ISEdb.COM

Customers who, by all means, appear to be ready to make a
purchase are often found abandoning their shopping carts before they complete
their online transaction. In many cases this is part of the normal online
shopping experience as the shopping cart is just used as a place to collect
items of interest but which the user has no real intent to purchase. But all
too often it is a failure of the shopping cart page itself that leads visitors
to abandon their items which they do, in fact, wish to have.

While shopping car abandonment cannot be completely
eliminated, it can be dramatically reduced. There are a number of key
indicators that need to be present on your web site’s shopping cart page. These
indicators continue the process of instilling trust, reliability and provide
shoppers the cues they need to continue forward in the purchase process.

Checkout
link

In your main navigation you should always have an easy to
find link to the ‘cart’ page where visitors can go and view all the products
they have added. Typically it’s a good idea to use both an icon along with a
text link allowing the link to stand out a bit.

Updating
cart

The actual shopping cart page should provide users the
opportunity to edit their order before proceeding. Here they should have the
option to remove products, change sizes or increase the quantity as needed.

Advertising
& up-selling

Keep advertising on the cart pages to a bare minimum or
eliminate it all together. The fewer distractions the better. Product
cross-promotion and up-selling should be kept to a minimum and used only when
extremely relevant. Up-sells should be used primarily at the point a product is
added to the cart, not so much in the cart itself.

Safety
and security

There are a number of things that can and should be added to
the cart that provide shoppers with an additional sense of security. Links to
privacy, security, return and refund policies all provide valuable indictors of
trust to your shoppers.

Storing
personal info

You should not store personal information such as credit
card numbers, addresses, etc. unless specifically requested by the shopper. A
simple check box option where this information is gathered is a great idea.

Shipping
questions

It is extremely helpful to visitors to provide links to
commonly asked questions regarding the order such as shipping options, costs
and time along with what to do if there is an error with their order after they
have received it.

International
shipping

If you ship internationally make sure your address forms
support international addresses. Even better, have the form to change to match
the addressing options for each international location you allow.

<strong>Order
progress</strong>

If your order form has multiple steps, provide a progress
indicator so visitors know where they are and how many more steps they can
expect. Similarly, it’s a good idea to keep visitors informed of progress once
the order is made by sending emails when items are ready to ship or are
shipped, along with any tracking information. If changes must be made to the
order you should give them the opportunity to modify or cancel the order
entirely.

If your shoppers are truly ready to buy, the last thing you
want to do is to give them an opportunity to back out because they just don’t
“feel right” about the purchase. A well designed shopping cart page
can help ensure these shoppers feel safe and have everything they need to feel
good about their decision.