Your checkout was designed for one country. A single currency. One set of address fields. Standard shipping options. It worked perfectly - until you started selling internationally.
Now you're fielding complaints from customers in the UAE who can't enter their emirate. Shoppers in Germany abandoning because VAT calculations are wrong. UK customers confused by "State" fields. And your operations team manually fixing addresses that arrived in unusable formats.
This isn't a failure of your team or your platform. It's a fundamental limitation of how standard e-commerce checkouts are built. They're designed for domestic simplicity, not international complexity. And as more businesses sell globally, this gap is costing real money.
The International Checkout Problem
When we talk about "international commerce," most merchants think about shipping and currency. Those are solvable problems with existing tools. The harder challenge is the checkout experience itself - the form fields, validation rules, and user interface that customers interact with when placing an order.
Here's what standard checkouts get wrong:
WooCommerce Limitations
- State/County field doesn't adapt labels by country
- Phone input has no international format support
- Postal code required even for countries that don't use them
- Shipping calculations require full address before showing options
- Blocks checkout difficult to customise without breaking updates
- Payment gateway scripts conflict with custom implementations
Shopify Limitations
- Checkout customisation locked behind Shopify Plus ($2,000+/month)
- Limited control over field labels and validation
- No native support for region-specific address formats
- Shipping apps can't modify the checkout UI
- Phone country codes require third-party apps
- Custom payment flows require checkout extensions
The result? Customers struggle. They enter addresses in formats your warehouse can't parse. They abandon because shipping costs appear too late. They call support because the "State" field doesn't make sense in their country.
What a Purpose-Built International Checkout Looks Like
We recently built a bespoke checkout system for a fashion brand selling across the UAE, UK, EU, and US. The brief was straightforward: make checkout feel native regardless of where the customer is ordering from.
Below is an interactive prototype demonstrating the key features. Try switching countries to see how the entire experience adapts.
Shipping Address
Shipping Method
Feature Breakdown: What Makes This Work
The prototype above demonstrates several features that standard checkouts simply don't offer. Let's break down each one and why it matters for international conversion.
1. Dynamic Field Labels
When a customer selects their country, every relevant field updates automatically. "State" becomes "Emirate" for UAE customers, "County" for UK customers, "Province" for Canadians. This isn't cosmetic - it directly impacts whether customers understand what information you're asking for.
When a UAE customer sees "State" in a dropdown, they don't know what to select. Is Dubai a state? Is it the city? This confusion causes abandonment and - worse - incorrect data that delays delivery. By showing "Emirate" with the correct options (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, etc.), you eliminate confusion entirely.
We maintain a database of 922+ states, counties, emirates, and provinces across 70+ countries. Each entry includes the country code, region code, display name, and the appropriate field label for that country. When the country selection changes, an AJAX call retrieves the correct options and updates both the field label and the dropdown contents.
2. International Phone Input
Phone numbers are critical for delivery - couriers need to contact customers about delivery windows, access codes, and failed attempts. But phone formats vary wildly by country, and customers often don't know whether to include their country code.
A proper international phone input solves this by:
Country Sync
Phone country automatically matches the shipping address country, so a UAE address defaults to +971.
Format Validation
Validates that the number has the correct digit count for that country (UAE: 9 digits, UK: 10-11 digits).
Stored Correctly
Saves the full international format (+971501234567) so your warehouse and couriers can use it directly.
Searchable
240+ countries with a searchable dropdown - customers can type to find their country instantly.
3. Smart Postal Code Handling
Not every country uses postal codes. The UAE doesn't require them. Neither do Ireland, Hong Kong, or most of the Gulf states. Yet standard checkouts mark the postal code field as required for everyone, forcing customers to either guess, enter fake data, or abandon.
A properly built checkout knows which countries require postal codes and which don't, adjusting validation rules accordingly.
Countries Where Postal Codes Are Optional
UAE, Ireland, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, and approximately 30 African nations don't use postal codes for standard deliveries. Your checkout should know this.
4. Card-Based Shipping Selection
Standard checkouts present shipping options as radio buttons with dense text. Our approach uses visual cards that clearly show the shipping method name, estimated delivery time, and cost - with free options highlighted and sorted first.
This isn't just aesthetics. Clear shipping presentation reduces "shipping shock" (where customers see unexpected costs at the final step and abandon) by making costs visible and understandable throughout the process.
5. Free Shipping Progress Tracking
If you offer free shipping above a threshold, customers should know exactly how close they are. A progress bar showing "Spend AED 60 more for FREE shipping" encourages basket additions and reduces abandonment from customers who were close but didn't know it.
6. Real-Time Shipping Calculations
Standard checkouts often wait until the customer has entered their complete address before calculating shipping costs. This creates a frustrating experience where customers fill out lengthy forms only to discover at the end that shipping costs more than expected.
A better approach calculates shipping as soon as the country is selected, then refines the estimate as more address details are added. Customers see shipping costs early, reducing surprise abandonment.
When to Invest in Custom Checkout
Not every business needs a bespoke checkout. If you're selling domestically with straightforward shipping, standard WooCommerce or Shopify checkout works fine. The investment in customisation only makes sense when:
| Scenario | Standard Checkout | Custom Checkout |
|---|---|---|
| Selling in 1-2 countries with similar formats | Sufficient | Unnecessary |
| Selling across regions (EU, GCC, Americas) | Friction likely | Strong ROI |
| High-value orders where abandonment is costly | Lost revenue | Pays for itself |
| B2B with complex address requirements | Manual correction needed | Automation possible |
| Significant support tickets about checkout | Ongoing cost | One-time fix |
Platform-Specific Recommendations
If you've decided that checkout customisation makes sense for your business, your approach will depend on your platform.
For WooCommerce Merchants
WooCommerce offers the most flexibility for checkout customisation, but the new Blocks-based checkout is significantly harder to modify than the classic checkout. If you're planning customisation:
Disable Blocks checkout and work with the classic shortcode-based checkout. This gives you full access to WooCommerce hooks and filters, making customisation straightforward. Use the woocommerce_checkout_fields filter to modify fields, and custom JavaScript for dynamic behaviour.
For maximum control, create a custom shortcode that renders your own checkout UI while still using WooCommerce's backend for cart management, shipping calculations, and payment processing. This approach requires more development but gives you complete freedom over the customer experience.
If payment gateway integration proves complex (particularly with custom checkouts), consider redirecting customers to Stripe Checkout or PayPal's hosted pages for the payment step. This lets you customise the address collection experience while leaving payment to the experts.
For Shopify Merchants
Shopify's checkout is famously locked down, with significant customisation only available on Shopify Plus. Your options are more limited:
Since you can't modify Shopify checkout without Plus, focus on the cart page and any pre-checkout steps. Collect shipping country early (via geolocation or explicit selection) to set expectations about shipping costs and delivery times before customers reach checkout.
If international checkout is critical to your business and your volume justifies the cost, Shopify Plus (starting at $2,000/month) unlocks checkout.liquid customisation and Shopify Functions for custom logic. This is the only way to significantly modify Shopify's checkout experience.
Shopify's newer Checkout Extensions allow some customisation without Plus, but they're limited to adding UI elements rather than modifying core behaviour. You can add custom fields or information blocks, but you can't change how address fields work or add international phone inputs.
The Build vs. Buy Decision
Before committing to custom development, consider whether existing solutions might meet your needs:
Multi-Currency Apps
Apps like JEAA (WooCommerce) or Bold (Shopify) handle currency conversion but don't address address format issues.
Address Validation Services
Loqate, Google Address Autocomplete, and similar services improve address accuracy but don't customise the checkout UI.
Shipping Apps
ShipStation, Shippo, and similar tools optimise shipping rates but work with addresses as-collected, not the collection process itself.
Custom Development
When off-the-shelf solutions don't address your specific combination of requirements, custom development fills the gap.
The honest answer is that most businesses can improve their international checkout experience with a combination of existing tools and targeted customisation. Full bespoke checkout development makes sense when you have specific requirements that no existing solution addresses, or when the volume of international orders justifies the investment.
Getting Started
If you're experiencing the international checkout problems described in this article - high abandonment rates, address correction overhead, customer complaints about confusing forms - the first step is understanding exactly where the friction is occurring.
We recommend starting with a checkout audit: review your analytics to identify where international customers drop off, survey recent customers about their checkout experience, and document the manual corrections your team makes to international orders. This data tells you whether targeted improvements (like better field labels or phone input) would solve the problem, or whether a more comprehensive rebuild is warranted.
If you'd like help evaluating your checkout experience or scoping a customisation project, we're happy to take a look. We've built checkout systems for businesses selling across the GCC, Europe, and Americas, and we can give you an honest assessment of what's worth fixing and what's working well enough.
Ready to discuss your checkout challenges? Get in touch to schedule a conversation.
Ready to Build Something?
If this resonated, let's talk about how we can apply these ideas to your business.
Start a Conversation