When you sell software online, an important issue in the buying decision of the clients is the consistence and appearance of the website that sells, especially the shopping cart section. This is generated by the customers’ need to feel confident in your online store before they decide to buy something and give their credit card details.

But why is the shopping cart section so important?

Give it a little thought – how many of your conversions came directly from your website and how many from other websites directly in the shopping cart? That’s what we were also thinking :) – given the fact that many purchase leads enter directly into your shopping cart, it must be integrated with the rest of the website – e.g. the buyer should be able to see a “Contact” button, a link to a “Homepage” etc.

The main goal for a customized shopping cart is, of course, getting more conversions. This can be achieved very easily if you have the right tools to do it.

eCommerce providers usually give you a default template for your shopping cart. This is noticeable when you enter a website, click on the “buy” links and you get a totally different layout for the website. Some eCommerce providers, including Avangate, offer you advanced customization options for the shopping cart.

This customization can be done at both appearance level (colors, fonts) but also at the functionality level by changing the number of different pages displayed in the ordering process, text, input fields and so on.

Let’s look at some of Avangate’s shopping cart customizations. Notice that all of them have kept the original website appearance and other custom elements:

Caphyon customized shopping cart

caphyon.com – the shopping cart states clearly that Avangate is the authorized vendor, minimizing trust-related problems.

Dvdfab customized shopping cart

Dvdfab.net – notice the additional options and the cross-sell section (”Recommended additional products”) on the bottom of the page.

Markzware customized shopping cart

Markzware.com – offers multiple options for the shopping cart and also gives customer support information – notice the additional options and the cross-sell section (”Recommended additional products”) on the bottom of the page.

Oxygen customized shopping cart

Oxygenxml.com – a relatively simple shopping cart with cross-selling and discount options.

VSO customized shopping cart

Vso-software.fr – displays payment methods, security certifications and gives the opportunity to use discount coupons.

Note that it’s recommended that any permanent customization should be made with prior testing. Suppose you want to personalize your shopping cart, but you don’t know whether to have a single page or a multi-page checkout flow. You could do some A/B testing at first in order to see which converts better. In this case, you display the single checkout page to half of the potential buyers and the multi-page option to the others. You can get help for this from the eCommerce provider – the Avangate platform, for example, incorporates an A/B testing module, so it’s easier for the software vendor to optimize the conversion rate.

Here are some of the most important benefits you get by having the possibility to customize the shopping cart:

• Select a checkout flow that best suits your conversion rate – single/multi page checkout process, show or hide some elements etc.
• Personalize the appearance of the shopping cart – fonts, links, buttons and other graphical elements.
• Fully control your shopping cart pages – include various web widgets, scripts and technologies, include your own input fields in the ordering process, display other products from the database at the time of purchase (cross-selling) etc.

So, if you’re wondering why your conversion rate is low, you should check your shopping cart and see if it isn’t the primary element that makes potential buyers to think again.

Tags: shopping cart customization

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Avangate, Software Business.
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