Comments on: Boost Average Order Value: Position Your Site As A One Stop Gift Shop

By: Cyber Monday 2009 Post Mortem: Items Per Order Benchmarks | Get Elastic

Cyber Monday 2009 Post Mortem: Items Per Order Benchmarks | Get Elastic — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:13:21 +0000

[...] While I can only speculate why pet stores averaged so high on items per order (perhaps it’s a combination of low dollar value items and high free shipping thresholds), I was surprised department stores were not moving more items, especially with the opportunity to position themselves as one-stop-shopping destinations. [...]

By: Christian, Baymard Institute

Christian, Baymard Institute — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:43:13 +0000

Treatment A would be my guess.

A “treatment D” could be to use the copy of A but make it less graphical, as I fear “banner blindness” might be a problem with A.

By: TraiaN

TraiaN — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:38:29 +0000

@Linda: is there any email I can reach you? if not please follow back twitter.com/roigeek so I can send a direct message. thanks.

By: Alex Fisken

Alex Fisken — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:08:21 +0000

Linda – Great article as usual. I am also surprised that few etailers integrate these types of tools into the overall experience. I’d also like to see sites test this in conjunction with a “carrot” type promotion (e.g. add $X more and get free shipping) to drive AOV. Also, promoting one stop shop tools like this upstream in PPC or down stream in email trigger campaigns (abandonment or post-purchase confirmations/upsells) would be interesting as well.

By: Stuart Laing

Stuart Laing — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:55:34 +0000

In order of clicks, items per sale and average order size, I reckon the three treatments would be ranked A (best), B, C (worst).

Treatment C could be overlooked by people who are specifically looking for the ubiquitous words “continue shopping”, while those who prefer to browse freely rather than being guided may avoid the “Shop Our Gift Finder” link which suggests an overly structured process.

I find Treatment B, with the Continue Shopping link above the item details counter intuitive. However, if you have a number of items in your cart, the need to scroll further down the page to reach the Continue Shopping link in Treatment A could also be rather tiring.

Providing a prominent Contune Shopping link both above and below the items in the cart would be the best solution.

Kim, I completely agree with your comment about Amazon. The same thing happened when I was using the UK site last week. On the credit card page I wanted to add another item but the back button didn’t work, so I had to close the site and login again. A continue shopping button on the Amazon checkout pages would be really appreciated.

By: Kim Dudra

Kim Dudra — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:36:57 +0000

My vote is for Treatment A, with two comments. “Continue Shopping” should be hyperlinked in case I don’t want to use the gift finder feature. Also, “Christmas at Target” looks like a button unto itself, which is a little confusing (if in fact it isn’t a hyperlinked button). I’m betting “Shop Our Gift Finder” in Treatment C will have the lowest conversion. It’s a very specific action that isn’t as broad as “Continue Shopping”, and solves one shopper objective, but doesn’t address alternatives.

On the subject of Continue Shopping, I was on Amazon.ca the other day and the one improvement I would make is to ensure “Continue Shopping” is available at any point of the transaction. I was at the credit card selection page and realized I wanted to add one more item to my cart. I’m always loathe to hit the Back button, but this is what I ended up doing since I could not see an alternative anywhere on the page (and if there is one, I didn’t see it; I do wear glasses!). Online retailers should provide exits at each stage of a transaction because checking out isn’t always linear.