Shopping Cart – An Effective Ecommerce Website Designing

By Author: Smatkathy Green
Total Articles: 265
Comment this article

Shopping cart desertion is a major problem troubling most of the e-commerce websites across the world. High shopping cart rejection rate implies a lower conversion rate, which results in a loss of revenue for any business. As a business person, the e-commerce website is your source of income, and you just cannot afford to lose your customers just because of this problem. You need to sort out the things, at the designing stage.

Make certain changes for such as keep the buying process as easy and quick as possible for your customers. The lengthier it is, there are more chances of your customers leaving it. It does not really mean anything to ask your customers to fill out unnecessary information in the forms. Only keep information you cannot do without.

The best thing is to shrink the process to a single page. This makes process easier for the customers. However, it is not always possible. So, if your procedure has several steps then ask your designer to make it simpler by including a progress bar.

The sign out process must never be in more than three steps. Customers need to be shown that at which step ...
... they are buying and when. It is also good to provide a going back button as the customers may need it if they make a mistake and want to resolve it. They may also need to revisit a page to ascertain the information they have entered is correct or want to make some changes.

Never force customers to register before buying a product. There may be people, who want to buy your product, but do not want to provide more information such as email id or other things, which you may ask during registration process and become a member. First time buyers on an e-commerce website tend to be curious and avoid giving personal information. So, it’s better oblige them.

To earn your customers’ trust, you need to be honest about shipping and other hidden costs that are associated with the final checkout price. To surge over the ‘surprise’ element, you can provide a shipping calculator tool on the 'view cart' page. You can also put promotion offer banners on this page to encourage customers to go ahead with the transaction. For instance, if you are offering free shipping on orders over $150, a customer who intends to purchase a product of $120 can purchase an additional product to make it.
It will be beneficial for the customers, and you as well, if you give them a button to save the cart. Just because a customer has put an item in the cart does not mean that they are prepared to make the purchase at the moment. They would think on this matter and would like to re-visit the site later to shop. With a ‘save the cart’ option, you can let them know that they can access the cart any time with the products in it. It also helps you to get an opportunity to grab their email address, which you can utilize for marketing campaign.

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

For truly a professional touch in your website, contact a reliable web design company specialized in e-commerce designing solutions. With a little change in your shopping cart, you can significantly improve your sales and grow your online business.