A checkout flow (Patent Pending) is an optimized checkout experience individually designed to serve a specific set of shoppers based on user-defined criteria, such as the device they're using, their screen size, or the items in their cart.
A checkout flow falls into one of the following categories:
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Bold-hosted flows are built and hosted by Bold. These flows are configured in the Bold Checkout admin and can be used without any development work.
Note: Bold currently supports the use of only one Bold-hosted flow at a time.
- Self-hosted flows are built and hosted by the merchant. For more information on creating a self-hosted flow, please refer to our Dev Docs. Bold supports the use of multiple self-hosted flows at one time.
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Partner flows are built by one of Bold's partners. These flows are often intended for a specific platform, technology partner, or other use case.
Note: Bold currently supports the use of either one partner flow or one Bold-hosted flow at a time. Currently, PayPal Checkout flow is the only partner flow available in Bold Checkout.
This article outlines the benefits of checkout flows and Bold’s plans for the future.
Benefits
Bold Checkout allows you to monitor your checkout performance using checkout flow metrics. These measure your conversion, average order value (AOV), and lifetime customer value (LTV).
Access to these metrics allows you to fine tune your configuration and measure the results in real time. For example, you may configure your checkout to maximize conversion, but then find your business reaches its maximum profitability when your checkout flow is optimized for AOV or LTV.
To read more about checkout flow metrics and how they are calculated, please visit Checkout Flow Metrics.
The future of checkout flows
In the future, Bold plans to support multiple Bold-hosted flows. This will give you the opportunity to offer a different checkout experience to your customers and include the checkout as part of your A/B testing. If you find one checkout experience is performing better than the other, you may decide to use that checkout flow more often.
When using a single frontend checkout experience, all shoppers, regardless of their individual needs, proceed through the same flow. When you provide a variety of checkout experiences, you gain the opportunity to optimize each flow, creating the potential for higher conversion, AOV, or LTV.
Accessing checkout flows
Your checkout flows and checkout flow metrics are found on the Flows page in the Bold Checkout admin.