Ecommerce Forum & Blog

It is important to have a virtual shopping basket or ‘cart’ viewable at all times so users feel like they have it ‘with them’ whilst they are browsing your site, and it also keeps them aware of what’s in there and that they can add or remove items at will, just as in real life.

The Amazon shopping basket is great example:

The blue colour makes it stand out perfectly and its slim design makes in non-obtrusive. The details are kept brief and important showing quantities, prices and a product title which when clicked upon takes you to the product you’re buying - a nice touch. A very important feature is the ‘edit shopping basket’ button which is nice and clear and assures the user that they can always add or remove items nice and easily.

The two ‘Proceed to Chekout’ buttons are also very prominent here and are located near the shopping basket because it’s likely that you’d want to check what’s in your basket before checking out.

One final point I’d like to make about shopping baskets is to keep the name consistent. Don’t go switching between cart, basket or trolley at will as it could confuse less experienced users. The basket is there to reassure and to be convenient to users, following these guidelines and taking a page out of Amazon’s book will help you on your way.

When displaying search results to a users, it’s a good idea to make them aware of how the results have been organised, and of how many results have been displayed. If your search is quite vague such as ‘RAM’ and returns say, 100 results, you wouldn’t want all these products displayed on one page in no order at all. You may want to have it in order of cheapest to most expensive, or perhaps from highest rated to lowest? If you arrange these result son separate pages, it also makes it easier for the user to look through instead of being overwhelmed by too many products at once.

Dabs.com has done this perfectly with their search facility as shown below:

As you can see there’s an option to sort the results by many different filters which is great for a user who wants the latest, cheapest or highest regarded items available. sorting it alphabetically even allows you to find the exact brand. Also notice the ‘items per page’ dropdown box - allowing users to change how many results they have to browse through. This is a very well implemented and easy to use way of displaying internal search results for e-commerce websites.

As previously explained, as site search function is a must for any e-commerce website as it allows users to find what they’re looking for. However it is not unusual to be flooded by a huge number of search results in such an instance, so an option to narrow the criteria of a search is a very useful tool. If you searched for ‘Lord of the Rings: Return of the king’, you’ll no doubt be given results from CD, DVD and Video Games which match the search keywords. Narrowing it to a search within ‘CD’ would ensure only the soundtrack would appear from the search.

I think Zavvi has it right. It’s not too complicated either. You don’t want a hug list of categories to navigate through, just the main ones which will really help in narrowing down your search.

Adding a search function is the number one standard in designing e-commerce websites. They should all have one as they allow customers to quickly and conveniently locate what they’re looking for. It’s similar to asking an assistant in a supermarket where a particular product is. You may know where the cereals are, but it can be difficult to locate the exact brand amongst the hundereds on offer. The same rule applies to an online shop, browsing through categories can be a long process.

In terms of design, once again Amazon wins out. The bar should be located at the top of the page, above the fold where it can be seen instantly. Use a standard white background for text entry and surrond it in a dark colour to make it stand out. You should also make it as long as possible so that users don’t have their queries cut off. Some search functions suggest words as you’re typing to make the process easier but I think some less experienced users would find this confusing and off-putting.