Does your shopping cart page have all these features? We made a checklist

If you own an ecommerce website, then one of the most important things to think about would be your shopping cart usability. The PrestaShop ecommerce platform comes with a lot of opportunities and functionalities for your shop and truth to be told, this probably should be a much longer list than it is.  

The shopping cart should have a range of functions to make your customers’ shopping experience seamless and even better than expected. There can be important differences between these carts, so knowing what features matter is very essential to create a better shopping experience for your customers. 

We’re sharing some of the main features in our opinion to look for in a shopping cart solution to help you stand out from the competition.

Different payments opportunities

Have you ever been in a situation when you chose the product and you didn’t have a chance to buy online because the payment methods were very limited? Yes, it’s very annoying. In this fast-paced environment, the customer will get easily frustrated and leave the page without buying if he cannot make a purchase online with his commonly-used bank card. That is why your shopping cart should be able to accept payment from different gateways. We suggest having at least the three main payment methods: Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. Of course, the more payment facilities the shopping cart accepts, the better. leave

The more payment facilities and methods it offers, the more likely your customers’ preferred payment method will be supported and the more customers will have a better shopping experience. 

▶ Payment: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Simple and user-friendly design

Probably the majority of you will agree that aside from shop functionality, it is also very important to have good user-friendly navigation. Navigating easily on the website is especially great for customers that are new to online shopping. The navigation process of the checkout which is complicated and hard-to-use will leave your shop without any sales.

▶ Design & navigation: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Qualitative product images

Qualitative product images are one of the most important things that impact your customers’ decision to buy. Do you provide product photos from different corners? Do you provide high-quality photos?  Whenever your customer is shopping online, the product image is the only opportunity to see this product, so if it’s not effective enough from the photo, customers aren’t going to buy.

▶ Visuals: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Product Reviews

A constant search for reviews and customers’ written feedback is a part of the customers’ journey. Customers are constantly looking for users’ feedback online as it gives them a better view of the cons & pros of the new products. It also helps to answer common questions such as how does the product will look like in reality and it’s as good as the manufacturer describes. 

Moreover, seeing customers’ reviews next to the product will give an extra reassurance before buying the product. Based on our experience working with the top brands, we suggest that the shopping cart should either include support for product reviews right out of the box or has an easy way to implement third-party product reviews.

▶ Customer reviews: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Single-Page, Fast Checkout

Based on the different UX research, online shoppers are looking for the shortest way to buy just like in the supermarket. Because online payment is the last barrier a shopper must pass before completing an order, a shopper interested in buying wants to complete this step as quickly as possible. 

One of the simplest methods of speeding checkout is to limit the checkout form to as few fields as possible and keep the entire form on a single-page to avoid loading a new page at each stage of the checkout process. 

Based on our previous success cases, single-page checkout boosts sales conversions and reduces the number of abandoned shopping carts as well as creates better customers’ experience. 

▶ Express checkout process: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Various language options

As the world gets more and more globalized, having a shopping cart that supports multiple languages is more than a necessity than a nice thing to have. Moreover, having a multi-language supported shopping cart will make it easy for international shoppers to purchase from you. Of course, if you’re trying to globalize your business it would be the right step to make. 

This feature is especially useful for shoppers who don’t understand English at all. We recommend thinking about your target customers when deciding on the languages you want to be able to translate into. Use analytics to see where the majority of your purchases are coming from or where your target market is. This and other data will help you to provide better customers’ shopping cart experience.

Mobile-friendly

By 2020 it is predicted that more purchases will be done through mobile devices than desktop. Take a look to see more about 2020 social media trends here to see how the recent changes in digital channels could be implemented to boost drives to your shop.  

Another reason is that allowing people to shop from their phones means that they can buy from you anytime and anywhere, as long as they have their smartphone. The only thing they would need is an Internet connection. Take a look into website analytics to see how many customers visit your website and make purchases through mobile devices.

▶ Mobile: browse PrestaShop modules available on the PrestaShop Marketplace

Search bar

It might sound surprising, but some of the ecommerce platforms do not support site search or the layout of the shop makes it hard to use for the user. It is necessary to understand the importance of site search as it’s one of the most common navigation tools on the website.

Coupons & discounts

Discounts and shiny coupons are things that attract customers’ attention. Everyone knows the success of Black Friday or Cyber Monday. These are the most well-known public shopping days when merchants are planning their advertising campaigns half a year in advance. 

In this fast-paced environment, an online merchant must be able to process coupons and discount codes, so that deal-crazy shoppers could use it while shopping online? Luckily, the PrestaShop ecommerce platform will have couponing and discounting built-in.

Large effective product images, product reviews, single-page checkout, site search, as well as discount and coupon codes combined together provide a powerful user experience. The good news is that PrestaShop offers all these features and if you need more functionalities, there is PrestaShop Addons Marketplace where web agencies offer a lot of new modules to improve your website. Of course, each ecommerce business project is different and sometimes your shop might need to do some custom-development to have the best results. 

Below we put all the features we spoke about in the article in this cool checklist. 

To conclude, making the whole shopping experience fast, easy, and pleasing to look at will appeal to your customers and engage to come back to your store. Always remember that the shopping cart is one of the most important elements of your e-commerce presence, so put some thought into it.