A Slippery Shopping Cart Setup Makes More Sales - By: Michael A Jones

Is your online shopping cart setup slippery or sticky? Is it easy for the prospect to glide to the payment button or do they get stuck along the way on glaring errors in your check out procedure.

It is obvious that 'greasing the tube' so the client effortlessly glides through the ordering and payment procedure can make a huge difference to your profits. If just 10-20% of your clients who normally would abandon the shopping cart stay with it to the end, think what that would do for your business?

Go over in your mind what makes an offline experience easy and simple and then apply the same principles to your online shopping cart setup. When you select items in a shop and make your way to the Pay Desk, what things irritate you or would irritate you? Have you ever picked up the things you need and then had to go on a search mission for the check out counter. You know how frustrating it can be to circle around and around until you eventually find the check out counter hidden in some remote corner.

What if the cashier delayed your check out by trying to offer you other items, even trying a hard sell approach? Some may not mind, but I suggest that the vast majority would prefer to just take their items straight to the check out, pay for them, and leave the store to get on to other business.

When a customer comes to shop online, is their thinking any different? Not really. Once a person has decided what they want, generally they just want to pay for it.

With the offline shopping experience in mind, here is a list of key points to bear in mind when considering your online shopping cart setup:

1. If you have "Add to Cart" buttons by each product, be sure to include a "Check Out" button beside it so the customer can easily go and pay for whatever they have selected quickly.

2. Let the customer check out easily with trying to push extra products on them. This is not to say you can't try an upsell arrangement, but it has to be done gently and discreetly. One main domain registrar I use, mainly their prices are low, does irritate me with the number of options and extra bells and whistles they try to thrust on you before you can check out. At times I have a problem finding the checkout button because the page is so loaded with offers. I find that annoying and frustrating. Perhaps you do to.

On the other hand, Amazon have mastered the art of discreet upselling. Along the bottom of the screen once you have made your selection they gently tell you that other customers who were interested in 'this', were also interested in 'that'. When I buy on Amazon, I don't get the pressured feeling I do on the domain registrar site. The whole upsell process is carefully and discreetly woven into the shopping cart setup.

3. Make it easy for your customers to change their order. Your shopping cart should provide the option to delete or change the quantity of any item at any time with a convenient button in the cart.

4. Reassure, reassure, and reassure the customer that their ordering information is secure. Briefly explain the security measures you have in place or put badges and certificates alongside that indicate the whole procedure is going through a secure connection.

5. Minimize the number of steps to the final Pay button and make the buttons clear. Unnecessary steps or even overpowering graphics can needlessly confuse the checkout process. It's a good idea to count how many times the user has to hit the enter key or mouse button from the time they add an item to the cart, to the click on the Pay button which actually processes the transaction. Your number one priority is to cut out any steps that are unnecessary. So within 2 to 4 clicks, the whole thing is finished and the payment is in your account.

If you've ever enjoyed a day at a water park with the family and taken a ride down the water chute, you know once you take that first step over the edge, there is no going back! You are on your way. It's the same with your shopping cart setup. Be sure to grease the tube by making the payment process, clean, simple, and as effortless as possible.

Examine every step and make sure you know all your shopping cart software can do so you make use of all the features that will help you. Rather than throwing money at more advertising, why not re-examine your shopping cart setup and add to your profits considerably.

Copyright (c) 2009 Michael A Jones

About the Author

You can see how Michael has setup the shopping cart on one of his web sites for maximum sales. Follow this link for a walk-through: http://www.net-vault.com/online-shopping-cart

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Michael-A-Jones/48521

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