The Ultimate Guide: Shopping for bicycles and gear online is a multipart report with tips, trends and analysis of the Australian Market. You can download the ebook version. This part looks at the ordering process.
The ordering process
The majority of online shops have a similar order process however the design, navigation, content structure and naming conventions will vary so that finding a product and purchasing it may not always be intuitive. Products in which you are interested in purchasing are added to your shopping basket (or cart or trolley). Within some shops, after adding an item, you are transported directly to the shopping basket and from there can usually complete your purchase (check-out) or can continue shopping. Up-to-date shops display the contents of your shopping cart on each page as well as the total price and the option to check-out. Checking-out will start the ordering process in which you provide personal details, delivery address and payment details. Often you will be required to set-up a user account with a username and password so that you can check the status of your order at a later date and can also return to the shop again without the need to provide details which are already in the system.
A customer friendly ordering process will give you an overview of all items in your shopping basket and allow you to remove an item or change the quantity as well as allow you to easily return to previous steps in the ordering process to make changes.
Before payment, a complete overview of your entire purchase plus additional costs such as tax and shipping should be displayed. When you click confirm and pay, if you have selected payment by credit card, the most common form of payment online, you will be instructed to provide your credit card details. Ensure that this page is SSL secure and avoid using your browser “back” button or clicking the button to submit your details more than once as errors may occur. Sometimes processing your credit card details takes a while as the details are validated.
Once your credit card is validated, a page will usually be displayed confirming that your order has been received. Behind the scenes, the credit card and order are checked against fraud and the payment provider will notify the shop that payment was successful. Typically an email is also sent to the shopper as confirmation of payment and it may include a link to enable you to easily return to the shop and track the ‘order status’.
This is article is from The Ultimate Guide: Shopping for bicycles and gear online. You can download the entire ebook (free) from here.
You can discuss this article and the ebook in the Australian Cycling Forums.
