Add What to Cart?

winnjewett · March 17, 2005

I have shown a few people my new smugmug account, and all of them have had to ask me how to order prints. I take this as a sign that the phrase "add to cart" is not effective. A picture on the computer isn't something that can be added to a cart. It is too ambiguous. I think people need something more tangeable: the familiarity of print sizes.

I think that an easy fix would be to change the wording to something like "Order Prints". But I would really like to be able to feature three product quick links right from the photo. It would look something like this:

Order Prints
8x10 5x7 4x6

order other sizes and gifts

What do you think?

gus · March 17, 2005

I dunno...'add to cart' is (from what i have seen) quite universal.

Its what i look for on web sites anyway

rainforest1155 · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

I dunno...'add to cart' is (from what i have seen) quite universal.
Its what i look for on web sites anyway

I can see winnjewett's point. smugmug wants to offer the easiest interface and you can't measure this totally on what the standard on the net might be.
Imagine the grandma-situation: Grandma just uses the internet to look at the pictures of their grandchild.

For the average internet user this should be obvious, even though the icon should be more clearly to recognise, black on grey isn't that easy to see.

But for a person that might do grocery shopping with a cart once a week, the association with buying prints is a little far fetched. Another problem adds to this when your visitor pool consists mostly of non-native speakers.

So I would like to have customizable shopping buttons for example like the thread starter proposed. The possebility to choose between different icons/layouts or even create own would be best.

Think about it.
Sebastian

gus · March 17, 2005

rainforest1155 wrote:

Think about it.
Sebastian

I did

{JT} · March 18, 2005

All of those icons are customizeable through CSS, the only thing that is not is the text - but in the future I will keep that in mind as we redo pages.

rainforest1155 wrote:

So I would like to have customizable shopping buttons for example like the thread starter proposed. The possebility to choose between different icons/layouts or even create own would be best.

Think about it.
Sebastian

jfriend · March 18, 2005

I like the phrase "order print"
I'd agree that the purchase buttons are confusing and not that obvious. Personally, I'd like it to say "Order Print" or something like that. I think the extra challenge that smugmug has is that many viewers don't think of themselves as being in a web store when they are at smugmug. If you are Amazon, you expect it to say "add to cart", but many of my viewers don't know you can purchase prints here so I think it's more important to make sure they know they can "order" a print.

--John

{JT} wrote:

All of those icons are customizeable through CSS, the only thing that is not is the text - but in the future I will keep that in mind as we redo pages.

{JT} · March 18, 2005

Order Print is a very good suggestion - but it does not convey that they can also order mugs, shirts, clocks, etc. Now, it could say "Order Prints & Gifts" - but I don't know if that much space is necessary for one simple action ... ?

What I am more concerned about is how to distinguish Add to Cart from Batch Add to Cart - do users know what Batch Add to Cart does? Is there a better name for it?

jfriend wrote:

I'd agree that the purchase buttons are confusing and not that obvious. Personally, I'd like it to say "Order Print" or something like that. I think the extra challenge that smugmug has is that many viewers don't think of themselves as being in a web store when they are at smugmug. If you are Amazon, you expect it to say "add to cart", but many of my viewers don't know you can purchase prints here so I think it's more important to make sure they know they can "order" a print.

--John

JamesJWeg · March 18, 2005

How many people use batch add? and how many of those are savy enough to find it in a little differant spot. I purpose using the above mentioned "Order Prints & Gifts" and movnig the batch add feature a little away from it, maybe below it? Maybe "Batch Order" or "Order Many" or "Multiple Order" or "Order Multiple Items". I two have found that people had no idea that they could buy my pics from there, I have been getting them printed elsewhere and hand delivering them because people just don't get it with the current setup.

James.

jfriend · March 18, 2005

I concur. People just don't even know they can buy prints in the smugmug UI. Almost everything is wrong with the presentation. It's an "almost invisible" choice of presentation (color, graphics and location). And, it has non-obvious wording and Batch Add is impossible to know what it does.

If "Order Print" is not generic enough, then how about just "Order".

I also concur that "Batch Add" is completely confusing. I have no idea what it does. Do you have stats on how often it's been used? I bet it's hardly ever used became nobody knows what it does. The other problem with things in the buying process is that users won't experiment with them like they do with other web stuff because they aren't sure if it will commit them to buying something.

--John

JamesJWeg wrote:

How many people use batch add? and how many of those are savy enough to find it in a little differant spot. I purpose using the above mentioned "Order Prints & Gifts" and movnig the batch add feature a little away from it, maybe below it? Maybe "Batch Order" or "Order Many" or "Multiple Order" or "Order Multiple Items". I two have found that people had no idea that they could buy my pics from there, I have been getting them printed elsewhere and hand delivering them because people just don't get it with the current setup.

James.

winnjewett · March 18, 2005

{JT} wrote:

What I am more concerned about is how to distinguish Add to Cart from Batch Add to Cart - do users know what Batch Add to Cart does? Is there a better name for it?

JT, I think that we should be concerned primarily with letting the users know that they can purchase prints and gifts at all. I think that we should move the batch purchase to the next page. This means that they would have to click twice to access the batch feature, but it also frees up lots more room to promote the purchasing of any print or gift.

I would be willing to bet that if you replaced the current box with "Order Prints and Gifts", and placed the batch function on the next page that the number of people using the batch feature would increase. What do you think?

-Winn

JamesJWeg · March 18, 2005

winnjewett wrote:

JT, I think that we should be concerned primarily with letting the users know that they can purchase prints and gifts at all. I think that we should move the batch purchase to the next page. This means that they would have to click twice to access the batch feature, but it also frees up lots more room to promote the purchasing of any print or gift.

I would be willing to bet that if you replaced the current box with "Order Prints and Gifts", and placed the batch function on the next page that the number of people using the batch feature would increase. What do you think?

-Winn

I think you are right, also it is very confussing the way that they do not choose size at the time at which they clcik to buy it, the whole timer to send them back blows thier minds. I had the forture to watch a would be customer of mine attempt to buy pics from my page, she gave up in frustration, I gladly stepped in and took care of things. That made me wonder how many sales people are loosing to this problem.

James.

Mike Lane · March 18, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

I think you are right, also it is very confussing the way that they do not choose size at the time at which they clcik to buy it, the whole timer to send them back blows thier minds. I had the forture to watch a would be customer of mine attempt to buy pics from my page, she gave up in frustration, I gladly stepped in and took care of things. That made me wonder how many sales people are loosing to this problem.

James.

I have to agree with James here. It seems a bit unnatural to have to decide on a size only after you've added the image to your cart. What I would like is if we could have a drop down list that said something like "order prints" by default and then when you opend the list it would list all of the size options and misc. other available print options in there. I think it should be condensed into one drop down list rather than the two as this has been problematic with potential customers of mine. I guess what I'm saying is that it needs to be so easy a 3 year old can do it. Think lowest common denominator.

Mike

jfriend · March 18, 2005

Yes, move batch add to the next page
That makes a lot of sense to me. I like "Order Prints and Gifts" and I like putting Batch Add on the next page.

And, if it's on the next page with lots more room, shouldn't "Batch Add" be called something like "Select Multiple Pictures at Once" so even Grandma would know what it does?

--John

winnjewett wrote:

JT, I think that we should be concerned primarily with letting the users know that they can purchase prints and gifts at all. I think that we should move the batch purchase to the next page. This means that they would have to click twice to access the batch feature, but it also frees up lots more room to promote the purchasing of any print or gift.

I would be willing to bet that if you replaced the current box with "Order Prints and Gifts", and placed the batch function on the next page that the number of people using the batch feature would increase. What do you think?

-Winn

JamesJWeg · March 18, 2005

What is striking me at this point is how nice it is to have a company which actually listens to it's customers. I know I can be a pain at times, but thanks so much to listening to what we say guys.

James.

tmlphoto · March 18, 2005

I agree with the above comments. I would like to see a "Buy Print" and a "Buy Multiple Prints" button or something along those lines.

{JT} · March 18, 2005

I have no problem listening to anything you guys have to say, and I always remember the comments made whenever I am (re)designing a new feature. Hopefully that shows with each new update we make to the site.

Changing the name (and icons) does certainly make sense, I am leaning to "Order Prints" and "Order Multiple Prints". However, the view cart icons will not be changing. I am a big Jakob Neilsen fan (king of web ui), but he concurs: don't change the cart icon. Even if it does not convey what is really happening, it has become a standard and should not be messed with.

Pros who are selling prints at $20 each, won't see a lot of their customers using Batch Add, or maybe even the need for the button. But for my family who buy most of the photos from my 200+ vacation photos they LOVE that feature, and they would not want to take two clicks to get to it. Plus, I can pretty much guarantee that we will be dropping that second step after you "Add to Cart", it will take you instead straight to the Cart page - therefore there will be no page to put the Batch Add on.

At one time we thought about adding a drop down for pricing/prints on the gallery pages, but the overhead to do that each time was not worth it (plus they don't get the cool dynamic crop resizing). I can revisit that discussion with Don, but don't get your hopes up.

Also, in the not so distant future, pros will be able to customize the icons, the words, and even the button location when we get the new tempates out. If you don't like what one says, or even the fact that it is there, you can use CSS to nuke it.

Baldy · March 18, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

What is striking me at this point is how nice it is to have a company which actually listens to it's customers. I know I can be a pain at times, but thanks so much to listening to what we say guys.

James.

No worries, we love to hear it. I have a bit of bad news, however, that many will probably remember.

For a year and a half we had an order prints & gifts button and when we replaced it with the current buttons, as far as it was reported to us, it was a big step forward and we saw sales rise.

It could be that the new arrangement is just bigger and more visible. But we had feedback that order prints and gifts wasn't 100% clear to all users. Many don't want to be transported to some page with a catalog of images,as they supposed an order prints and gifts button would do, they just want to add the one they see in front of them to a cart and keep browsing.

We do see batch add being used a lot. Before we had it, it was very common to see support email asking how to order many at a time, but honestly we don't remember the last email like that.

winnjewett · March 19, 2005

How about a compromise of sorts. I propose that pro-level users have the option to showcase up to three items directly from the photo page. When they click it, a message will appear on the top of that same page. For an example of this, go to ebay and add an item to your watch list. It is very simple and very effective. The overhead would be minimal, and the results could be striking.

-Winn

winnjewett · March 22, 2005

Any thoughts on this?

{JT} · March 22, 2005

Yes, not going to happen

I personally don't think that this will make it any easier for users to buy photos, let alone a grandmother who is new to the web.

Good idea though, just not where we want to go.

winnjewett wrote:

Any thoughts on this?

winnjewett · March 22, 2005

{JT} wrote:

Yes, not going to happen

I personally don't think that this will make it any easier for users to buy photos, let alone a grandmother who is new to the web.

Good idea though, just not where we want to go.

Sounds good JT,
Thanks for the reply. I'm excited to see what the future has in store for us.

Cheers,
Winn

winnjewett · April 7, 2005

I have a little bit of news for those interested in changing the text of their shopping cart. I have developed a small bit of javascript that allows you to manipulate the text in any way you wish. Here is an example: http://photography.brilliantphoton.com/gallery/449917/1/18131235

javascript:
[PHP]
function changeCart(){
if (is_ie == true){
num1 = 1;
num2 = 3;
num3 = 5;
}
else{
num1 = 3;
num2 = 7;
num3 = 11;
}
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num1].childNodes[0].innerHTML='Order A Print';
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num2].childNodes[0].innerHTML='Order A Few<br>Different Prints';
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num3].childNodes[0].innerHTML='View Orders';
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num1].style.textAlign='left';
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num2].style.textAlign='left';
document.getElementById('cartadd').parentNode.parentNode.childNodes[num3].style.textAlign='left';
}

[/php]
*note: there shouldn't be a space between 'pare' and 'ntNode'. I'm not sure why it's displaying this way.

Body:
[php]<body onload="changeCart(); return true;">[/php]
Enjoy!
-w

Nikolai · April 7, 2005

Man, u rox!
Thanks for the nice hacking example!

Cheers!

winnjewett · April 7, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

Thanks for the nice hacking example!
Cheers!

You are most welcome. I hope it can be put to good use by some users.

-w

Add What to Cart?

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