Customers hate minimum quantities when ordering online. However, based on the products you offer, the minimum quantity rule can be essential and make the difference between making and losing money on an order. Most eCommerce companies have built-in rules for minimum quantities.
For example, let’s say that you are selling pens and they can only be sold in boxes of ten. With 99% of eCommerce systems, you would need to create a product and call it Ball Point Pens – 10 Pack. This would be the only way for you to force incremental quantities. However, the right way to set up this product would be to advertise 1 Ball Point Pen instead of a ten pack. Here’s why:
- Reporting and quantity equalization will quickly become a nightmare if you have to create a new SKU/Bundle for every product that has a Quantity Incremental Rule,
- It’s confusing to the user,
- It looks weird in the checkout because the user can never see how many they are purchasing. Increments of ten is easy to figure out, but what if you sell a product that comes in increments of three?
- It’s not good from a Search standpoint either if you have to create a new bundle for every incremental product.
Solution
At Optimum7, we are able to fix this problem with a jQuery code on Volusion’s Product Detail Pages. The code forces the increments that you would like to have. So, if you sell a product called Ball Point Pen and it only comes in quantities of ten, the text box will allow your users to enter digits but will not allow them to add fifteen to the cart; only increments of ten. The text box is the best solution because a drop down menu would simply be too long. Imagine a list that started at ten and moved in increments of ten all the way up to 900; it would become a nuisance for anyone ordering 900 pens. So, this solution works perfectly because it doesn’t allow the user to break the increments while still letting them order precisely the quantity they want.
You can also force a minimum quantity on a specific product page. Many shopping carts do not allow this, but even when they do they are buggy. The user can often find a way to place the order and you still may be responsible for processing the order. This functionality forces different minimum quantities for different products. So, when the user is on a product page, the minimum quantity is displayed and anything below that quantity cannot be added to cart.
There are many other minor functionality changes you can make on your eCommerce site, such as offering different percentage discounts at different quantity levels. The most essential element here is to know what your users want and how you can improve conversion rates by using minor functionality on your eCommerce site.
At Optimum7, we understand functionality, business, usability and conversions. Contact us today and let us show you more ways to make money and increase your bottom line. You have a lot that you can improve on your eCommerce site, you just might not know it yet!
