Shopping cart abandonment Study
Understanding of Shopping Cart Challenges
Shopping cart abandonment is a common issue faced by many e-commerce websites. It occurs when customers add products to their cart but leave before completing the purchase. Several recurring problems contribute to this issue:
- Bad user experience — Confusing navigation, poor UI, and difficult checkout processes discourage users. Even something as simple as struggling to find the cart icon can lead to abandonment.
- Unfamiliar brand — New or lesser-known platforms face trust issues. If the payment gateway does not display well-known brands, customers hesitate to share sensitive information (Swoop, n.d.).
- Friction in navigation — Some sites redirect users to the cart immediately after adding items, creating confusion when they try to return to browsing. This unexpected behaviour reduces trust.
- Complex checkout — Requiring mandatory sign-ups or multiple steps increases effort. Instead, providing guest checkout options and collecting only an email for updates reduces barriers (Wired, 2014).
According to the class presentation (slides 33–35), businesses must align their checkout design with both user needs (convenience, trust, speed) and business goals (higher conversion rates, loyalty).
Case Observation: Woot.com by Amazon
Although Woot is a subsidiary of Amazon, its design does not reflect the polished Amazon brand. My observations include:
- Unusual product layout — The product information is positioned on the left side of the screen, which is non-standard and disrupts user expectations.
- Crude selection options — The color, model, and quantity selectors appear verbose and unrefined, reducing the feeling of credibility.
- Checkout barriers — Woot requires users to add items to the cart before proceeding, with no option for direct purchase. Further, checkout is only possible after creating an account or logging in via Amazon. For a flash sales platform, where speed is critical, this adds unnecessary friction.
Given Woot’s purpose — quickly clearing backlogged or returned stock — a fast and seamless checkout is essential. The current design does not support this business goal.
Strategy Development and Redesign Suggestions
Based on the challenges identified, the following improvements are recommended:
- Adopt a standard layout — Mirror Amazon’s proven design: product images on the left, information on the right, and expandable sections for additional details. This familiarity builds trust.
- Refine selection tools — Redesign color, model, and quantity selectors for clarity and visual appeal, ensuring users clearly understand their choices.
- Enable direct purchase — Add a “Buy Now” button that bypasses the cart entirely, which is crucial for flash sales and impulse buying.
- Offer guest checkout — Allow users to complete purchases without account creation, requiring only an email for confirmation and tracking.
Redesign Creativity and Practicality
- Hand-drawn Sketch — A simple redesign should show:
- Left side: product images with thumbnails.
- Right side: product name, price, description, and clean selectors.
- Clear “Add to Cart” and bold “Buy Now” buttons under the price.
- Guest checkout option highlighted in the checkout flow.
- Digital Redesign (Canva/Figma/AI) — A polished mockup should replicate the above structure with modern UI components (drop-down menus for selection, consistent Amazon-style typography, and trust-building checkout badges).
This redesign is practical because it follows established design patterns, builds user trust, and minimizes friction while still being inventive enough to reflect Woot’s flash-sale identity.
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These strategies balance user needs (ease, trust, speed) with business goals (higher conversion, reduced abandonment).
Conclusion
Woot.com’s current design introduces friction that discourages purchases, particularly for a flash-sale model where speed is vital. By standardizing the layout, improving selection tools, enabling direct checkout, and offering guest checkout, the site can increase user trust and significantly reduce cart abandonment.
Ultimately, these changes align with both business goals (improving conversion) and user needs (convenience and trust), as emphasized in the class presentation (slides 33–35).
References
Swoop. (n.d.). Shopping cart abandonment: Why it happens and how to fix it. Retrieved from https://swoopnow.com/shopping-cart-abandonment/
Thompson, C. (2014, July 28). Keep one cart: The mobile app that wants to solve shopping cart abandonment. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2014/07/keep-onecart-mobile-app/
Class Presentation. (n.d.). Business goals and user needs [Slides 33–35].
Disclaimer — This article is created as part of the class work for the User Experience class CSYE 7280 taken by Prof. Vishal Chawla at the Northeastern University
