We have all experienced it when using shopping carts. We’ve searched, found a website with the product we needed, clicked on the buy link… and then abandoned the whole thing. Multiply this one experience by all the users on the internet, and you find the sobering statistic that shopping cart abandonment takes place 59.8% of the time.
Don’t let this happen to you.
In this article, we investigate one of the major variables involved in taking a sale to its conclusion: the order form.
Am I in the right place?
This is the question confused users ask themselves when they visit websites with poorly integrated order forms. Many website owners hire designers to build beautiful websites.
All too often, even skilled designers will drop the ball when it comes to the order page because they use a shopping cart system that is not customizable.
The visitor goes to the website, clicks to order the product, and is sent to an order page that looks nothing like the site they came from. Confused and maybe even annoyed, the visitor abandons the cart and the sale.
Customize your order form
If you have a website and you sell products or services online, then you probably have an order form that is stored on a special secure server.
When I say to customize your order form, I mean that you want to brand the order form to your website. Make sure that the look of your order form so closely matches your website that the viewer does not even notice that, when they clicked the buy link, they actually left your site.
What to Look For In A Shopping Cart?
Find a shopping cart system that moves the customer seamlessly from your website to the order form. Use one that allows you to customize the order page with your own graphics and colors, so that you can match the look and feel of your website.
For example, if the color accents on your website are red, then you make the color accents on the order form red. You want to be able to put your graphic logo at the top of the order form, not just your company name in plain text. You should have the background color or texture on your order form match exactly to your website. And so on.
When the visitor clicks on the order link and lands on your secure-server order form, they should feel confident and secure in completing their purchase. Your visitor should have no doubt that they are in the right place.
