E-Commerce check-list

“Usability is the prerequisite for e-commerce success. …It doesn’t matter how cheap the products are if people can’t find them or if they get stuck on a step in the checkout process.”

Selling tips and strategies

• Communicate the value of the merchandise.
• Don’t hide product prices.
• Make it easy to see the total.
• Show shipping charges before asking for personal information.
• Keep shipping charges within reason.
• Consider making shipping “free.”
• Consider explaining taxes.
• Provide a wide selection of merchandise.
• Improve site navigation to enhance customers’ perception of your merchandise selection.
• lf customers look for items You don’t sell, either stock those items or make it clear that you don’t carry them.
• Don’t show products that customers can’t buy.
• Show availability information as soon as possible.
• For items not in stock. Show the date when the item will be shipped.
• Don’t automatically substitute items.
• Deliver In-stock items within a few days.
• Estimate the number of days until delivery.
• Provide it choice of shipping methods, and list the carriers.
• Provide additional delivery Information, when necessary.
• Make links to guarantees and policies prominent throughout the site.
• Explain the return policy and process.
• Offer free returns and clearly state that returns are free.
• Accept a variety of credit cards.
• Consider providing payment alternatives.
• Provide a visible means of buying from promotional pages.
• On “What’s New” pages. Emphasize new products rather than site updates.
• Provide sale section.
• Consider offering samples.
• Don’t make important page elements look like adverts.
• Suggest additional items, but don’t put obstacles before the cash register.
• Use opt-in, not opt-out for items the customer hasn’t specifically selected.
• Consider creating a first-time visitors page.
• Make sure that recommendations are relevant to what the customer wants.
• Don’t substitute cleverness for helpfulness.
• Consider the ultimate on-line sales assistant: a person.
• Provide a toll-free phone number.
• Consider selling gift certificates or providing a gift registry.
• Assume that some gifts will be shipped to the sender.
• Let the giver include a personal message.
• Provide options to suppress price and billing information.
• If you offer gift-wrapping keep the price low.
• Provide follow-up delivery information to the sender.
• Consider consistent pricing – and policies – for Store X and storex.com
• Provide a store locator.
• Tell the customer whether the merchandise is available at the local store.
• Clearly distinguish promotions for the physical stores from promotions on the website.
• Offer free shipping when one of your stores is located near the customer.
• Allow free returns to the local store.

Trust

• Show detailed company information.
• Build on the trust customers have for existing merchants and brands.
• Link to reputable, independent sources.
• Show total cost, including taxes, shipping and handling, as soon as possible.
• Justify prices that appear odd.
• Provide honest information about products.
• Provide balanced second opinions.
• Remove outdated content immediately.
• Eradicate all typos.
• Don’t advertise items that are not available.
• Pursue technical problems vigilantly – and fix them.
• Phrase error messages constructively and politely.
• Use form elements for user input on checkout pages.
• Give users only what they ask for.
• Preserve information the user has entered.
• Present policies and guarantees prominently.
• Offer free returns, and other sales inducements.
• Test your policies to make sure your customers understand them and find them acceptable.
• Ask for sensitive information only if it is absolutely necessary to process the order.
• Explain carefully why you need Information that people consider sensitive.
• Provide a clear and easy-to-find privacy policy.
• Use opt-in for all marketing information sent to customers.
• Allow customers to purchase without registering.
• Do not require registration before or during a purchase – offer it as an option after the purchase.
• Explain the benefits of registration and consider offering an incentive.
• Use secure connections.
• Provide alternative methods of ordering.
• Back key statements with named persons.
• Present a consistent face to each customer.
• Tell the customer when the products will be delivered.
• When there are delays, inform the customer promptly.
• Make sure your order-tracking system is usable.
• Conduct regular checks of delivered product quality.

Category pages

• Show what merchandise you sell and don’t sell.
• Beware of over-emphasizing promotional items.
• The home page should show tile purpose of the site.
• Don’t hide the catalogue – enable shopping from the home page.
• Reveal the product hierarchy.
• Provide links on the home page to purchasing options, return policy, shipping and delivery information.
• Provide links on the home page to customer service, privacy, and company background information.
• Choose classifications that are useful to your customers.
• Consider multiple classification schemes.
• Provide cross-references.
• Classify items consistently.
• Don’t over-classify.
• Where feasible, limit product listings to two or three pages.
• Scrolling is acceptable on product listing page.
• Use download time to determine the number of products per page.
• Allow customers to sort products by the factors they care about most.

Show products & services available at a high level

• Show visually similar things together.
• Support navigation by letter for alphabetical lists.
• Use both numbers (or/and letters) and Next/Previous for navigation among pages.
• Image quality should he good enough to identify a known item.
• Images should show the product characteristics that are most important to users.
• Thumbnail images don’t have to answer all the users’ questions.
• Allow winnowing by the most useful differentiating factors for that type of product.
• Design comparison tables to highlight differences.
• Let customers choose the products to be compared.

Search

• Use a text box instead of a link to a search page.
• Put the search box oil every page.
• Learn what your customers actually search for.
• Analyze search logs.
• Adjust your search engine to respond to how your customers actually search.
• Provide special treatment off frequent queries.
• Support search for no product items.
• Tell customers what you don’t have.
• Accept synonyms typically used by your customers.
• Consider offering limited vocabulary search.
• Make your search engine error-tolerant.
• Tolerate spelling errors.
• Support variant forms of keywords.
• Accommodate multiple-word input.
• Recognize all possible search operators.
• Make default search simple to use.
• Provide a clearly marked link to Advanced Search – and back.
• The search default should be “contains” rather than “begins with”
• Explain the scope of the search.
• Add tile selection “All” to all search selection lists – and make “All” the default.
• Provide relevant information about search results.
• Offer appropriate sorting facilities.
• Speak the language of your customers.
• Beware of long lists.
• Avoid one-item lists.
• Show why results are included.
• Give customers only what they ask for.
• Provide constructive advice.
• Allow the user to begin a new search on tile “No Results” page.

Product pages

• Provide the product details customers want and need.
• Speak the customer’s language; avoid jargon and clever names.
• Be specific.
• Don’t present too much detail at once. Layer the information.
• Consider providing reviews and / or ratings.
• Explain details that can’t be seen in the product image.
• If you must use downloads and plug-ins, make tile installation process as transparent as possible.
• If the technology isn’t reliable, leave it out.
• Provide a recognizable image for familiar items.
• Provide images that are big, detailed, and free of visual distractions.
• Beware of losing details in dark-coloured images.
• Consider showing alternative views of a product.

Show only what’s included for sale

• Put price (and currency) on both the category page and the product page.
• Show all costs – or lack thereof.
• Link to guarantees and policies.
• Clearly indicate when the customer will get the order.
• Show all options on the same page.
• Use conventional names for colours.
• Show the product image in each available colour.
• Make sure images match colour swatches.
• Have the customer select options before the product goes in the shopping cart.
• Avoid using multilevel lists or menus to select options.
• Don’t make the buyer Specify a “Choice” When there is only one option.
• Show chosen options in the cart.
• Beware of using clever names for the shopping cart and Buy button.
• Use a simple button for the buy mechanism.
• Put a Buy button on enlarged views.
• Provide shopping instructions in the empty cart.
• Provide strong feedback when an item has been put into the cart.

Check-out and registration

• Show items. all costs. and the subtotal.
• Provide information about return policies and guarantees.
• Provide a “return to shopping” link.
• Provide a Remove button for each item in the cart.
• Provide shopping, Instructions in the empty cart
• Order the steps in the checkout process according to users’ expectations.
• Show the steps of the process.
• Make the next-step button prominent and visually distinct from the site navigation and other page elements.
• Reveal shipping charges before asking for personal information
• Provide exact shipping charges and tax. not formulas.
• Give the user a choice of shipping methods and carriers, if possible.
• Ask for only the information needed to complete the transaction and clearly state how it can be used.
• Use clear labels and show examples of valid entries.
• Make the size of the field indicate the length of the expected Input.
• Differentiate shipping address from billing address.
• Use a type-in field, not a selection list, for the state.
• Save and auto-fill all previously supplied information
• Validate information submitted.
• Expect users to hit the Enter or Return key while filling out forms, handle it gracefully.
• When errors occur, clearly tell how to fix which fields.
• Provide an order summary with all information about the transaction
• Include a prominent link to privacy and security policies.
• Provide an order confirmation page after the purchase.
• Send a confirmation e-mail as soon as possible after the transaction.
• Clearly explain the privacy policy and make it easy to Find.
• Allow (but don’t require) all e-mail address for the user name.
• Explain how to select a user name and password and why.
• Avoid using secret questions and hints for password recovery.
• Allow new users to register even if they use the returning customer log-in form.

International users

• Place international shipping information where inexperience users will notice it.
• Place international shipping information where experienced users look for it.
• Offer alternatives if you don’t ship abroad.
• Show both where you ship and where you bill.
• lf different models, prices, or procedures apply in different countries make that clear.
• Warn about potential technical and legal problems with products.
• Show all additional costs, especially shipping as soon as possible.
• Consider offering a built-in currency converter.
• Provide translation of measures to and from metric units.
• Write all text in EASL, (English As a Second Language).
• Provide a glossary for both product and shipping terms.
• Show examples of acceptable and typical information users should enter
• Use the prompt -ZIP / postal code” rather than “ZIP” or “ZIP Code.”
• Explicitly list all countries to which you ship.
• Let the user specify the shipping region first.
• Provide different pages for US and European address formats
• Support international phone number formats.
• Don’t use metaphors that are intimately connected with a specific country.
• Test your site in each target country to find cultural problems