Shopping Cart Design Mistakes

Websites designed to sell products online often called online stores, etailers or ecommerce shops all usually want to sell the most amount of products to the most amount of people resulting in the highest sales possible. The majority of online stores are powered by some type of shopping cart which eases the technical know how needed to start an ecommerce business. However there is much more besides just the shopping cart software to keep in mind when designing or redesigning the website; especially the checkout portion of the site where you collect payment.

Build Trust
One key piece of any business is building trust with potential clients so they are willing to hand over precious information including their credit card for you to charge. The best way to build trust is to be completely open and transparent about who you are, how you do business, where you are located and how customers can get in touch with you. A great way to do this is to provide a toll free number for customer service at the top of every page. Another good idea is to include your hours next to the phone number so prospects and customers know when & how to get help. You will also want to include any professional associations that are widely recognized such as BBB, Chamber of Commerce or charity organization logos. This will lend credence to the fact that you are a real business with real customers who is active in the community.

Getting Off the Fence
Once you have built trust into potential buyers it is time to move into the sales stage by persuading prospects to buy and become customers. The first part of this is securing more trust with credit card & payment logos along with clear policies for returning an item, getting a refund, privacy and customer service. Next you want to have social proof to show that people similar to your prospects have found your offering to be great. Two of the best ways to do this is with customer reviews and testimonials. You can think outside the box here and use photos or videos if possible. It is also very valuable if you can link your product to a celebrity or some one else that is famous even if it is for a particular industry that utilizes your products.

Upsell
After you have the commitment to buy it is a great time to offer a special savings that benefits your prospect and boosts the order total to raise your bottom line. One mistake many online shops make is dropping a customer directly into the checkout process; this is a bad idea because it ends the shopping process unnaturally. A better approach is to show the product has been added to the basket or cart; then offer them products that go well with what was just added to the shopping cart. You can either offer popular accessories or something such as customers who bought this also bought widget xyz. Even once a customer decides they are finished shopping and checks out once you have shipping & billing information offer one last special upsell combo. Be sure all they have to do is click one button to complete the order either way that way it is easy to skip the offer so you do not lose the sale all together.

Make it easy
All too common the checkout process on a website is unclear and unintuitive causing prospects ready to buy to leave confused. The easiest way to clear up the confusion is to have a graphic at the top of the page that displays how far through the process the customer has completed. Using a number with a brief description is a great way to accomplish this; an example would be:

1. Shopping Cart -> 2. Shipping -> 3. Billing -> 4. Thank You

I highly recommend using some type of graphical representation since it will stand out more than plain text.

Close the sale
After a customer has submitted an order you need to take special care to prevent the order from being cancelled or a product return. If you lose the sale after processing the card then you will likely take a hit into the red since you incur fees for processing & refunding an order. Three simple tips will go a long way to ensure customers stay happy and order again instead of becoming a problem child. First is to send a confirmation email that the order has been received with an approximate ship date. Next you want to notify the customer when the order has shipped with a tracking number; if there are any delays to the order shipping such as holidays or back order then you should notify the customer by phone or email. Keeping in constant communication with your customer until they have received the order is the key to success. Finally to help close the loop offer a special coupon, discount or free gift for their order. You can either include this in the box which is a great way to get them to return to your website after the purchase or email them after the approximate arrival date.
Following the five tips above should help you to improve your online store revenue by decreasing cart abandonment rate while increasing conversion rate and average order value. Remember to always try new things and test if they have a positive or negative impact on the customer experience and the website revenue.