5 Tips To Design Usable Shopping Carts

eCommerce websites have one purpose: to sell your products or services. While there are a number of key elements that every eCommerce website needs, the most vital element is your shopping cart. Your cart needs to be able to provide your customers with a shopping cart that is simple and easy to use. If not, they will abandon your cart in favor of another merchant who’s is. Here are a few tips to help you create a usable shopping cart for your eCommerce website.

1. CHECKOUT PROCESS

There are champions of the step by step checkout method that actually walks customers through each step of the purchasing process. And then there are the champions of the one page shopping cart that offers customers the ability to enter all of their pertinent information on one page. Both processes work well, but many customers prefer the step by step process. While it takes a little bit longer, it eliminates the uncertainty that something was entered incorrectly or was missed.

2. MAKE CHECKOUT/ADD TO CART BUTTONS OBVIOUS

Your “add to cart” buttons should be obvious and allow customers to place things in their carts with one click. In addition, each page should have a clearly marked “proceed to checkout” button that allows customers to access the full cart with one click. “Add to cart” buttons should be available in each product description and “proceed to checkout” buttons should appear prominently on every page where goods are being sold. The idea here is that if customers don’t know how to put things in their cart or find the cart to checkout when they are finished, they won’t look for it. They’ll abandon it in favor of a site where they can.

3. USE A TABLE LAYOUT

Well organized shopping carts make customers happy. They will be able to review their selections and make changes easily. Make sure that your shopping cart uses the familiar table layout that outlines the product descriptions, quantities and prices and that they are listed in fonts that are easy to read. Keep your background clean in order to avoid distraction and unnecessary confusion.

4. AVOID TOO MANY FIELDS

Keep your forms short. Customers hate completing checkout forms. Not only do shorter forms keep your shopping cart clean and simple, it makes them more inviting for customers to complete. When designing your forms, make sure to organize your fields in a way that makes sense and incorporate white space to balance the page and keep things organized.

5. ALWAYS INCLUDE A VERIFY PAGE

Last but not least, make sure that your cart includes a verify page that allows customers to confirm their selections before placing an order.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, it provides a good guide to help you develop your website shopping cart.