What should a website do when the user clicks the buy button

Take them to basket or just add item to basket

[Red_Eye]

I have my own home grown e-commerce site. I have recently added the ability to track the progress of a user through the checkout process.

Currently when someone clicks on a buy button the item is added to the basket at the top of the page. From the shopping basket at the top of the page you can then view the basket or go straight to the checkout.
The basket at the top of the page shows the number of items the over all cost and the postage and packing cost.

What I am finding is that lots of users create baskets but only a few view the basket.

Would it be better if when a buy button is clicked the user is taken to the basket page? So they can progress through the checkout.

What I like about the current setup is that is someone want more than one item they can add them to the basket without having to go to view the basket each time.

Thanks in advance

[RhinoFish]

i sell items where most often, people buy just one item, so i take them to the cart (with an easy "continue shopping" button).

if many of your orders are for multiple items, i could see keeping them in the catalog versus dropping them in the cart.

i'd say test both and see which works best for you.

[Red_Eye]

Thank you for your suggestion. I will give it a try and see what happens. The products that I currently most people do buy more than one. But most of the baskets that have only one item in go no further so maybe the users don't see that they have added a part to the basket

[Mark_A]

I would probably do what amazon do, they seem to make for a clean e-shopping experience.

[LifeinAsia]

Why not have 2? One "Buy now" button and one "Add to Shopping Basket" button.

[Red_Eye]

LifeinAsia I like that idea. Might give it a go. I took a look at amazon and found that I am already doing what they do. But I think that I need to make my shopping basket more visible and user friendly

[rocknbil]

Mine are like RhinoFish, Buy -> summary with buttons to continue checkout or return to shopping. Checkout links/icons on every page after that.

[topr8]

>> But most of the baskets that have only one item in go no further so maybe the users don't see that they have added a part to the basket

you'd be amazed what webbots can do ... return cookies, understand javascript, click submit buttons, click add to cart buttons etc etc
not that i'm suggesting some of your users are not real people but perhaps you should be open to the possibility to explain some of these situations!

[Red_Eye]

Topr8,

I do agree and accept that some of these baskets could be robots. But most of them are baskets with one or two specific products in. I would think that if they were robots there could be more parts added and more baskets created. However I do accept that I could be wrong.

From my own experience of online shops they all handle this differently. I think that I might need to experiment a bit to see if I can get more people into the checkout process.

[Super_Chunk]

Some click Add To Cart just checking how much the delivery will cost, even if it’s right there in front of them. Just like in a B&M store, people tend to pick things up, inspect them and then put them back down – browsing, with no intention of buying. You could try running a test of what to do with the shopping cart, over say 2 weeks and see which works best.