Customer Perspective: Search and Shop
This week we’re assuming a customer’s perspective to look at the virtual storefront, aka the website. Today’s 300 Second task is for those with commerce sites.
Customers shopping at your site will want access to two major components:
- Searching capabilities.
- Their shopping cart.
When a customer is shopping in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, they have access to superhuman booksellers who can deduce book titles based on descriptions like, “the author is a woman… I think.” Online, however, customers have to work a little harder to find a specific title, so the “search” function becomes a trusted friend–if they can find it. Don’t make them search for the search function.
And the shopping cart should be available for viewing at all times, because customers are human. They accidentally hit the buy button more than once. They might have a budget and need access to the running total. Who knows exactly why they want to see what’s in their cart. But if they have access to it, you become a more trusted online retailer.
So look at your site for your search and shopping cart areas. They should be available “above the fold” on not only your home page, but on every page.
