Convert Every Click: Make More Money Online with Holistic Conversion Rate Optimization

Chapter Eleven

Shopping Cart Website Strategies

Meet Larry. Larry has a brick-and-mortar store, but he also wants his customers to have the option to shop online. So, he hired a designer to build an electronic version of his real-world store and set up a checkout system so they can browse and buy online without leaving their homes.

The third common website type is the e-commerce site, online store, or shopping cart model just like what Larry wanted to build (Figure 11.1). Just so we’re all on the same page, let me explain what I mean when I talk about a shopping cart model. You can think of this as an online store. The name implies that it has a shopping cart. Over time, the terms online store, e-commerce site, and shopping cart site have all become interchangeable. I’m sure you’ve heard other names for them as well. In the context of this chapter, these websites are like online catalogs, where people can browse through products and categories, add things to their virtual cart, and check out when they’re ready to complete a purchase. Standard websites and landing pages can use shopping cart technology, too, so some of the concepts discussed in this chapter apply to those websites as well. Back in 1999, I developed my first online store for a client. It was just a simple catalog of products coded from scratch with add-to-cart buttons for the cart and checkout. These days most e-commerce is based on shopping cart software, which often includes the storefront, shopping cart, and checkout ...