsSend text notifications
Master switch for order text messages, sent through the WP EasyCart cloud texting service. Leave it off while you are still writing the triggers and message text, then turn it on once, rather than testing on real customers.
Default phone country
The phone country code assumed when the shopper’s own country cannot be worked out from their connection. Set it to wherever most of your customers are.
Preferred phone countries
Countries pinned to the top of the phone country-code list, so the common ones are not buried in an alphabetical list of two hundred. Pick the handful you actually ship to.
Keep going
Related panels
Product pages, lists, filters and inventory.
Registration rules and the account page shoppers land on afterwards.
The gateways that take the payment this page hands over.
Methods, zones and the live rates the cart estimator quotes.
What gets added to the total, including the VAT number field above.
Cart and checkout columns, and fitting the cart to a narrow theme layout.
Multi-step recovery sequences, beyond the single reminder here.
Your own questions at checkout, beyond the fields on this page.
Stopping card-testing bots at the checkout.
How to Set Up the One-Page Checkout
The one-page checkout from the shopper’s side, step by step.
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