How To Design For Shopping Cart Software
There is no question that using a state-of-the-art shopping cart software can boost eCommerce conversion. Nevertheless, it’s not the end all to achieving absolute eCommerce success. Many other factors play in to an online visitor’s decision to stick around. In this post I will shy away from writing about the actual benefits of a shopping cart solution, and instead focus on things like usability, design and content.
The design of an eCommerce website is perhaps the most misunderstood area of shopping cart development. For reasons unknown to me, web designers have a tough time grasping the concept of designing a site that is free from flash and heavy graphics. Shopping cart software web design is different from almost any other design style because it’s not meant to impress or “shock” the visitor, but rather provide to act as an intuitive and easy to use website which will perform a service (like buying a product) without having to watch animations or hear funky imbedded audio clips.
A great design example is amazon.com on which is the undisputed eCommerce king when it comes to conversion and traffic. To compare http://www.amazon.com/ to http://www.blitzagency.com/ would be unrealistic. Clearly, Blitz Age has had some amazing flash work done which gives it a beautiful look, but the look they use would never convert well for a site like Amazon because when a customer wants to make a purchase, they usually don’t want to be bombarded with movies and extras.
In the next post I will write about usability and content. 
