We are building an SaaS app where our users will have the opportunity to purchase add-ons such as custom domains, plan upgrades, templates and various other bits and pieces.
We are considering a flow like this:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
I have looked at wordpress.com and for cases where they require the user to configure the add-on (such as buying custom domains), the shopping cart is bypassed and after filling in the information, the order is checked out immediately. In fact, the user never enters the store at all.
However, I feel that it's more consistent to redirect the user so that all purchases happen through the store. In addition, there are these benefits:
- Customers have the ability to combine multiple items into 1 transaction (which results in a lower processing fee (flat fee + percentage) for us.
- Customers will not have multiple transactions on their card during a shopping session.
One disadvantage is that customers can get distracted after adding the item to the cart by doing more shopping and might abandon the cart altogether.
So, the question: Is consistently sticking to the shopping cart paradigm suitable for buying add-ons in a SaaS app? If possible, I would love to seem some research/studies for cart abandonment in this scenario.