The chances are that you’ve used an eCommerce website to purchase something. After all, a growing number of people use the internet to shop. Whether you’re a relative newcomer to eCommerce, or were an early adopter, you’ll notice that most sites follow a similar formula. However, transactional sites have come a long way over the last 20 years. As professionals in the industry learn the most effective ways to get people to shop, there are some definite tends that emerge. So what makes an effective shopping cart solution? Essentially, customers need a site that is easy to use, fast, secure, and provides a good range of payment options. It’s amazing how many websites get this wrong, however.

The Shopping Cart Elite team has a diverse and extensive range of experience in eCommerce. Because of this, we’re fairly confident in knowing the essential elements needed to deliver a great website. This article will examine some of these essential elements, and demonstrate how our own platform excels at each.

An Effective Shopping Cart Solution Key Element: Security

One aspect of eCommerce that has always been important is security. In the early days of the internet, customers were often reluctant to input their personal details into websites, particularly credit card details. Although it’s more commonplace now, the risk is no less. As payment giant Visa recognizes, there is a growing threat to online security, particular linked to payments. Couple this with the fact that many users now feel confident storing their personal details with websites, it’s clear to see why this is such an important factor.

Any eCommerce provider has to ensure that their shopping cart and payment process is safe and secure for their customers. While companies such as Visa and MasterCard work on their own verification improvements, eCommerce providers must guard their customer’s details and ensure a safe shopping cart.

An Effective Shopping Cart Solution Key Element: Payment Options

There can be few doubts that the finance world is changing rapidly. With the recent successes of cryptocurrencies, people are beginning to think differently about money. No longer do individuals have to rely on slow bank transfers. Services such as PayPal and Payoneer have changed the eCommerce landscape. Options such as these make it quick and easy to complete a purchase in almost any currency, whether it’s fiat or cryptocurrency.

There are many factors to consider in regards to the various payment options available. Which ones will your customers use? Are the secure? Do they have a good reputation? All of this must be taken into account when signing up for a payment gateway. Effective shopping carts give users the freedom of choice in these matters, and in reality it very much links back to security. A customer needs to have the faith to make a purchase.

An Effective Shopping Cart Solution Key Element: Speed

One element that has drastically changed in recent years is page load times. Back in the days of dial up, or early broadband, internet users had to be much more patient. You could click on a link and wander off to another task whilst waiting for it to load. However, more recent studies have shown that users expect a page to load within two seconds or less. If it doesn’t load within 3 seconds, they’re likely to close the page and try another site entirely. This can be hugely damaging.

Slow response times usually result in a high bounce rate. It can also discourage users from returning to your site in future. Apply this to your shopping cart or checkout page and your abandon basket rate will skyrocket. Furthermore, Google is known to penalize websites that are slow to load. It’s therefore vital that your website is fast and responsive, not just on desktop but on mobile and tablet devices too.

An Effective Shopping Cart Solution Key Element: Responsive Design

Mobile shoppers are on the rise. The trend for the last few years has seen an uptake in people using their mobiles and tablets to shop online. Although this has resulted in many sites focusing on a ‘mobile-first’ approach, in reality customers generally have a multi-channel approach. They switch between devices throughout the day, and may browse the same site across different platforms.

Although conversion rates are still generally lower on mobile devices, it’s important that your online store looks and performs great no matter what it’s being viewed on. Having a responsive site means that the hard work you put into design doesn’t have to be done twice over. If you’re trying out new elements or functionality, it should go through usability testing across all the devices that your customers use.

An Effective Shopping Cart Solution Key Element: Follow Up and Abandoned Baskets

Once a customer has gone through the transaction process, the follow up work has to be just as effective. Order confirmation, shipping details, order tracking, and feedback are all important points that contribute to an effective shopping cart solution. The same can be said for abandoned baskets. If an existing customer is considering making a purchase with you and goes as far as the checkout page before leaving, you can’t let that hot lead fade. This is where CRM software comes in to play.

An effective CRM system will automate the key parts of this after care. It will consolidate all of your customers’ details in one easy to use place. You can then set up specific tasks that will be delivered when certain parameters are met. This can really help you deliver an effective marketing strategy, and increase conversion on your basket page.

Shopping Cart Elite: The Most Effective Shopping Cart Solution

With the key elements we’ve mentioned in mind, the teams at Shopping Cart Elite have worked hard to deliver an eCommerce solution that meets all of these needs. It is part of the reason we think that we’re the most effective shopping cart solution available. Below we’ve briefly covered each point.

Security
Sites that run on our platform benefit from our advanced security features. These include Rek9 technology, a secured bank vault solution that allows you to store credit card data and other financial data securely and out of sight using tokenization technology. It’s fully PCI DSS Level 1 security compliant, meaning your customers can shop with peace of mind. Shopping Cart Elite also monitors incoming traffic for active threats from hackers such as cross site scripting, SQL injection, comment spam, unauthorized bot crawling, email harvesters, and more. Additionally, all of our sites are provided with their own SSL certificate.

Payment Options
To ensure that you and your customers have access to all of the major payment gateways, we offer over 100 different payment options. This encompasses around 99% of the world’s gateways, giving you the freedom to choose whichever one you want. Major payment providers include PayPal and Amazon Checkout. Thanks to the security features we mentioned above, customers who use your site can choose to store their data for recurring payments, safely and securely.

Speed
We take page speed seriously, using some of the most advanced technologies to power our sites. Features such as our Hypersonic CDN and Global Content Deliver Network mean that sites using our platform have page load times of 2 seconds or under. This not only applies to our desktop sites. We make sure that mobile pages are equally well optimized.

Responsive Design
We’re proud to offers our clients a platform that delivers mobile sites that are 100% Mobile-Friendly as tested by Google. This means that no matter what device our sites our viewed on, your customers will experience a fast and well-optimized site. When you use our CMS to build your pages, they will automatically be translated for mobile and tablets.

CRM
Our advanced CRM software gives you everything you need to effectively market to your customers. It offers insight into your business’ key touchpoints to determine what is working effectively and what isn’t. From this data you can more accurately provide your customers with what appeals to them. You can manage your entire customer data in one streamlined place, including contact details, order details, and lead status. With this information, you can follow up on orders more efficiently, and target abandoned baskets.

Choose Shopping Cart Elite

Hopefully we’ve demonstrated why Shopping Cart Elite offers all of the essential elements of an effective shopping cart solution. We know the industry inside out, and are constantly developing our infrastructure to meet and exceed the demands of the ever-changing eCommerce landscape. Our platform is designed to give you and your customers a complete online shopping experience. We can provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to successfully grow your business. Choose Shopping Cart Elite today and start engaging your customers.