Making Toast

Seth Godin writes today about his new toaster, wondering why it takes 10 steps to accomplish what most toasters do in two. The money quote: "The opportunity online is to fix your toaster. When you want to make toast, the site should get out of the way and let you make toast."

I'm working on a new site that makes use of a shopping cart module for the underlying content management system. The problem, though, with this particular module is the process the customer needs to go through when the user is buying a single item and paying through PayPal:

• Click "Add to Cart" (now viewing cart)
• Click "Checkout"
• Fill out customer, billing, delivery and payment method information and click "Review Order"
• Click "Submit Order" and be transfered to PayPal

Of course, the ideal way to accomplish this is:

• Click "Buy Now" and be transfered to PayPal

In my way of thinking, that's three steps too many. So, I'm sponsoring development of a module for the shopping cart project that will allow a customer to Buy Now. The order is created behind the scenes and the customer details are filled in from the PayPal IPN/POST-back. Fewer steps, lower cart abandonment rate.

Look at your systems: how can you streamline them for a better customer experience?