100 Add to Cart Buttons from Top eCommerce Retailers

Add to Cart buttons – they may be small, but no online retail store can do without them. Since these little, colorful clickables connect the product to the shopping cart, they are essential to the checkout process and ultimately, to your brand’s bottom line. It’s important for any ecommerce merchandiser to put some thought into their store’s Add to Cart button design.

We’ve collected and analyzed 100 Add to Cart buttons from the top online retailers of 2022, as well as from a few niche online stores to give you some design inspiration. If any button sticks out to you, be sure to click on it to visit its native page.

Before we get into the the full breakdown of Add to Cart buttons, some of the major takeaways from searching top eCommerce sites were:

• All-Caps buttons are going strong amongst online retailers with over half of eCommerce sites (58%) using All-Caps button text
• The overwhelming majority of sites (70%) use sharp buttons
• Only 6% of the retailers use a custom Add to Cart button icon like a shopping cart or basket
• Only 5% of the retailers include the checkout total of the selected item in their Add to Cart button
• The most popular colors for Add to Cart buttons are black (23%), followed by blue (18%) and ghost buttons (18%)
• More than a quarter (27%) of sites use a CSS (Custom Styling Sheets) animation upon hovering over the Add to Cart button

Here is the Full Breakdown:

100 Add to Cart Buttons

How the Add To Cart Button Can Reinforce Your Branding

At first the Add to Cart button may seem like a minor detail, but it has the potential to create an emotional connection with your brand. Your choice of shape, color, font and button text all affect that connection. It’s common for brands to use this kind of intentional design to create personability with the shopping experience, which is why we took note of a few things we noticed from some of our favorite brands that you might want to keep in mind.

While best practice indicates not to use all-caps, Promptly Journals' modern, easily consumable all-caps lettering echoes the brand's clean, simple and elegant designs of its journals. With a custom CSS animation that appears upon hovering over the button, it’s almost like Promptly is sliding one of its journals over to you as you add it to your eCommerce shopping cart.

Double Under Wonder’s button has a 3D animation that appears to push in upon hovering over it, showcasing the playfulness of their jump rope designs. Old Salt Merchant’s deep navy blue button connects to the brand’s nautical theme origins. Mac Daddy Music Store’s simple, highly functional button emphasizes the functional dependability and product design of its various guitar pedals, pickups and accessories.

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Add to Cart Button Design and Usability

Button Text

Web copywriting emphasizes scannability -- perhaps the golden rule of web copywriting is don’t use 5 words when three will do. "Buy Now" may be a stronger call to action than "Add to Cart", but may subtly suggest the user is finished shopping or is making a commitment to purchase without time to review the order.

The beauty of "Add to Cart" is that it is non-committal and assumes the user is still looking around. And if you’re a good ecommerce merchandiser, you’re showing suggested products and a "continue shopping" link from the view cart page.

Text Formatting

General web usability guidelines recommend sans-serif fonts with high-contrast color selection (high-contrast white on black or dark blue rather than low-contrast blue-on-blue for example). Your add to cart button color should make it easy to consume.

Despite all-caps being generally discouraged in web copywriting, we found 58% of "Add to Cart'' buttons using the text style. Mixed case tends to be the easiest to read, although all lower case is also easy. For example, Ikea slaps small text on a disproportionately wide button forcing some users to squint.

Stacking Text

Stacking text is not a good idea for links or navigation buttons, and the same goes for "Add to Cart" buttons. Users have come to expect some form of rectangular shape, and when quickly scanning a page, it may take longer to distinguish buttons from decoration, and may even become frustrating. No need to reinvent the wheel, stick to the convention.

Button Placement

If you offer helpful features on your product pages like wishlists, enlarged photos, color switching, alternate product views, email to friend, size chart, view cart or check out buttons, make sure the "Add to Cart" button is obvious, bright and prominent in comparison. Less important functions can be lighter colored buttons or simple text links.

Use Movement and Customization

Using responsive buttons that move or change color helps engage the shopper as they browse and hover over the Add to Cart button. If you are in a niche market, consider adding definitive icons to represent your brand; such as a dog bone or collar image within your add to cart button, or if you sell baby clothes and accessories using a rattle with animation. These simple touches add connection and an emotional touch to reflect the endearment of new babies and pets.

Track, Analyze, Repeat

As I mentioned before, always be testing this critical function. Using any number of analytics functions such as Google, you can track and analyze how your Add to Cart button is performing. You’ll be able to drill down to clicks and conversion rates, and make improvements as necessary to increase those numbers.

What if You Use A Button From a Template?

Even if you don't use a custom designed "Add to Cart" button for your shopping cart, choose a button that compliments your site's theme (compliments does not infer it must be the exact same color). And make sure you pick one design and stick with it. Ecommerce thrives on trust, and random buttons erode customer confidence.