How can I improve this Add to Cart experience?

Question

We have a simple platform where readers can buy ebooks. Previously, readers could only buy one ebook at a time and we have finally added a cart feature but I think we are ruining our previously simply buying process.

This is what a buy page looks like:

When you add an ebook to the cart you get this view:

The problem here is that the "Add to Cart" link is very small and can be ignored. Also that area looks quite busy even with that small link.

We plan on launching this and getting feedback but I would really appreciate your thoughts and any ideas or tips to improve this?

Answer 1

I don't think there is any great benefit in having both "Buy Now" and "Add to Cart" options, if the only difference is that one takes the customer straight to the checkout. I think it's an unnecessary complication that forces the customer to think about which route they should follow. The traditional paradigm of adding products to a cart and then checking out is so well understood, it's probably not worth deviating unless there is a clear benefit.

Instead of two buttons on the product page, I would have a single prominent "Add to Cart" call-to-action (like the big green "Buy Now" button in your screenshot) that adds the product to the cart, displays inline confirmation, and include a prompt to go to the checkout from that point.

Answer 2

Actually many sites nowadays provide this feature. And it's useful not because it's a trending one but people feel that it saves them time as it avoids minimum of 2 page reloads.

But the idea of having add to card as very small text is a bad one.

It would be better if both are buttons. 1. Add to cart can be bigger and the primary option 2. Below that can be the buy now button in a contrast color. (size may be same in some cases according to the UI)

For Example, see this feature on flipkart.com the best online site in India.

http://www.flipkart.com/smashing-ux-design-foundations-designing-online-user-experiences-smashing-magazine-book-series-english/p/itmczz9qhz8tqua6?pid=9780470666852&otracker=from-search&srno=t_1&query=ux&ref=558784f1-4d6e-4f30-841f-dbb0b39be6c9

Hope that helps!!

EDIT:

See this example of Amazon.in In this example, the share options and the the other two buttons (buy now and add to cart) are below.

In your case, you can have your share button on one row (since it has long text) add a separator below it and in the next row have both buy now and add to cart buttons taking half the space on the same row.

Answer 3

In general, the add to cart button is meant to enable users to buy multiple items with a single checkout action. When you enabled buying one ebook at a time, this option was redundant, however, now it does enable:

• purchasing multiple items using the same payment method and same shipping address (or same email address for download links)
• reducing shipping costs by shipping items together (not relevant to ebooks)
• changing items if you find something your prefer e.g. a bundle of a series of books instead of two separate books

You could emphasize the add to cart option by giving it a button instead of a link and emphasizing the difference between the two with different icons (e.g. full cart + check mark for buy now vs single item in cart for add to cart), the question is how commonly do people want add to cart vs. buy now.

Comparing with other sites you can see on eBay:

and on Amazon:

So clearly, both sites treat add to cart and buy now as options of equal importance.

You could go with two buttons underneath each other as the other sites do:

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Or side by side:

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The second option, however, do make the share for discount action seem too dominate in my opinion.

The cart view is a good experience, however, you should make sure it has an edit option (e.g. for removing items, changing quantity) and that it can be refreshed (ideally automatically) if cart is stored on server (so if a user adds an item via a different tab, current tab will reflect the change). You could do this by changing the cart title into a link and/or adding an edit button/link to it.

You should also consider launching a few options and A-B testing them to see which is preferable with your users.

Answer 4

Add to cart is a good option if you would like to sell multiple items at one purchase. This strategy works well with physical goods in order to increase the total amount of acquisition and reduce the price of delivery cost for the company.

I think that if the user clicks on add to cart, the page should provide some extra books that are similar to the purchased books. You can make their pricing a bit different, like the second book is become cheaper...This will have a better influence rather than showing that the book is added to the cart.

If you just click on Buy Now button the page should be directly flow into purchase action - which is probably can be connected to checkout button.Make it as quick as it can be...

Just an idea that you can make the share button a bit smaller than the other action button. There are studies that prove size is also an important variable.

Social share buttons can be perceived as sharing the main page or the product because of its place. I think that social share can be also used with completing buying action like "Please keep quiet, I am going to read my new book - [book title]."