Please review a shopping cart development.

[brackwho]

I've created a shopping cart that integrates with Paypal and I'd like your thoughts. To see how the cart works, please go to

www[]growthministries[]com/materials/ or.....
www[]growthministries[]com/growth-greetings/

and fill out one of the quantity inputs. The cart should appear.

This client required different shipping scenarios for different pages, which did not allow me to use the "minicart" software I had used before so I created this one.

What do you like about it?
What don't you like?

Thanks so much.

 

[un4given[MAD]]

I like it in general.
Minimalism and accuracy is the winning combination. Source code is also professional, clean and nice.
Well done!

However, I have some minor criticisms.
Let's assume, that we are in the /materials/ section.
Let's imagine several different scenarios (additional condition: user is unexperienced. user thoughts are shown in quotes, my suggestions are marked with [!])

Scenario #1:
1. User founds appropriate material and decides to purchase it: "Okay, I just should type quantity into the corresponding field"
2. User enters quantity and waits. Nothing happens. "Errm... And now what?.."

[!] At this moment user needs some hints about his next steps. Not every user will press [enter] or click mouse outside editbox.



Scenario #2:
(bug #1 fixed)
1. User founds appropriate material and decides to purchase it.
2. User enters quantity, presses enter, shopping cart appears.
3. For some reason user clicks [hide cart] and continues to explore materials. Unfortunately, there are no more materials, interesting for user.
"Okay, I want to checkout. Oh, wait... Where is my cart? How can I access it? Hmmm..."

[!] Somewhere should be noticeable link for accessing shopping cart from anywhere, but only if shopping cart is not empty.



Scenario #3:
(bug #2 fixed)
1. User founds appropriate material and decides to purchase it in quantity of 10 items.
2. User enters quantity (10), presses enter, shopping cart appears.
3. User clicks [hide cart] and continues to explore materials. Unfortunately, there are no more materials, interested for user.
4. User accesses cart, reviews it and decides to change quantity of purchased items.
"Oh! I almost forgot to purchase one more for my friend! Oh, wait... How can I change the quantity in cart? I don't want to scroll all page
again to find item which I put in cart!"

[!] You should give user an ability to change quantity directly in cart or scroll to purchased item on page for additional review\quantity change\e.t.c.
You should also give user an ability to remove item(s) from shopping cart.

In my opinion, these three scenarios are most common.

There is another thing for you to think about. Such case is veeeeeery rare, but...
Just add "LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE HOLY SPIRIT" into the cart.
Do you see it? In "Items" list it becomes "Let Me Introduce You to the Holy S", which is quite an oddity and should be avoided.

I hope you will enjoy reading my thoughts regarding this issue.

Good luck!

 

[libertyreservehostin]

Also there should be Subtotal of Items alone and then shipping cost and then Total Cost
Other than that I like your cart, its light and portable by portable i mean it is on the same page where a customer wants to purchase your product

 

[brackwho]

@unforgiven - What a refreshing review. loved the scenarios you set up. Those are so helpful. And I can see you put a lot of time and thought into this review. I am appreciative.

Scenario#1 - I think I could alleviate that problem by adding an ".keyup" instead of ".change" to the function.

Scenario#2 - I think the best way to fix this one is to leave a "shopping cart logo" in the corner as the rest slides away.

Scenario#2 - This one would be a little harder to implement because it would also require the changing of the original input. I'm going to look further into this one, though.

The last case that you shared almost made me spit coffee. I don't think my Christian clients would want me to leave that "insinuation" in their cart.


@ibertyreservehostin - good catch, I think one of my original versions had a subtotal, but I took it out for some reason. Should be easy to reinstall. Also, the portability issue was important to me, and for folks who have smaller inventories on a single page, theres no need for cookies like with some other carts.

@tonyrobbinssales - Thanks.