Ecommerce User Experience Vol. 04: Shopping Carts, Checkout and Registration

When a customer can’t or won’t complete an online order, even though they found a product they want, it’s a disaster for that retailer. They lose that sale, and they often lose the customer as well. 

This report will help you design a shopping cart that helps users confidently make decisions and proceed to checkout. Follow its recommendations to make the purchase process as easy as possible. 

This 400-page report contains 137 design recommendations based on our user research. Discussions and 412 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings. 

Topics

• Elements of a successful checkout process
• Minicart as feedback, not cart replacement
• Add-to-cart feedback
• Organizing the purchase
• Encouraging registration
• No surprises
• Easy information entry
• Sufficient payment options
• Closing the sale
• The shopping cart
  • Adding a product to the cart
  • Accessing the shopping cart
  • Minicarts and full cart pages
  • Reviewing the cart 
  • Editing the shopping cart
  • Saving the shopping cart
  • Product recommendations
• Checkout
  • Checkout process steps and procedures
  • Checkout forms
  • Common form entry problems and errors
  • Shipping, pickup, and delivery options
  • In-store pickup    
  • Payment information
  • Gift cards and gift certificates 
  • Completing the order: summary and confirmation   
• Registration
  • Problems with registration
  • Optional registration
  • Guest checkout

Research Method

The information in this report is based on five separate rounds of ecommerce studies for this and the previous four editions of this report. These studies included a mix of the following methodologies.

• One-on-one usability testing
• Diary-based longitudinal studies
• Eyetracking
• Expert review

Representative users tested 350+ ecommerce websites. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, India, and China.