Shopping Carts and Platform Tips

What this episode covers

When it comes to choosing software for your e-commerce store, the possibilities can seem endless. There are a ton of factors to consider, including: Should you sell on a marketplace or an e-commerce platform — or both? Which features and tools do you need? Which can you safely pass up? Can your chosen technology support your current sales volume, as well as growth as your business scales? What’s your technology budget? The e-commerce arena is rapidly evolving. Every new trend quickly becomes a basic necessity for all e-commerce startups. So it makes sense that online retailers have increasingly high expectations of their e-commerce solution providers. Search engine optimization, good UX design and ability to customize still hold utmost importance, but trends like m-commerce (commercial transactions conducted electronically by mobile phone) and social commerce (the use of social networks in the context of e-commerce transactions) is hot on the radar of every e-commerce startup. Shopify Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world, in part because of how simple it is to quickly launch a new store. This makes Shopify particularly popular with smaller e-commerce brands doing a lower order volume. Shopify is arguably the most popular e-commerce partner among online shop owners. As a matter of fact, if you are launching an online shop or a bricks-and-mortar retailer planning to sell your products online, Shopify’s simplicity and ease of use can serve you well. Currently, it hosts over 325,000 active online shops, and its platform continues to evolve to meet the growing requirements of online stores. Here are some of its plus points: 100+ mobile-friendly store themes 1,500+ plugins and extensions Ability to sell your products directly on Facebook 24/7 live support via chat/call, tutorials, and a community forum Here are some of its pain points: There’s a t­Transaction fee on sales if retailers don’t use Shopify Payment Not all extensions are free, so the overall cost will be higher than the standard price Customization requires knowledge of ‘Liquid’, Shopify’s native language The pricing of Shopify ranges from $29-$299 per month. The bottom line is that for online stores with conventional requirements, Shopify is a great go-to e-commerce platform. keywebco uses Shopify and we use Strikingly websites too, as a matter of fact, we make strikingly websites learn more at http://keywebsiteco.strikingly.com CREATE CHECKOUT PROCESSES IN A FEW STEPS One of the fundamental characteristics in the best shopping cart designs is the reduced number of steps to follow to finalize the purchase. What is the ideal number? Between 3 and 4. In fact, it is not advisable to reduce this number, as it would force to include in a few pages a large number of information, fields, and elements. An example to follow is Apple, which currently uses 4 steps in its checkout process. The use of a step-by-step method makes the payment process easy to follow for the customer, who must provide the e-commerce with a series of essential data to complete the purchase: Log in with your user and password (or create an account, if this is the first time you make a purchase). Fill in the data relating to billing (which will be reduced to a simple confirmation if the customer has an account). Select one of the available payment methods. Confirm the purchase and complete the payment. This summary helps us understand how much information consumers need to provide before making a purchase. It also shows why step-by-step checkout processes are the most used and efficient. MAKE THE LINK TO THE SHOPPING CART PAGE VISIBLE While the consumer is shopping, it is important to show him in a visible place (e.g. in the form of a shopping cart to the right of a menu with ‘position: fixed’). In this way, we offer two benefits to the user: Show you updated information about your shopping cart, such as the number of items included or the final pric

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