8 Tips for a Better Shopping Cart

Tips to Help You Get Your Shopping Cart Right

May 5, 2020 3pm Robyn Rivera

An easy-to-use checkout process is essential to your site’s ability to convert.

Have you ever painstakingly read dozens of reviews and picked out the perfect products to add to the cart, only to encounter a check-out process that’s so long and complicated that you’re tempted to just give up? If so, then you already have a pretty good idea of how critical it is to have a quick and easy checkout process.

If your checkout process isn’t what it should be, and your customer isn’t totally gung-ho about the purchase in the first place or it’s a product they can find elsewhere, they’re probably not going to have the patience to make it through to the end.

Having a quick, uncomplicated checkout process can only help your conversion rate, and today, I’m going to help you learn how to get it right.

8 Tips for a Better Shopping Cart

#1. Make required fields stand out.

It’s frustrating when you miss or make a mistake in a required field in a checkout form but can’t figure out which one it is. You keep pushing the checkout button again and again, not being able to move forward but not knowing what you’re doing wrong.

Make it clear exactly which fields are required by making them stand out. If you choose to denote these fields with an asterisk, make it big, bold, and colorful. Instead, though, I suggest actually including the word “required” in addition to an asterisk.

#2. Don’t force customers to create an account.

When I purchase something from a website for the first time, I almost never create my own account. That’s especially true if I’m not overly familiar with the brand or the product. I can’t speak for every online consumer out there, but I certainly appreciate it when a website gives me the option to check out as a guest rather than creating an account.

Even though it costs nothing for customers to sign up for an account, and it makes their next transaction faster and easier, if you force them to do so, some people will abandon their carts. Don’t risk it. Make checking out as a guest possible on your website.

#3. Keep password requirements to a minimum.

If customers do decide to create an account for your website, make it as easy as possible for them to do so by refraining from applying too many requirements on the password they create.

Requiring that your customers use passwords that contain a capital letter, a lowercase letter, and a number is pretty standard. But if you ask for too many additional requirements on top of these, it will only frustrate your customers and make it difficult for them to remember their password.

#4. Don’t choose a difficult-to-read CAPTCHA system.

A CAPTCHA, which stands for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart", is designed to designate real users for spam robots. This helps to prevent spam software from purchasing excess products at one time or posting comments on pages.

CAPTCHAs can help to keep your checkout process more secure, but it’s important that you choose a CAPTCHA system that’s not too difficult for your customers to clearly read.

#5. Make billing information auto-fillable.

In a standard purchase, a consumer buys something online to be sent to their home address with a credit card or debit card that’s also tied to that same address. Entering your shipping information once is enough. Don’t make people do it again when they fill out their billing address.

Instead of making your customers enter their address twice, make the billing address field auto-fillable by giving people an option to select “same as shipping address.”

#6. Don’t put a time limit on the checkout process.

On occasion, the checkout process can take longer than it usually does. Maybe the customer wanted to verify with their spouse or partner before pressing the final “checkout” button, or maybe they are splitting the purchase and waiting for someone else to send them the funds through Venmo. Whatever the reason, there’s a good chance that they’ll abandon their card if their session has expired and they have to start the checkout process all over again.

#7. Don’t make customers re-enter their information.

Have you ever put items in your cart and gotten to the end of the checkout process, only to realize that you wanted to add one more item to your cart or check to see if something comes in a different size? When this happens, the last thing you want is for your customers to have to re-enter all of their information over again.

Make sure that your checkout process is updated enough to keep track of customer information when they enter it, even if they decide to push the back button.

#8. Don’t push additional offers during checkout.

You’ve done it! You’ve enticed someone to come to your website to check out your product, and you’ve made a good enough case for them to add the product to their shopping cart. Now that they’ve made it to the checkout process, it’s not the time to push even more discounts or offers. If you do, you may end up turning them off, and you’re also adding unnecessary obstacles to making the purchase.

Instead of pushing offers on them at this point, ask for an email address during the checkout process. They’ll be much more likely to accept any offers or discounts later on, when they’ve already received and are happy with the product they’ve purchased.

The number one ecommerce website mistake a business can make is to make the checkout process too clunky or time-consuming, and I hope that these tips will help you get your shopping cart right.

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