WooCommerce Checkout Slow? How to Fix & Speed Up Your Orders

Is your WooCommerce checkout page loading slow, causing customers to abandon their carts? Don’t worry! This guide will walk you through the common causes of slow checkout processes and provide effective solutions to fix them, ensuring a smooth and speedy experience for your customers.

A slow WooCommerce checkout can be incredibly frustrating for both you and your customers. When a customer clicks that “Place Order” button, they expect a quick confirmation, not a 4-5 second loading time. This delay can lead to lost sales, decreased conversion rates, and a damaged reputation for your online store.

The Need for Speed: Why Your Checkout Page is Slowing Down and How to Fix It

Having experienced a sluggish checkout process on my own website, I understand the urgency to address this issue. In this guide, we’ll explore the common culprits behind slow checkout times and order errors in WooCommerce, and I’ll share practical solutions to get your store back on track.

First things first:

• Email Functionality: Ensure your website is configured to send emails correctly. A misconfigured email system can significantly impact checkout speed.
• Server Resources: Verify your hosting environment (VPS or shared hosting) has adequate resources, including sufficient memory (RAM), CPU power, and storage space. WooCommerce, especially with numerous products and plugins, can be resource-intensive.
• Plugin and Theme Conflicts: Identify any plugins or themes that might conflict with WooCommerce. Conflicts can lead to slowdowns and errors during checkout.
• Email Cron: If your website meets the above conditions but still experiences slow email delivery or checkout, the issue might lie with the “Email Cron” system. WooCommerce uses this system to schedule and send emails. If it malfunctions, emails can be delayed or lost, directly affecting checkout speed.

Understanding the WooCommerce Checkout Process:

When a customer clicks the “Place Order” button, WooCommerce sends an Ajax request to your website and triggers an email before displaying the order success message. This sequence can cause a delay, especially if email delivery is slow. One effective solution is to delay the email until after the success page is displayed.

Optimizing Your Checkout Process: Solving Slow Order Errors on WooCommerce

Here are two effective methods to tackle slow WordPress order processing. You can implement these by adding a code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file or using the Code Snippets plugin:

Method 1: Speed Up WooCommerce Checkout by Delaying Emails (Recommended)

You just need to open your theme’s functions.php file, then add the following code:

/** 
Fix checkout Email Cron (Slow page checkout after click button) 
*/
add_filter( 'woocommerce_defer_transactional_emails','__return_true' );

Method 2: Using Asynchronous Email to Handle Slow Payment Errors in WordPress

This method utilizes Must-Use Plugins (mu-plugins), which are automatically activated on your WordPress website. We’ll override the cron_email function to fix slow WooCommerce checkouts.

To use mu-plugins, you need to do the following steps:

• Create a new folder with the name “mu-plugins” in the “wp-content” folder of your WordPress site.
• Create a file in the “mu-plugins” folder with any name you like for example “ EmailSendAsyn.php ”. and add the following content:

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: Email Send Asynchronously
 * Plugin URI: https://arriveddev.com/
 * Description: Speed up and optimize WooCommerce checkout page
 * Author: arriveddev.com
 * Author URI: https://arriveddev.com/
 */


if ( ! defined( 'DOING_CRON' ) || ( defined( 'DOING_CRON' ) && ! DOING_CRON ) ) {

    function wp_mail() {
        $args = func_get_args();
        $args[] = mt_rand();
        wp_schedule_single_event( time() + 5, 'cron_send_mail_async', $args );
    }
}

function email_send_asynchronously() {

    $args = func_get_args();

    array_pop( $args );

    call_user_func_array( 'wp_mail', $args );
}

add_action( 'cron_send_mail_async', 'email_send_asynchronously', 10, 10 );

• To check if the “EmailSendAsyn.php” class is enabled, you can visit the “Plugins” page in the WordPress admin interface and search for the plugin name “EmailSendAsyn” in the list.
• After completing these steps, you can check the order again. You will notice that your WordPress site no longer experiences slow loading when clicking the checkout button. The success message will now appear immediately, followed by prompt email delivery.
• If there is any problem, just delete the class “EmailSendAsyn.php” and it will be fine.

By implementing these solutions, you can significantly improve your WooCommerce checkout speed, reduce errors, and provide a seamless experience for your customers.