How an online store and online purchasing works

The purchase process is the set of stages that a customer has to go through in order to place an order in an online store. This process begins when a customer accesses the website and ends with the acceptance or confirmation of the order.

Stages of the purchase process in an ecommerce

Access to the store and selection of products: The customer accesses the store and, while moving through the catalog, adds products to his cart. That is, it completes your order.

Summary of the shopping cart: Once the order is completed, the client accesses his cart to view a summary of the products he has added. The customer visually confirms that the products that appear are the ones he wants to buy and that the prices of each of them are as expected. This summary should show the prices of each product, taxable taxes and the total amount of the order (including taxes) except for shipping costs. From this point the customer must be able to remove products from his shopping cart quickly and intuitively. It should also be possible to return to the catalog and continue adding products to the cart. It is highly recommended to have a system so that the user can modify the units of each product present in the cart directly from this screen.

Customer registration: In this step, the registered customer must log in if they have not already done so. If the user is not registered you must register to continue with the purchase process.

Shipping address: At this point you enter the shipping and billing address or confirm if you are already registered. The e-commerce application that you are using must allow you to manage at least two addresses for each customer since the shipping address does not have to match the billing address.

Shipping options: At this stage, site must show the customer the different shipping alternatives and the costs associated with each alternative. The customer has to prefer between one of them. This is an important point in the process since many times very long deadlines, few alternatives or a perception by the customer of high shipping costs cause the customer to abandon the purchase process at this stage .

Payment methods: Now is the time to choose between the different payments options available. A summary of the order should appear on this screen and now the shipping costs chosen in the previous stage must appear. This stage is the most important and delicate of the purchase process. If site do not convey trust to the customer, they will probably abandon the purchase process.