Checkout
Checkout in Salesforce Commerce is the multi-step flow that turns an active shopping Cart into a placed Order: collect billing address, collect shipping address (if needed), select shipping method, accept payment, run fraud screening, validate inventory, and finalise the Order record.
Definition
Checkout in Salesforce Commerce is the multi-step flow that turns an active shopping Cart into a placed Order: collect billing address, collect shipping address (if needed), select shipping method, accept payment, run fraud screening, validate inventory, and finalise the Order record. The Checkout flow is the highest-stakes part of any e-commerce surface; abandonment here directly reflects lost revenue. Salesforce B2B Commerce and B2C Commerce both implement Checkout as a configurable multi-step Lightning Flow plus the Cart Calculator integrations behind it.
Checkout matters because every shopper passes through it before becoming a customer. Friction in the flow drops conversion; smoothness compounds revenue. Salesforce's Checkout architecture lets admins customise the steps, the payment integrations, the shipping options, and the post-checkout actions while inheriting the platform's order creation, tax calculation, and inventory integration. Modern Checkout flows typically integrate with PayPal, Stripe, or a similar payment processor; with Avalara or Vertex for tax; and with a carrier API for shipping rates. Bringing these third-party services into the Checkout flow without slowing the shopper is the operational design challenge.
How Salesforce Checkout works step by step
The Checkout flow steps
A typical Checkout flow includes: review cart, billing address, shipping address, shipping method selection, payment, review, and place order. Steps can be combined or split depending on the org's needs. B2B Checkout often adds purchase order entry; B2C often skips the billing-versus-shipping distinction for digital goods.
Cart Calculator integration
Each Checkout step interacts with the Cart Calculator framework. Shipping selection recalculates the Cart's shipping line. Tax calculation runs when the shipping address is captured. Inventory check fires before payment. The Checkout flow orchestrates the calculator sequence in the right order.
Payment integration
Payment integration calls a third-party processor (Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, Cybersource) through Salesforce Payments or a custom integration. Tokenisation keeps card numbers out of Salesforce. The Checkout flow captures the payment token, authorises with the processor, and stores the authorisation reference on the Order.
Fraud screening
Before placing the Order, Checkout runs fraud screening (Salesforce Payments built-in screening, Signifyd, Riskified, Kount). Flagged orders pause for manual review; clean orders proceed. The screening adds milliseconds to the Checkout latency but catches fraud before fulfilment.
Tax calculation
Tax services (Vertex, Avalara) calculate sales tax based on the shipping address, the products in the cart, and the customer's tax-exempt status. The Tax calculator step fires after shipping address is known; the rate appears in the Cart totals before payment.
Order creation
When the shopper clicks Place Order, the platform creates an Order record from the Cart, with one Order Product per Cart Item. The Order replaces the Cart as the operational record going forward. Fulfilment, billing, returns, and customer service all happen on the Order.
Confirmation and downstream actions
Post-checkout actions include: send confirmation email, register the Order with the OMS (Order Management System), trigger fulfilment workflows, and update inventory. Salesforce Order Management handles many of these natively; some orgs integrate with external OMS for back-office fulfilment.
Common Checkout pitfalls
Three patterns recur. Slow third-party service calls (tax, fraud, payment) freeze the Checkout flow and drop conversion. Multiple validation failures (address, payment, inventory) compound friction; show them progressively rather than at once. And insufficient mobile testing produces broken Checkout on small screens. Each is addressable with deliberate UX design and performance monitoring.
How to design a Salesforce Checkout flow
Checkout design balances completeness (collect what fulfilment needs) with minimal friction (drop nothing the shopper does not need to provide). Every step is a conversion opportunity.
- Define the steps your business needs
List every piece of data Checkout must collect (billing, shipping, payment, purchase order, gift options). Combine steps that share context; split steps that have unrelated data.
- Integrate payment and tax services
Configure Salesforce Payments or your chosen payment processor. Integrate Vertex or Avalara for tax. Test in sandbox with real transactions before going live.
- Configure inventory and fraud screening
Inventory check at the right step (typically before payment). Fraud screening before Order creation. Both integrate through the Cart Calculator framework.
- Design the mobile Checkout experience
Mobile Checkout drives more of e-commerce every year. Test on real devices; broken mobile Checkout is the single biggest e-commerce defect.
- Build post-checkout flows
Confirmation email, OMS handoff, fulfilment trigger, inventory decrement. The Order lifecycle continues post-checkout; design those flows alongside the Checkout itself.
- Slow third-party service calls drop conversion. Monitor latency on tax, fraud, and payment integrations.
- Show validation errors progressively, not all at once. A wall of errors at submit kills conversion.
- Mobile Checkout breaks easily without dedicated testing. Test on real iPhone and Android, not just browser dev tools.
- Order creation should be atomic. If post-checkout actions fail (confirmation email, OMS handoff), the Order should still exist; do not roll back the order on downstream failure.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Commerce CheckoutSalesforce Help
- Salesforce Commerce OverviewSalesforce Help
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Checkout.
- Commerce Developer GuideSalesforce Developer Docs
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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