Checkout Lift: from checkout customization to measurable recovery

The challenge

A checkout needs to collect the information a store requires without asking every shopper unnecessary questions. Merchants also need visibility into unfinished checkouts and a way to bring eligible shoppers back.

These capabilities introduce a second challenge: reporting must distinguish a saved cart's potential value from revenue attributed to recovery. A shopper returning through a reminder does not justify counting every item in their eventual order as recovered revenue.

I built Checkout Lift as my own product under Design Tich, addressing checkout customization and measurable recovery through a free plugin and a separately installed Pro add-on.

The approach

Giving merchants control over checkout

The free edition provides a field editor for changing labels, placeholders, visibility, required status, order, and layout widths. Merchants can add six field types and apply country conditions; Classic Checkout also supports conditions based on another field's value.

Configuration export and import help move a setup between environments. WPML and Polylang integration registers checkout strings for translation, while international phone handling adds country-aware validation.

Pro extends the product with date and time fields, file uploads, fee fields, repeaters, and conditions based on cart contents, totals, payment, and shipping. It also provides multi-step checkout and optional Google Places address autocomplete.

From unfinished checkouts to a recovery workflow

When enabled, Lite records eligible checkout activity and presents unfinished checkouts alongside their potential cart value. Its analytics overview separates attempts, placed orders, and abandoned attempts.

Pro adds a configurable sequence of up to four recovery emails and protected cart-resume links. Restoring a cart uses WooCommerce's cart API, so products are checked against current availability and prices rather than replaying a saved total.

Attribution that follows the recovered items

Recovery attribution follows the quantities contributed by the restored cart into the final order lines. The implementation reconciles attributed value with product refunds, separating ordinary checkout completion from recovery-driven completion and avoiding attribution of unrelated cart items.

A free core and a separate paid add-on

The PHP implementation uses independently registered modules, with paid implementations physically separated into Pro. The administration interface uses WordPress JavaScript packages and protected API endpoints. Checkout integrations use WooCommerce hooks and cart/order APIs.

Privacy controls and explicit compatibility boundaries

Merchants control whether contact recording is enabled, whether explicit consent is required, and how long records are retained. Recovery records integrate with WordPress personal-data export and erasure. Analytics is stored separately without copying contact details or cart contents into its rows.

Classic Checkout supports the broader feature set. Checkout Blocks has partial support, with limitations surfaced in the editor. Multi-step checkout and several advanced fields remain Classic-only.

My contribution

Checkout Lift is my personal product under Design Tich. I developed both the free plugin and the Pro add-on, including their administration interfaces.

My scope included:

• Product implementation and modular PHP architecture.
• Checkout field editing, conditional behavior, and layout controls.
• Administration interfaces using WordPress JavaScript packages.
• WooCommerce checkout, cart, and order integrations.
• Unfinished-checkout capture and analytics.
• Pro email scheduling, protected cart restoration, and order-line recovery attribution.
• Privacy controls, retention, and WordPress export/erasure integration.
• Delivery of the free and commercial editions.

The outcome

The free edition is published on WordPress.org, and the Pro add-on is available to purchase through Design Tich.

The released product brings together configurable checkout fields, unfinished-checkout visibility, automated follow-up, cart restoration, and recovery attribution. It represents my work across the product's backend, administration interface, WooCommerce integrations, and free/Pro packaging.

Evidence policy: specific before/after metrics are published here only when they are verified and the client has approved their release. This site does not show invented numbers.