Shopping Cart Optimization Tips

For most e-Commerce companies, webmasters, and digital

marketers, the focus lately has been on ensuring that your

website is mobile friendly. However, you still cannot

ignore shopping cart page optimization. There are steps

you can take to ensure that your shopping cart isn’t

causing abandonment with small missing items,

distractions, or deterring factors. This article today will

cover 10 simple tips to help improve your shopping cart

conversion rate.

1. Consistent design : This especially applies if you have

a third party shopping cart. Often times, it can look totally

different from the rest of your site. This does not instill

confidence in your buyer if, all of the sudden, the page

that asks for their payment details and personal

information looks different than the rest of the site. To

avoid this uncertainty with your buyers, make sure that

your shopping cart page(s) looks the same as the rest of

your site.

2. Security comes first : Further instill confidence in your

shoppers by displaying secure shopping logos. Use the

tools that your SSL certificate provides you with. Logos

that are easily recognizable and trusted symbols are better

than text information.

3. Shipping details : For companies that charge shipping,

it can be one of the top reasons for abandonment.

Customers don’t like to pay shipping. Test what type of

shipping works best for your company, but always be up

front in the checkout process. Never hide the shipping

costs from customers and always try to offer different

shipping prices and different shipping times.

4. Use simple language : Your shopping cart isn’t a place

for fancy words or industry jargon. Keep your selling

message short, if anything at all, and just use language

explaining what information you need from buyers.

5. Plan out a clear path for shoppers : Don’t let your

buyers get confused about what they should do next. Light

up the path so that shoppers have a clear choice and see

where to click.

6. Link to policies : Linking or listing policies is another

tricky area when it comes to your shopping cart. You don’t

want shoppers to leave the checkout process to find

answers to a question they might have about your return

policy, privacy policy, etc. You can link to these policies

from your shopping cart page to a new window so that

they won’t lose their spot in the checkout process. Find the

right wording in the link anchor text to help try to answer

most questions if you can. For example, the link text could

be No Hassle Return Policy or We never sell or share your

information.

7. Add a review step : Even though you generally want

the checkout process to be as smooth as possible, adding a

review step actually helps with conversions because you

can encourage shoppers to put all of their information in

without any hesitation when you write You can review all

your information before finalizing your order.

8. Find the right balance : What we mean is the right

balance between keeping shoppers informed while less

distracted. It is hard to find the right balance of including

all of the information you need to tell your shoppers why

they should buy from you versus having too many

distractions that can lead to information overload or

distractions that take shoppers away from the buying

process.

9. Confirmation page and email notification : Make sure

that your checkout process has a clear confirmation page

and that the customer receives a confirmation email within

minutes after placing the order. Without these two

elements, it is very possible that a customer might think

the order didn’t go through and therefore may not plan on

keeping it.

10. Test, test, test : When it comes to each of the steps

and improvements you make, some might work for you

and some might not. This is a fluid and ever-changing

process. Some things work for some companies and certain

sets of customers and others do not. The best way to

continually increase conversions and increase sales is

through testing and making small changes that lead to

continual improvements in your conversion rate.

Remember that your shopping cart checkout process

should always be fluid, and you should continually make

changes that help make small improvements on top of

improvements. Split testing and usability studies will also

help guide your way through this process of improving

conversion rates.