Does Your E-Commerce Cart Page Propel Purchases or Push Customers Away?

Ecommerce business owners rely on customer satisfaction to maintain and grow their businesses. And, contrary to what you might think, the customer journey doesn’t end when someone decides to add an item to their cart and begin the checkout process. In fact, the cart page is where many ecom customers face problems that cause them to abandon their purchase. Why? Because a lot of cart pages out there are poorly designed and cause confusion—and, subsequently, frustration. Things like neglecting to clearly list the items that have been added to the shopper’s cart or not providing an easy way to remove items from the cart can result in customers struggling to complete their purchase. 

It should come as no surprise that shopping online is more popular than ever. But for all the convenience it brings, it can also be an exasperating experience for customers who run into problems on your website (especially somewhere like the cart page). At Build Grow Scale, we know the ecom store owners we interact with work extremely hard to ensure their sites are user-friendly and accessible to as many potential customers as possible. However, even the most well-designed website can have issues during peak periods of traffic.

Common Problems

One issue we frequently see is sites crashing or loading slowly when customers are trying to buy something. This can be frustrating for both the customer and the website owner, as it can lead to lost sales and a negative association with the brand. Luckily, there are a few things that can be done to help prevent this from happening:

• First, it’s important to make sure your cart page is designed to handle a high volume of traffic.
• Second, consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to help distribute traffic more evenly across your servers.
• Finally, it’s a good idea to monitor your site during peak periods and be prepared to scale up capacity if necessary.

Taking these steps can help minimize the chances of your website crashing or loading slowly during periods of high traffic.

Another common issue is that shoppers assume the moment they click “Add to Cart,” the site will auto-update their cart total to include the newly added product. This is something people have come to expect. Unfortunately, ecommerce stores that don’t live up to this expectation often end up losing customers because of it.

Imagine this …

A customer going through an ecom store adds several items to their cart and proceeds to checkout, only to find that their cart total is more (possibly a lot more) than they expected because the website didn’t auto-update their cart as they added products to it. The disappointed customer then leaves without completing their purchase. This is a major problem, and one you want to quickly resolve if it’s the case on your website … if you want to see more sales and revenue, that is. Customers need assurance that your site is accurately calculating their total so they’re not caught off guard when they reach your checkout page. This is a very reasonable expectation.

Save for Later Feature

Through years of experience with our partners’ and clients’ ecom stores, we’ve learned that shoppers are also accustomed to being able to save items in their cart for later purchase. This is a key feature that helps them manage their budget and buy items when they’re ready and able. Unfortunately, some ecommerce stores do not have this feature available on their cart page, which can be a big turnoff to the user. Thankfully, there are some workarounds shoppers can use to save items in their cart. For example, many websites allow shoppers to create an account and login. This will save the items in the shopper’s account so that they can easily access them later. Another workaround is to add the items to a wish list. This way, the user can easily find the items when they’re ready to purchase them. While not ideal, these alternatives can help reduce frustration and save the sale.

Wrap-Up

Cart problems are frustrating for online shoppers and can lead to lost sales. At Build Grow Scale, we fix issues like this on a daily basis and help our clients optimize their cart pages to reduce abandonment rates and help ensure their customers enjoy a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience.

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