Shopping Cart Icons Collection

TraiaN December 13, 2008 Internet Marketing, Web Design, e-Commerce Optimization 8 Comments

Shopping Cart, Shopping Bag or Basket? How should you name this button/text? The following is an analysis of major etailers and should be used as a guideline only.

The collection (at the bottom of this post) of 109 shopping cart buttons from top etailers revealed the following common elements (green items are to be recommended when designing this section of your pages):

1. The icon you should use is a CART or BAG:

a. 64 out of 109 etailers display the cart symbol – 59%

2. There are more than 20 different names given to this section( basket, cart, items, my bag, my brown bag, my cart, my shopping bag, mycart, saks bag, shopping bag ,shopping basket, shopping cart, total, view bag, view basket, view cart, view my bag, view shopping bag, your bag, your cart, your shopping cart, your shopping carts) but:

a. 70 out of 109 used the word CART when naming the section- 64%
b. 27 used BAG to describe it

Notice: the names used to describe the shopping cart seems to be correlated with the the brick and mortar stores. For example, apparel and fashion websites are morelikely to use the word BAG instead of CART. This follows the real life, where you’ll carry a BAG and not a CART inside an AE store.Further research is needed (see you competitors and your store rules and decide which one is the best for you) when you decide on how to name this section on your site.

3. The appearance of this section seems to be pretty much the same for all etailers:

a. 84 out of 109 etailer are displaying the shopping cart/bag icon along with short descriptive text of the section

The icons:

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8 Responses to “Shopping Cart Icons Collection”

Pat | West Florida Components said:
Dec 30, 08 at 11:28 am
Thanks for this post – I’ve been looking for stats on cart vs. basket usage. I am actually surprised at how few actually do use ‘basket’. Good stuff – thanks!
traiann said:
Dec 30, 08 at 11:36 am
Yes, you’re right about the ‘basket’ usage. It’s about choosing between ‘cart’ and ‘bag’.
Scent Trail of View Cart, Add to Cart and Proceed to Checkout Buttons | Internet Marketing Company said:
May 22, 09 at 3:24 pm
[...] design of the buttons it self, but the relationship between the buttons on each website: does the View Cart has a strong presence on the pages or it’s obscured by other designs elements and [...]
bagstage said:
Jul 01, 09 at 5:59 am
very nice collection… thanx!
Nate | Grants for College said:
Jul 27, 09 at 2:06 pm
Thanks for the post – these icons are great and I look forward to using one on my new shopping cart I am developing.
Levi Larsen said:
Oct 14, 09 at 4:12 pm
Are these from the corresponding sites and therefore not useable on designs?
Jon said:
Mar 04, 10 at 5:49 pm
Traiann, it’s not necessarily about choosing between cart and bag, but more about which side of “the pond” your website is aimed at. In the UK, cart is hardly ever used, mainly because we use the word trolley instead of cart in shops. Note that Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk both use the same icon (image 8 above) but the words are cart and basket respectively. I would suggest that most UK based sites use the word basket.
TraiaN said:
Mar 04, 10 at 6:19 pm
Jon, you’re right. If you run an apparel website you don’t need to use the term car, as it be more appropriate to use bag or similar terms. Particularities, like the target countries, were not take into account at the time I did this research. Thanks for the update and letting us know about the trolleys. We use that term here to describe the trolley cars :)