Ecommerce Website Designing - The Shopping Cart

By Author: Jared Scott Findel
Total Articles: 2
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Brushing up things on the shopping cart can curtail the abandonment rate on your ecommerce website and boost profits. Read on to know how you can work with your designer to ensure that your site has the perfect shopping cart.

Shopping cart abandonment is an issue troubling most e-commerce websites across the world. High shopping cart abandonment rate implies a lower conversion rate, which results in a loss of revenue. As a business person, the e-commerce website is your source of bread and butter, and you just cannot afford to lose your customers. You need to plug the hole, at the design stage.

Keep the buying process as quick and easy as possible for your customers. The lengthier it is, there are more chances of your customers abandoning it. It does not really mean anything to ask your customers to fill out needless information in the forms. Only seek information you cannot do without.

An ideal case will be to shrink the process to a single page. However, it is not always possible. So, if your process has several steps, ask your designer to include a progress bar.

The checkout process must never ...
... be in more than three steps. Customers need to know at which step they are when buying. Provide a going back button as well as the customers may need it if they make a mistake and want to rectify it. They may also want to revisit a page to ascertain the information they have entered.

Do not force customers to register before buying a product. There may be people, who want to buy a product, but do not want to provide more information about and become a member. First time buyers on an e-commerce website tend to be anxious and avoid giving personal information. So better oblige them.

To earn your customers’ trust, you need to be upfront about shipping and other hidden costs associated with the final checkout price. To tide over the ‘surprise’ element, you can provide a shipping calculator tool on the 'view cart' page. You can also provide promotion offers on this page to encourage customers go ahead with the transaction. For instance, if you are offering free shipping on orders over $100, a customer who intends to purchase a product of $90 can purchase an additional product to make it.

It will be helpful for the customers, and you as well, if you provide them an option to save the cart. Just because a customer has added an item to the cart does not mean that they are prepared to make the purchase at the moment. They may want to re-visit the site later to shop. With a ‘save the cart’ option, you let them know that they can access the cart any time with products in it. It also provides you an opportunity to capture their email address, which you can use for remarketing.

You can also encourage your customers to shop on your website by displaying links to guarantees and certified trust marks. For optimum effect, provide these on all the pages of your ecommerce website. Show your payment methods in the footer or sidebar. It does not take plenty of space and it is understandable as well.

For professional touch in your website, contact web design company specialized in e-commerce solutions. With a tit-bit with your shopping cart, you can substantially improve your sales.

Author of this article is associated with Jared’s Direct, who have earned acclaim for eb design and development. They offer unique full custom web design services.

Website: http://www.jaredsdirect.com/