Issue #196 Loop WP

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #196 of Loop WP!

Last week was the final part in our series as we compared and contrasted Beau’s answers with Matt Mullenweg’s and a dash of my thoughts sprinkled in, too.

This week is about the block and classic checkouts in WooCommerce. The results may surprise you.

Let’s go! 👇

Last week, Rodolfo Melogli (Business Bloomer & Checkout Summit) asked in a Twitter (X) poll: “Do you use the new block, or are you still on legacy/classic/shortcode?”

Based on 64 votes:

The Block checkout adoption surprised me (even though it’s the default for new stores).

It seemed too high 🤔.

Then Maarten Belmans (Studio Wombat) took things a step further. 👇

Maarten was able to analyse a subset of 10,000 of his customers. The custom script checked for two things:

Maarten published the results:

💡 To me, this is a good data set to work with and large enough to show that the block adoption rate for the cart/checkout is much lower than that in Rodolfo’s poll.

🚨 Interestingly, Maerten also provided additional data taking into consideration the adoption rate since the block checkout/cart became the default, in which case 13% > 18%.

The scraper couldn't determine the layout of 3k sites for various reasons:

(Maarten did say he could catch more sites, but would need to look into the errors more closely for ways to do that.)

I asked Maarten, “Did you have a hypothesis or assumptions before the research, and were they reinforced?” He answered as follows:

I am also surprised more sites have not moved to Shopify, but sadly, not surprised by the number of sites that no longer exist (eCommerce is not easy).

Like Maarten, I expected fewer sites to be using blocks for the checkout/cart, but James Kemp (Core Product Manager for WooCommerce) noted these numbers align with what Woo is seeing.

🤔 So, based on James’ comment and Maarten’s data, if 87% of WooCommerce users don’t use the block cart/checkout, why is that?

The truth is, there are many reasons:

💡 I echo both James and Ian’s comments, based on first-hand experience building an Address Autocomplete plugin. I documented the comparative ease of building for the classic checkout compared to the block checkout (which I eventually got working with some help).

However, a quick Google search shows stories over the years, and still now, with plugin compatibility issues using the block cart/checkout.

💡 The classic checkout is not perfect, and there are lots of plugins and themes which exist to improve the classic checkout experience and increase conversions, whether that be:

However, James Kemp argues: “We do see a 27% increase in checkout conversions when using the block checkout vs classic!”

I asked James more about this number:

James said:

💡 I agree, the block checkout/cart is much cleaner and better than the default classic cart without any modifications, and it’s fast too, so it’s understandable that the conversion rate is considerably higher.

I am still not a massive fan of the block editor, though the likes of Brian Coords and Mike McAlister show what’s possible, and there are solutions that would allow the best of both worlds.

ThemeSwitcher would allow you to have a block them for your site and a classic cart/checkout experience, if you wanted to investigate that option.

💡James Kemp feels that, over time, as it [block checkout/cart] becomes more extensible, we should see greater adoption, and while that’s a logical presumption, I think the adoption of the block editor and FSE as a whole will have a determining impact.

What are your thoughts, {{first_name|friend}}?

Reply and let me know.

That’s it for this week. 👋

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,