You may not have given the humble add to bag (or cart, if you’re in the US) a huge amount of thought.
But they’re typically the most important element on product detail pages. In many cases, get this part wrong and your store will suffer. Curiosity (and patience) got the better of me so I decided to investigate how some of Britain’s top retailers present them.
Observations
Iconography is dying out – a few years ago it was far more common to see cart, bag, basket or arrow icons as part of the button design. This now seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
There’s a surprising lack of contrast for many retailers – many retailer buttons are in black that somewhat blend into the rest of their branding or overall aesthetic. Make it stand out – obvious always wins.
Accessorize and Game do something interesting – they incorporate the product cost into the call to action. For Game, I suspect this makes more sense where pre-owned / trade-in products are part of its proposition and this needs to be more obvious.
If anyone from the Accessorize digital team is reading – do let me know if this is something you’ve explicitly tested.
Selection methodology
- The top 100 brands were taken from Internet Retailing UK’s 500 list
- I have removed supermarkets from the data as the behaviour for buying groceries online is a little different and the buttons are more reflective of the in-store experience
- You can find the full annual report on the top 500 here. For context, this is their methodology to determine the top retail brands.
Footprint
UK retail turnover, ecommerce turnover, web reach and store estate of retail businesses give the ‘heft’ and a preliminary rank
Strategy & Innovation
The extent to which the retailer is adapting for growth, international commerce and customer responsiveness
The Customer
Measuring the experience from the customer’s point of view
Operations & Logistics
Delivery, returns and collections
Merchandising
Displaying and describing
Brand Engagement
Making their brands familiar to the customer and connecting with them
Mobile & Cross-channel
Beyond single ecommerce or store channels