E-Commerce: Branded Page or Pop-Up Window?

Question

I'm working on a custom e-commerce system for a client and ran into a fork in the road. The checkout system I'm using is very flexible and is meant to be integrated into an existing Web site. So essentially, I have all my products on a page. Each product has a "Buy Now" button associated with it. When clicking on that button, a modal window opens, showing a cart-like screen with the item they chose being added. From here, they can either close the modal window and "buy" another product or checkout. Here is where the fork comes in:

Option A: They are now redirected to the merchants site for the actual checkout. I can make that page look anyway I want, but it's independent from the client's real site. So if something on the real site changes, I have to update my files on the merchants site manually so there won't be any confusions e.a. a new menu item is added in the header.

Pro: They checkout on a page that's branded as the client and it takes up the full page. It might provide a better sense of security as apposed to option B.

Con: May involve some manual maintenance to keep the appearance of the site consistent.

Option B: When the modal window displays and they click on checkout, a new window/pop-up opens up. It shows them everything they need to checkout... name, address, billing info, etc. It would still be branded as the client's checkout system, but you wouldn't see the entire site (header/footer) in that pop-up window.

Pro: No maintenance involved and they'll always see the site in the background and know where they are at. On completion of checkout, they can close the window and are right back where they left of.

Con: It might defer some people from checking out, because you can't really tell where you're entering your credit card info... although it would be branded accordingly. They may also have a pop-up blocker that could prevent the window from opening in the first place.

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Does anyone have any experience with this? Are people less likely to checkout from a pop-up window vs. a full page checkout system?

Any feedback much appreciated.

-Ryan

Answer 1

The answer is to brand the Web site and not use a pop-up, even if it requires some manual updating of the headers and footers. The reason being, that from the user's perspective, it can be hard to tell whether this is a pop-up from that site you just clicked "Buy" on or whether this is an ad from that site or another open tab. Furthermore, if you look at what everyone else is doing, you don't ever check out in a pop-up window. Lastly, the moment something pop-up asking for my credit card, I tend to close it, so knowing how I react to those, I answered my own question.

Case closed.

-Ryan