Client-side Shopping Software - Page 2

Every e-commerce site needs software at the server end, but some sites also send a Java program or similar down the wire to run on the customer's browser. There's a usability penalty here, because this code takes time to arrive and run, and any delay is bad usability. Impatient shoppers are likely to go elsewhere.

Almost all consumer e-commerce sites avoid client-side software because the advantages don't outweigh this usability problem. Business-to-business (b2b) sites, are less likely to lose customers through delay if it's trivial relative to the value of the possible transaction.

Searching for Goods

A decent search mechanism within your site is important whether your site concentrates on e-commerce or not, but for Internet shopping it's doubly important, because many potential shoppers (between 30% and 50%, depending whose statistics you look at) say the primary reason they leave shopping sites is that they can't find what they're looking for. Maybe you don't sell the item they want. That's an issue of availability, not usability. But if you do sell it, make sure your search mechanism can find it. Test your search system to see if it can find the least significant items you sell, for example small accessories.

Hi-Tech Gimmicks

These include Flash movies, conveyor belts scrolling products across the page, and 3D images requiring plug-ins. They're usually added by backroom techies to impress you and possibly your customer with advanced Web technology. Unfortunately, the vast majority of customers are looking for speed, simplicity and ease of use rather than an introduction to the latest programmers' gadgets. If you ask your customers, you'll probably find they're irritated by your hi-tech whiz-bangs. Get rid of them. The most successful e-commerce sites don't use technical gimmicks. Gimmickry was one of the boo-boos that killed the infamous European shopping site, boo.com.

Presentation of Goods

In consumer e-commerce you're usually trying to mirror the high street shopping experience as best you can, because people are familiar with that and feel safe dealing with it. Clearly there are many things you can do that high street shops can't — like adding peer reviews of products and saying what other products have been bought by consumers with similar tastes (Amazon.com shows how well this can be done). But there are also things you can't do. You can't offer the tactile sensations that people enjoy when they're buying clothes, nor can you allow shoes to be tried on, or show the quality of a flat screen or the great sound produced by hi-fi equipment.

But just like any shop, you can display your products. And it's essential to do so — even just a picture of the packaging if you're selling software. Failing that, a screenshot. This is contrary to the normal rules of usability — usually graphics are frowned upon — but for e-commerce it's what your visitors expect.

Shopping Carts

Again, the aim here is to mirror the supermarket shopping experience, since that's how your visitors would like to use your site. A regular supermarket cart allows you to see what you've bought and put it back on the shelves if you change your mind. It's not a black box with a one-way slot on top.

Common e-commerce usability errors include failing to provide a method of viewing and removing contents from the shopping cart at any time, failing to provide links back to the details of products already in the cart, allowing customers to add products to their cart that are sold out, and failing to notify shoppers when the payment process is temporarily down.

To score top marks, make sure your customers can add an item to their cart from all ancillary pages supplying details of a product, including reviews, not just from the product's main page.

Also, try to keep your shopping cart relatively simple. If you want to offer the opportunity to increase the quantity of items, try to centralize the process with an update for the entire shopping cart page rather than individual update buttons for each separate item.

Privacy Policy

For good usability, create links to your statements on Trust/Privacy/Policy from pretty much everywhere, especially from your shopping cart and pages within the checkout sequence.

Human Support

It's what many of your visitors want to use — so make it easily available. That means e-mail addresses (and quick responses), telephone numbers, and snail-mail addresses, all within easy reach rather than hidden away in a barely accessible corner of the site. For some companies, the aim of e-commerce is to do business without these expensive overheads. They're rarely the successful ones.

E-commerce and Usability
Checkout - Payment - Page 3