Shopping Cart choices flash v html?

flash carts and their conversion rates compared to traditional html

[scoopydbc]

Hi

I am developing an on-line store and I am considering using Flash based shopping cart. I am no expert but as I see it

PROS
Interface - a one page solution with all the presentational and functional features of flash makes it easier to use for the end user - this may could boost conversion

CONS
Search engine visibility is poor
More expensive to develop

The reason I am considering flash is that offline promotion will constitute a large part of my marketing so ease of use and conversion is a priority.

Although on-line marketing will be used I do not think the business will be search engine traffic reliant. Targeted links from selected sites and well chosen affiliates will probably be more effective for online advertising.

I often find the comments about online business and the technical advice on this forum excellent, so If anybody has any experience with flash based carts or feel that I am missing the point I would appreciate any feedback.

D

[Staffa]

CONS

You will miss out on potential customers who for some reason or other do not have/want flash installed on their PC

[Frequent]

I'm with Staffa. For example, I only recently installed Flash on my laptop. Didn't run it at all for YEARS! I only installed it to see a special effect on a site that I heard about. I then promptly removed it because I generally have no use for it. I prefer boring sites. ;)

Freq---

[Corey Bryant]

Take a look at your market - do you have an established business? If not, use ASP, PHP, .NET for the cart. If you do, then Flash might be a good way to go. Otherwise, SEs won't be able to really index your site to let others know what you sell

-Corey

[scoopydbc]

Corey - its a new business so yes, .NET is probably a more preferable option - thanks.

Its not flash's animated capabilities that I think will be useful but its UI functionality such as an 'all on one page shopping cart' drag and drop etc. I have seen various reports on the net claiming that this type of cart can boost conversion rates.

I didn't think the penetration levels of the Flash plug-in would be a major issue, but point taken.

thanks for the advice

D

[jsinger]

Do any major retailer sites use flash? I had never heard of a flash-based cart, and the ones I find mostly belong to teen oriented businesses, some of which look pretty defunct.

[KevinC]

Never ever use proprietary software(ie. flash) on an e-com site. You want everything single person no matter what machine they are on to be able to checkout.

Personally the idea of a flash cart being more user friendly sounds almost laughable to me.

As another paster mentioned, look at the big boys and see what they are doing. They spend 100's of thousands of dollars in usability testing to find out what works best. If flash helped they'd be using it.

[jsinger]

I took a tour of flash commerce sites (Oh! my aching eyes and EARS). I quit when my browser crashed.

Agreed. When Wal-Mart.com has flash, I'll consider it. They spend millions on testing.