I've wrestled with taking the customer to the Shopping Cart on each item added -- especially with 3.1 large carts causing longer page load times -- BUT the message "Item has been added to your cart" is too obscure -- I even missed it when fooling around with it, let alone a customer not knowing what to look for.


It would be nice if a pop-up -- and I know blockers are an issue here, but I think a javascript popup might be immune to blockers -- or a BIG RED BOX around the cart contents or something that brings attention that "XX Has been added to your cart, click here to checkout"

Unfortunately tried that idea with our previous cart and without a pop-up customers just plain missed that anything was added to the cart. We had a JS popup there and it worked fine. we also had an addon that showed the list of cart contents (users could opt to close that and show only the number of items). Unless you made it 72-point red text I think customers would miss it

80's Tees uses a postback...the whole page flickers when something is added to the cart. BVC5 uses a callback...only a few parts of the page are redrawn. Is a partial update is too subtle? Have we been trained to expect the flicker?

Cliff is right on the money. This is a very gentle way to show a result in a color that isn't otherwise used on the page, but not red.

I prefer to take my shoppers to the cart for two reasons: My shoppers rarely buy more than one item (furniture - nature of the beast) and most of my products have between 2 and 7 modifiers... I like to give the shopper an immediate view of the mods he's made, plus a button to the checkout page.

Never say never, actually works quite well.

I feel your dilemma Joe. I recall doing some shopping at Banana Republic and as I added a product, the running cart clearly animated (by expanding) that I added the product. It included a tiny thumbnail, size, color and price and I could choose to minimize the cart.

There are so many different methods of an add to cart process out there that it's tough to train a user. The big dogs tend to all do it differently because I think they're throwing the look what we can do slap at each other.

I turn to Jakob Nielsen on his ecommerce studies when he states simply "When customers put an item in their shopping carts, they need to see that something has happened"



Truly groundbreaking...LOL...



Of the sites studied, some sent the user to the cart page, some animated clearly without sending to the cart page.



One site had a running cart located at the bottom of the page which built itself as the user added products. Nielsen mentions that no users had trouble with this.



I can't put all of my wieght on Nielsen as the book is slowly outdating itself as much has changed since the study however the concept stays the same. Users need to see that something has happened.



I like Kman's approach. It puts that action right in the middle of the screen, draws the user eye and is glaringly different than the rest of the site. If I had any say on the display, I'd make the font larger and maybe consider a different color for checkout button (as it currently matches the add to cart button design).



I like Cliff's approach and would only move that notice to the exact same spot that Kman placed his.



Back to my experience at Banana Republic. I didn't like it because it was so small. Useful in theory, but had to squint to see how to minimize the box. Confusion causes dropped carts, we all know this.



In my developments, I prefer sending the user to the shopping cart page. With the advent of the Upsell & Cross Sell features, I am able to pick and choose the correct products to display during the upsell process. And the ability to choose not to do this.



More importantly, in my opinion, if a user wants to buy one product; Keep It Simple! Add to Cart, Click Checkout, Swipe the Card. Interrupting this process is going to increase confusion.



If you're still reading, I'm just going off on a tangent and trying to sound like a seasoned professional....Anybody catch the LSU Ohio State game?

:) solid game... wish penn state was in it but beggars can't be choosers...

Regarding positioning, since I only today noticed Kman's link, a central location works great, especially if it's a postback. If it's an ajax thing that happens without a refresh and/or pretty quickly, then as close as possible to where the customer clicked is ideal, since that is where they are currently focused. A central location in that case would be best presented in a modal box, or something like it.

On top of that, though, something should happen to the one thing on the page that is going to change every time that button is clicked. The mini cart should visibly show that something has happened when there is no reload/redirect, beyond just a changing of the numbers.


The example in my image is strait out of the local BVC5 development version of a store with a non-standard layout and is only seen when there is an ajax respose, no page postback. The live store doesn't use this feature.

What about a div injected into the page placed where a user cannot miss it? Works like a pop-up without the blocker issue.
I use this method on that link I posted. If you add the item to the cart and then continue checkout the injected div for the promo item cannot be missed and is free of blocker issues. I believe you could use a similar method for your add to cart notification. If you want to see it use this link http://www.80stees.com/products...o-t-shirt-distressed.asp add to cart then select checkout now.

What are your thoughts about using an alert box if a client really wants a pop-up type notification? Is it too simple?