A shopping cart is an e-commerce platform – it is the entire bundle of software and services that together form the base of an online retail website. It’s possible for a business to build its own shopping cart platform out of computer programs running on its own servers and third-party payment processing add-ons. Running such a complex system, though, is out of the reach of small businesses.
Small businesses typically choose a hosted online shopping cart product. This is where a third-party business puts together everything needed to start an online business on its own servers and sells it as a single product. When a retailer signs up for an account, he finds that he has a fully operational empty store ready to go. All he has to do is to bring in products and build a brand.
Many first-time retailers underestimate the difference the right shopping cart can make
Studies by Forrester Research and other marketing research agencies find that between 50% and 75% of online shopping customers who arrive at the final checkout stage abandon the purchase and disappear. A good number abandon their shopping carts because they are only browsing or need to place a product in the shopping cart to actually see the price with shipping.
A third or more of cart abandoners, though, do so for reasons that can be traced to the retailer’s choice of shopping cart. Stores (or the shopping carts that run them) can turn customers away with their poor design and poor search amenities, for instance. What follows are the three main ways in which changing your shopping cart for a better model can help you improve your sales.
The best shopping carts can make your store look more professional and more trustworthy
Online shoppers may not worry about the security of their purchase when buying from a big-name online store. They do worry when shopping at small stores, though. Not only do they worry about the security of their credit card information, they also worry about the quality of the merchandise when it isn’t a big-name brand, delivery that takes too long, being sent the wrong products because of incompetence, a fair and efficient returns policy and whether website glitches will take their payment and leave them with no order.
While most of these problems are not related to the software that you use to run your store, there’s an important way in which your choice of shopping cart can help, nevertheless – by making you look more professional. When you are a new and untested store, it can be difficult for you to get across how well-organized and trustworthy you are. The way your website appears and functions is what advertises your trustworthiness. When people look at a perfectly run and well-designed website, they instinctively believe that the entrepreneur who’s gone to the trouble of designing it is serious about his business.
In general, you need to look for a shopping cart that helps you build credibility in the following ways:
• Many small online stores use haphazard navigation and search, they have product pages that don’t offer to magnify images for a close look, they don’t have proper Facebook integration or a reviews section where one can read reviews by other shoppers. It isn’t enough to find a shopping cart and that does have these features. Only a product that implements these features well can give you an overall aura of credibility.
• The more third-party trust symbols your customers see, the more they will trust you. Your choice of shopping cart should feature third-party payment security accreditation by PCI, VeriSign, TRUSTe, BBB Buy Safe, Trustwave, Security Metrics, Thawte, PayPal Verified and anything else that you can think of.
• The actual checkout cart needs to make it completely clear how much one needs to pay, shipping included. It should also include a link to the actual product page so that customers can quickly re-check product features.
• You shopping cart needs to accept and display large, high quality images. This makes you look more professional.
The best shopping carts make the shopping process easier
Poorly designed shopping carts simply make shopping at a store harder than it has to be. It’s important to remember how carefully award-winning physical stores are designed. From the moment a customer enters the store, the way everything is arranged simply helps the customer glide through the store. He picks things up and finds himself deposited them at an efficiently run cash register. Everything is exactly where it should be and help is always at hand.
This is the way an online store should be designed, too. Your shopping cart should allow you to do the following.
• It should allow you to categorize your products in any way you need and bring the right products up when customers use the search function. If customers want to search for products by user reviews, Facebook Likes, price-per-unit or anything else, the search function should allow it.
• It should offer easy product feature comparison and a list of recently viewed products.
• The Shopping Cart button and the Buy button should always be easy to access.
• When it is time to buy, the checkout system should be as short as possible. It shouldn’t force a customer to sign up (one out of three shoppers abandon their carts when they are asked to sign up). Instead, it should wrap up the entire checkout process in one, short page. Studies show that 20% of online shoppers abandon their carts because they feel the process takes too long. Another 20% abandon it because they get tired of all the security checks.
You need the best back-end management possible
While paying attention to the customer experience on the front end makes a lot of sense, it’s important for the store owner to be able to study his sales trends and understand what his customers want, too.
Some shopping carts offer simple Google Analytics integration. While this kind of integration is only basic, it’s better than having nothing. With shopping carts that offer high-quality sales reporting and analytics, you’re able to find out what your customers are searching for, what patterns they take searching through your store for products, and so on. These features can help the store owner provide his customers with the products they want.
