6 Tips for a Better Online Shopping Basket

People don’t decide to buy from your website because they heard great things about how easy to use your online shopping basket is. It isn’t going to draw people to your site or make them want your products. But it can frustrate a web visitor to the point that they abandon the basket, or it can ensure they do not return even if they do complete that purchase. If your retail website is seeing a lot of visitors but not so many sales, or you are struggling to get repeat business, your shopping basket might need some tweaking to improve it’s UX (user experience). Here are a few things you can do to make the shopping experience easier for your customers.

1. Confirm when a visitor puts something in the basket. A small pop up message is one way to do this. The goal is to reassure them that their item is in the basket without disrupting their further shopping. The more they put in that basket, the better, so you don’t want them to stop shopping to make sure an item really did get into the basket.
2. Allow visitors to save their baskets. People might want to think more about an item before finalizing their purchase, or they might get interrupted while shopping. When they return, make it easy for them to pick up where they left off by saving the items in their basket.
3. Provide a link from the basket to continue shopping. People might review what is in the basket and decide to shop more. And that is exactly what you want to encourage! So make it simple by providing an easy-to-see button to navigate back to your main shopping page.
4. On a related note, give them a way to change the quantity of an item in the basket. They might decide an item is so great, they want more. If they can simply add another from the basket, they are more likely to do so than if they have to go to the product page.
5. When a visitor puts an item in their shopping basket, they are giving you valuable information about themselves. You can use this to suggest other items similar to or that complement the item they put in the basket. For example, if you are a potter and someone puts one of your teapots in their basket, you can then suggest matching mugs.
6. We all want more things than we are going to buy for ourselves. Offering your visitors to put items they want either in their shopping basket or a wish list addresses that. It also brings more people to your site once your visitor tells people they have a wish list there.

Your shopping basket is an area where people really notice how easy or difficult their experience is. No matter what you are selling, your target market has other ways to get what they need. It might be that other retailers sell the same products or that similar items would also satisfy your web visitors. It’s a serious mistake to think that once they get the items in the basket, the deal is sealed. It’s a crucial point, and the experience your shoppers have there can either send them off frustrated or very happy.