Understanding the checkout and payment process

Since most people shopping online today have made at least one e-commerce purchase through a website, the general process of completing an order is fairly well-established, although the exact steps will vary somewhat:

1. Customer reviews their shopping cart, confirming the items they have decided to purchase.
2. Customer enters their shipping destination information.
3. Customer chooses a shipping method based on cost, method, and time of delivery.
4. Customer enters their payment information.
5. Customer reviews their order, and confirms their intent to purchase.
6. The system (Magento, in our case) queries a payment processor for approval.
7. The order is completed and ready for processing.

Of course, as we'll explore in this chapter, you'll see there is much more detail related to this process. As online merchants, you would want your customers to have a thorough, yet easy, purchasing experience, and you would want a valid order that can be fulfilled without...