Which is better; shopping cart or shopping basket?

(in the UK)

[PublicSphere]

Hi,

I'm designing a new B2C eCommerce website, which sells products for child minders: e.g. nursery equipment, early learning toys, etc.

I've heard a study has been done that determined which wording/imagery was better recognised on a web page with regard to the shopping basket/trolley/cart. I can't find that study but I also heard it was very conclusive.

Anyone seen this or a similar study? Also what are your general opinions on this?

Personally I prefer 'basket' for wording, but trolley (British word for shopping cart) for imagery.

I've noticed both Play.com and Amazon.co.uk use 'basket' but they also use a trolley symbol -- perhaps these are the most recognised symbols on the web, also covering both bases?

Would really appreciate some discussion on this subject.

Thanks

[Jack_Hughes]

Use what everybody else is using... because that is what sets customer expectations. If amazon is saying basket then use basket. That's what we've done. We don't use cart because nobody uses that word in the UK in the same way as used in the USA. Copying US sites doesn't seem sensible unless you are expecting a lot of american buyers.

[Yoshimi]

Go for basket with the trolly or basket symbol - I have seen both in equal measure, and as long as you are using an obvious symbol set (i.e nothing abstract) & your link is in the right place, you should be fine.

[Receptional Andy]

An old but interesting thread on the subject is "Buy" or "Add to Cart" [webmasterworld.com]

I don't believe that "cart" is intuitive to the UK market, "trolley" appears to be used rarely and "basket" seems to be the de facto standard. A trolley icon seems to be more instantly recognisable than a basket, which seems more tricky to represent in an icon.

[PublicSphere]

Yeah I'd have to agree. We've gone with Basket wording and trolley imagery. If Amazon and Play are doing it, it's probably been researched/tested thoroughly.

Just for interests sake I took a look at Amazon through the eyes of the Way Back Machine.

Back in 2000 they were using just a basket symbol and no wording. By 2003 they had changed to a trolley symbol coupled with "Your basket".

Play on the other hand have moved their basket from a terrible position on the left, to the top right and changed the basket symbol for a trolley symbol.

This gives me the impression that the trolley symbol was probably found to be more recognisable and synonymous with the customers basket.

Decision made, thanks guys.

Think I'll research sign-in vs login next.

[Receptional Andy]

Remember also that the colour and design of these elements is important. There's lots of archived discussion, including does your buy button suck? [webmasterworld.com], and there's interesting reading via a site search [google.com].

[jsinger]

Use what everybody else is using... because that is what sets customer expectations. If amazon is saying basket then use basket. That's what we've done.

Absolutely. This really doesn't have to be hard. Make your site look like the top shopping sites.

Most of these dramatic "studies" are PR or link development ploys.

As for the "Does Your Buy Button Suck?" thread, we did what it suggested and saw no improvement.