Elements Of a Good Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Having a shopping cart on your ecommerce website is essential to its function. However, having a usable shopping cart is what separates good ecommerce websites with great ones. If you want to boost sales and increase profits, here are a few things that you need to know about your shopping cart.
FULL PAGE AND MINI CARTS
Does your shopping cart have a full form and a mini version? Mini carts are smaller versions of the main cart that reside along the side of the page. They help people keep track of the items in their carts as they shop. Having one doesn’t take away from the design and layout of your site and is becoming something that more and more customers are wanting.
LINK FROM MINI CART TO FULL CART
In addition to having a mini cart, a good shopping cart will have a one click link from the mini cart to the full cart. This allows customers easy access to the full cart for final verification and then to the checkout screen.
ONE PAGE CHECKOUT
The fewer screens that a customer has to view while checking out, the better the chances are that the customer will complete the transaction and you will land the sale. For every screen that a customer has to go through in order to make a purchase, you will lose a certain percentage of them due to cart abandonment. This is why having a single page for your shopping cart and then your checkout is ideal.
MAKE FUNCTION BUTTONS OBVIOUS
The most overlooked, yet most important aspect of the ecommerce/shopping cart solution is the “Add to Cart” and “Checkout” buttons. The “Add to Cart” buttons should be prominently placed under each product, be of a pleasing contrast to the background and the “Checkout” button should be placed at the bottom of each product page.
USE A READABLE TABLE BASED LAYOUT
A shopping cart is designed to give your customers a brief overview of the items they have selected for purchase, how many were purchased and what the prices are. Using a table layout with a standard font will accomplish this feat well. Anything other than this, including a cluttered background, will cause confusion and result in a loss of customers. You want to keep your cart and checkout process as simple as possible.
“CONTINUE SHOPPING” LINK
One last feature of a good shopping cart is the “Continue Shopping” button. Many customers like to check their carts during their shopping experience. Make it easy for them to continue shopping by placing a prominent “Continue Shopping” button along the bottom of the page. Also, one of the biggest things you can do to boost add on sales is to recommend other, related products based on items your customers view or select for purchase. This is the one key element that led to the gigantic success of Amazon.
Good shopping cart design will keep your customers connected to the cart and provides a useable platform that make it easy for customers to buy from you.
