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Mon Oct 21 2013 16:33:09

Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong

By: Julia Wilkinson

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Let's face it, it isn't even Halloween and we're already into the holiday selling frenzy...at least we online sellers are. But for those of us who have our own web sites using shopping cart buttons to get paid directly from our customers, we may be doing several things the wrong way, and not optimizing sales.

Volusion recently did a study of the add-to-cart buttons of the top 50 ecommerce sites (i.e. Walmart, Zappos, eBay, Amazon) to see how they've designed their buttons to entice shoppers to do just that. Do you think you can guess what color, shape, wording and design work best?

Let's find out.

Color: – most go with orange
Shape: – rounded corners, approximately 144 px by 34 px
Wording: – most use the word "cart" instead of "bag" or "buy"
Design: – most do not use an icon with the button

So the ideal add-to-cart button looks like the Wal-mart button below:

Below shows the distribution of the most-used features across the top 50 ecommerce sites:

So, what color are your buttons? (This reminds me of that old resume book, What Color Is Your Parachute? Anyone else remember that? Let's hope the parachute doesn't have a hole in it).

Are you using any of the most-used features of carts, and if not, do you think you will change yours? Do you think eBay and other big sites should change the color of their buttons to orange? (Hey, it's Halloween season for a while, anyway!). Post a comment here!



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Perminate Link for Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong   Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong

by: LAbay This user has validated their user name.

Mon Oct 21 18:10:57 2013

All this says is that the big stores emulated one another.  It doesn't mean that people will buy more if you have an Orange add to cart button. In fact the most common favorite color is blue followed by green then red. 50 percent of men are born partcially color blind.

Perminate Link for Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong   Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong

by: LAbay This user has validated their user name.

Mon Oct 21 18:14:58 2013

Typo fix: partially

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This user has validated their user name. by: juliawww

Mon Oct 21 20:43:35 2013

Hi LAbay,

Well, that would be assuming these sites know what they are doing. This calls for a look into studies of what color people actually click more; this would have to be done in a scientific way with a control group, etc. But you make an excellent point.

Does this mean you are not going to change your buttons to orange for Halloween? ;)

Perminate Link for Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong   Four Ways Your Shopping Cart Button Could Be Wrong

by: TomH This user has validated their user name.

Mon Oct 21 20:51:06 2013

The sites mentioned are just that -- being sarcastic -- everything before the ''buy'' button, regardless of color, is more important.  

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This user has validated their user name. by: The End

Tue Oct 22 11:52:51 2013

OBSERVATION :
Setting your Background Color to Coordinate with the cart button MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Make the button color stand out just a TAD.
Sounds silly but it's true   :o)

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by: Cloud This user has validated their user name.

Wed Oct 23 09:10:20 2013

Glad to know that mine already have all those features. Interesting article. While I agree with LAbay that this is not a scientifically controlled study, it does stand to reason that these large companies have done their research regarding buyer habits. Orange I believe is actually one of the least favorite colors, however, color evokes emotion and it may be that evidence shows that the color orange causes people to buy more or something about the color makes them want to click on it. Absent an official study I would go with what the big guys are doing.  

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by: Moonwishes This user has validated their user name.

Wed Oct 23 09:42:02 2013

An orange cart button wouldn't induce me to buy more, I hate the color orange. I would prefer some other color.

What it really comes down to though is whether or not you are finding what you want/need at the site for the price you are willing pay. By the time you get to the buy button, who cares what color or shape it is?

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by: out-of-the-attic-2u This user has validated their user name.

Wed Oct 23 09:50:41 2013

If I had to pick a color it would be blue, jmo. Its more the product that is important, the shipping etc that a button.

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by: giftcentral This user has validated their user name.

Sat Nov 16 23:49:44 2013

I would think if the product was worthwhile, the shape and color of the checkout/add to cart button would matter little.  



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