The majority of shoppers, online and otherwise, have always wanted the best deal for their dollar. However, with the downward slide in economy, shoppers have changed especially in terms of online shopping. In this article we explore the best ways to ensure successful e-commerce transactions and optimizing the shopping cart experience for online shoppers.

With the recession hitting everyone in some form or another, and with gas prices continuing to climb daily, it is no wonder shoppers are becoming smarter. With not much room left for extra spending, online consumers are doing their research before committing to just one online shopping cart. This is also partly due to the availability of information regarding online products and shopping carts. Anyone with a smartphone has access to dozens of applications for online shopping and online shopping cart comparisons. The key for most online consumers is to find the best online shopping deals before making a final purchase.

The number of online shoppers spending more time to research a product before making the final purchase is up 22 percent since 2009. This leads to an increase in time between the first initial clicks on a product and a final click on the purchase button. This means the days of impulse buying is over. This also means, competition is up now more than ever among online shopping carts. With this change in technology, information availability and consumer online shopping practices, what is the best way to optimize your website or online business’ shopping cart? What is the best way you can make sure these online customers keep coming back even after shopping around?

• One of the best ways to ensure shopping cart optimization to bring back more and more customers is by reassessing your conversion window. This is the time frame within businesses consider search activity relevant to conversion (sale) or not.
• Optimize the use of keywords to ensure great shopping cart search engine optimization. You want your website to be the first to get found, which increases the likelihood of the consumer purchasing from your online store. The best way to do this is by identifying action and profit-driving keywords to use throughout your website. For example, using “buy running shoes” rather than just “running shoes” is likely to get your website more hits.
• Another way to ensure storefront optimization is to find and use keywords that are related to the product you sell. For example, if you sell flat screen TVs, use words related to flat screen TVs. Use variations of these terms to get you the best keyword optimization of your shopping cart possible.
• Consider your customer base. Use keywords your clientele would likely use in a search for your type of store or product. Keep in mind, it is likely that older generations use the Internet differently than younger generations and are likely to search differently as well. Those who are older might search for something asking a full on question, rather than using just one or two keywords. Keep your audience in mind when trying to come up with keywords to practice storefront optimization.

With the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet, this new practice of researching online shopping will not end any time soon. Do your best to make sure your online store is found and your customers utilize your shopping cart.