What makes a good eCommerce cart? This is a question that many businesses and websites have tried to answer. As the online shopping space continues to grow and change, customers have a much broader range of choices than ever before. There can be no denying that price pays the biggest role in most buying decisions. With the freedom to research and try many different web stores at the click of a button, customers can easily determine which site offers the best deal. However, there are certainly other factors that affect the way people shop.

A good eCommerce website comprises of many components. It’s part of the reason why Shopping Cart Elite offer a complete solution right out of the box. One element that is often overlooked is the shopping cart itself, the part where the actual transaction is completed. User experience should be just as good if not better than the rest of the site at this key touchpoint. It can massively impact conversion rate and ultimately your sales. We’ve researched what makes a good eCommerce cart, and how important UX is in relation to conversion.

Shopping Cart Abandonment

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for an online retailer to see is a high basket or shopping cart abandonment rate. The terms refers to when a customer adds an item or items to their basket, navigates to the checkout page, and then leaves the site without making a purchase. Having done the hard work in getting them to your site, browsing for a product, and adding it to their cart, it seems unfortunate to lose the sale at the last moment. So why does it happen? There are many reasons that can cause a customer to leave their purchase uncompleted:

• Forcing a customer to sign up: This puts up a barrier to the customer making a purchase. They may not want an account, or perhaps don’t have the time to create one.
• A slow site: We’ve mentioned in other articles how most internet users expect a page to load within 2 seconds or less. If your site and your checkout are slow to respond, it may cause visitors to leave your site.
• Security fears: Despite online shopping becoming ever more popular, users still have safety concerns. If there’s potential for your site to be or appear to be a safety risk, users will not be willing to make purchases.
• Delivery costs: One of the most common reasons for a customer to leave a purchase is if they encounter unexpected delivery costs. They may have been expecting free or cheap delivery, and it’s definitely a make or break factor.
• A complicated checkout: This is somewhat linked to the first point about sign up, but if the checkout is hard to use or requires unnecessary steps, it can definitely frustrate your customers.

Low Conversion

Your website’s conversion rate refers to the number of people who visit your site and then complete a transaction. It’s debatable what constitutes a ‘good’ conversion rate, but it’s generally somewhere between 3-11%. This does depend on your niche though, as well as factors such as mobile users, traffic and more. Much like cart abandonment, there are numerous factors that contribute towards your conversion rate, including having a good eCommerce cart. Some of the other most notable factors that impact conversion rate are:

• Poor UX: If your site is hard to navigate, unresponsive, confusing, and doesn’t meet a user’s expectations, the conversion rate will be low. People are quick to judge a website, and often don’t have the time and patience to figure out how it works. It’s important to test functionality on a site, this includes both live A/B testing and usability testing. You need to know how your customers are responding to every element of your website.
• Your site isn’t optimized for SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a growing art. Google and other search engines are constantly trying to deliver the best, most relevant content. If your site is badly optimized for this, you will get lower-quality traffic. Volume will be down, but people may find your site unrelated to what they initially searched for. Your bounce rate will go up and conversion will go down.
• Your site isn’t optimized for mobile: Mobile and tablet shoppers are on the rise. In general, conversion rates on mobile are lower than on desktop. This is not only because of different user habits (i.e. people use their mobile to browse rather than buy). It’s also linked to many sites not optimizing for their mobile users. It’s vital that customers experience the same level of quality across all platforms.

UX Features of a Good eCommerce Cart

One of the biggest contributors to poor conversion rate is bad shopping cart UX. We’ve seen some of the reasons why people abandon their baskets; now let’s see what makes a good eCommerce cart:

• Call attention to it: Customers should be given the necessary calls to action on your site. The ‘add to cart’ or similar should be prominent, and once something is in there, customers should be prompted to visit the checkout.
• It should be simple: Don’t put up barriers to complete a purchase. Your checkout process should be straightforward, with customers having to do a minimal amount of work. If they don’t want to sign up, they shouldn’t be forced to.
• It should be clear: The cart should be easy to locate. Once a customer navigates there, it should show all of the information they need. This includes amount, price, shipping cost, and estimated delivery time. If you use promo codes, make sure they’re easy to input. Show how far users have progressed through the process.
• You should send emails: Abandoned Cart emails are incredibly effective. If customers are leaving items in their cart, you should be sending out emails to remind them to complete their purchase. A good CRM system can help with this by setting up automatic emails.

Shopping Cart Elite: Helping You Create a Good eCommerce Cart

Shopping Cart Elite has a diverse and experienced team who know the eCommerce industry inside and out. We’ve spent a great deal of time gathering all of the tools a business needs to excel in their online sales. We use the latest designs, technologies, and tools, along with out expert knowledge, to provide our clients all of the elements to create a great website with a good eCommerce cart.

• Design
  The Shopping Cart Elite page templates offer users both flexibility and an industry standard. We use the latest designs and technology to power our templates, meaning that your site, including your shopping cart will have the very best features. What’s more, we’re constantly testing and improving our templates. If we find a functionality that works particularly well for a client, we’ll add it to the master template, giving you full access to it with no further cost. It means your UX will be as good as it can possibly be, giving you a boost to conversion rates.
• Optimized for Mobile
  Your mobile customers won’t be given a sub-standard experience. All of our sites come complete with a 100% mobile-friendly Google score. This means that no matter what device your website is accessed on, it’s going to look and work great. Our designs are adaptive and responsive, meaning they’re easy to navigate and make a purchase on.
• Full CRM Suite
  We mentioned the importance of sending abandoned basket emails to improve conversion. With the CRM software that comes with the Shopping Cart Elite package, you can identify where users are dropping off. If your shopping cart is being abandoned too frequently, you can take actions to improve it, including automatically sending emails.
• Security
  A big motivator for customers is site security, as we’ve mentioned already. Our sites use the most stringent checks to protect you and your customers from security issues. Customers can be confident that your shopping cart is fully protected from hackers and other threats, and you can rest assured that our sites are 100% PCI compliant.

The Best eCommerce Cart Solution

With Shopping Cart Elite, you have all the tools necessary to create a site that converts well and has a great checkout. We are firm believers in giving our clients and their customers the internet freedom they desire. Whether it’s through our intuitive CMS system for building pages, or through our selection of over 100 payment gateways, there are always a wide variety of choices. Conversion and user experience are two fundamentals at the heart of an eCommerce business. By creating a site that looks great, navigates well, is fast, secure and optimized, you will be well on your way to succeeding in the online world. Our team of experts is always happy to help you, and we’re constantly improving and updating our services.