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Quote:The tenet of customer service in the online shopping process is simple: the more you engage potential customers, and provide links relevant to their needs, the more they’ll buy and the longer they’ll remain a customer. As it turns out, the solution to that challenge may be as simple as using shopping cart functionality to its fullest.

Later shopping made easy—User-initiated actions like printing out the items in the cart or emailing a copy of the cart to a friend should be as simple as one click. Some carts offer “Save for Later” functionality, as well. “Giving them [these options] creates a bond between your customer and your site,” says MarketLive’s “The Perfect Shopping Cart” report. “They’ve left something behind, something they put time into, and they can return whenever they like.” Merchants in The E-Tailing Group’s 7th Annual Merchant Survey Report reported cart-integrated “email a friend” tools are in the top-half of their cart add-ons with value.

It also helps to boost sales if the cart offers a gift registry or wish list, with reminders, for items customers don’t buy now but may later. “Fifty-six percent of consumers out of 1,000 surveyed say they’ve purchased off of someone else’s wish list,” says Lauren Freedman, founder of The E-Tailing Group. Shareable wish lists and cart contents are “proving to be an amazing way to drive traffic to your site,” she says...