In the world of eCommerce, usability means everything. If your website visitors and potential customers can’t navigate your site easily, they’ll get frustrated and leave without making a purchase.

Worse, those consumers might decide to make a purchase, start the shopping cart process, and then find it too complicated, so they quit before the final purchase is confirmed.

Usability News did a study on shopping cart usability in 2002 and 2007, comparing the most common problems encountered by shoppers in all areas of the storefront shopping cart experience. Here are some of the findings:

Don’t confuse customers with cute names for your shopping cart. Call it what it is – a shopping cart. Visitors expect plain, clear language, and when you name your cart something else it throws them off. Also, consider the location of your target market. In the UK, shopping carts in stores are often called “trolleys”. It’s safe to say that on the Internet, “shopping cart” is a universal term.

While a "buy button" might be acceptable, a consumer’s thoughts of committing to a sale before the person is ready are unsettling. What if that potential client is just browsing and wants to add the item to a cart, but isn’t still quite sure they’ll buy yet? They want to have the option of opting out. “Add to cart” works much better than "buy now". Chances are, once the item is added to the cart, the item will stay there for the final sale.

Viewing the contents of a cart each time an item is added becomes annoying. Offer an option to view the cart only when the customer feels a need to see what items they’ve collected so far.

Forcing potential customers to register with your site before they add items to the cart is a real deal breaker. Many people don’t want to be bothered with a registration process (or worse, risk their name being added to a junk mail list!) when they’re just browsing or undecided about a sale.

These are just a few points to consider when setting up your shopping cart. Remember, make the shopping experience as simple as possible if you want to secure a sale.

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