To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Ask the community for help and support.
Post Reply
14Steve14
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 549
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 49 times

To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by 14Steve14 »

We have started to get instances of customers not reading product descriptions and then having to return products because they are not as expected. We are also getting calls from customers asking product questions when the answers are all on the product info pages. After speaking to several of these customers they all added the products to the cart from the products_listing pages bypassing the products_info pages and the descriptions.

Can anyone think of any reasons why the BUY button could not be removed leaving just the VIEW button which would take the customers to the product_info pages. Or even remove all the buttons from below the product images and names on the product_listing pages.

We have seen sites where on the product_listing pages there is a buy button which takes the customer to the product pages just like the view button does, so may change the name of the view button to buy after removing the buy button. Dont quite know what would be easier or better. Anyone have any ideas.
heatherbell
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 1996
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:39 am
Has thanked: 26 times
Been thanked: 175 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by heatherbell »

14Steve14 wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:28 pm We have started to get instances of customers not reading product descriptions and then having to return products because they are not as expected.
Have posted before that the Buy button can cause that problem and the View button is superfluous (as if a customer doesn't know to click on the card!), never use them.
An option to easily disable them (set to false) was introduced into core for that reason.
https://github.com/CE-PhoenixCart/Phoen ... ng.php#L65
14Steve14
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 549
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 49 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by 14Steve14 »

heatherbell wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:13 pm Have posted before that the Buy button can cause that problem and the View button is superfluous (as if a customer doesn't know to click on the card!), never use them.
I did have a search for various things but could not find too much relating to those buttons on the product_listing pages.

My trouble is that customers were only clicking the buy button. One got so confused he had a right go at me on the phone because the website was rubbish, it didn't show stock levels and all the usual things. When I explained how to see the product descriptions, where he could find all the information he went "I never knew it did that" and he has been a customer for many years. Before I get shouted at, most of my customers are of the older generation and are possibly not the best at online.

I have removed the code for the BUY button so will see how it goes. In a week or two's time I will try it without any buttons and see what happens. Its only a case of adding a few // for now.
User avatar
Kofod95
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 605
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2021 7:38 pm
Has thanked: 80 times
Been thanked: 141 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by Kofod95 »

We have it, but have removed the "View" button.
We have a lot of old customers as well, but they seem to know to click the card to open a page with more details about the product.
The buy-button is kept for returning customers or people looking for something very specific; they know by the name that the product is correct, and to save on clicks, the buy-button is there for them. Most of them does not log-in until they are wanting to check out, so it wouldn't help them if we had something like the order history box module installed. Those looking for specific items wouldn't have any help from that either.
Just to share our experiences.

//Daniel
I'm not smart, but sometimes even a blind chicken can find a corn.
Here are a lot of corns: Phoenix user guide
burt
Lead Developer
Lead Developer
Posts: 2423
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:37 am
Has thanked: 49 times
Been thanked: 137 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by burt »

It's an interesting question. My take is that it rather depends upon your customers and how savvy they are, whether they are repeat customers (ie, they know what they want) and so on.

My general take on it is; only have buy buttons on product pages, have all other links just go to that individual product page. It's the product page that is generally golden; extra data about the product, reviews, sign up for notifications and so on
Gamechanger Addon: Queued Emails, try before you buy.
14Steve14
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 549
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 49 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by 14Steve14 »

burt wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:11 pm It's an interesting question. My take is that it rather depends upon your customers and how savvy they are, whether they are repeat customers (ie, they know what they want) and so on.

My general take on it is; only have buy buttons on product pages, have all other links just go to that individual product page. It's the product page that is generally golden; extra data about the product, reviews, sign up for notifications and so on
Cheers Gary. Its the product page that a few of my customers admit to not getting to. I have removed the BUY button and so far no complaints, but its only been a weekend. I have noticed that lots of sites have no buttons but I don't think some of my customers would know to click the image or text to get to more information. I have also changed the VIEW button text to MORE INFO and see if that gives them a further heads up.
Omar_one
VIP Member
VIP Member
Posts: 481
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:06 pm
Has thanked: 48 times
Been thanked: 27 times

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by Omar_one »

14Steve14 wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:22 pm I have removed the BUY button and so far no complaints, but its only been a weekend. I have noticed that lots of sites have no buttons but I don't think some of my customers would know to click the image or text to get to more information. I have also changed the VIEW button text to MORE INFO and see if that gives them a further heads up.
On our Frozen (which already moved to Phoenix) we removed the BUY button and VIEW button text to MORE INFO, we got a lot of complaints when we still had the BUY button, the customer's they thought pressing on the BUY button that's mean the product already on the cart..
and now we removed both (BUY button, VIEW button) on Phoenix for more clean list and focusing on the products not on which button need to press(in our opinion)
ozeworks
PhoenixCart Developer
PhoenixCart Developer
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:58 pm
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: To have, or not to have, BUY button on product_listing pages

Post by ozeworks »

I don't think this is a age related issue and we need to take care when making those assumptions. And full disclosure I am old :)

eCommerce workflow is pretty standard but one area it differs the most is listing pages. There does not seem to be any standard in relation to its content and links. On some sites, you can click on the Image and/or Product Name to go to the product page - was standard in the beginning of eCommerce but now it is not because UI got more fancy and we now have touch devices.

Images are problematic as user expectation can differ. They can expert an enlarged image, the next image, a quick view popup or a link to the product. And it is really uncertain when there are no prompts eg. title text or overlays (eg opaque quickview buttons)

And yes you can also have buttons to BUY or VIEW. But BUY will always take you to the Product Page if there are attributes which introduces friction. To solve problems such as yours, some sites opt to have neither button and some opt to have both.

See https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ecomme ... ing-pages/ It is dated 2018 but you will see they appear to imply no buttons.

A good way to check trends is to look at what players like Shopify et al are doing by default given the resources they have to invest in UI. But they are not always right. I just struggled with a site that only the product name was a link. The image did nothing. For touch devices this is poor design I think as it require more precise actions.

But my vote is none and make sure the product name and image or the entire card, as one person intimidated is the link.
Post Reply