Is the “cart notes” field harming your review scores?

Almost all ecommerce store themes will have the option to display a “notes” field on the cart or checkout pages. Often simply because the underlying platform has the field available in the data structure and the theme designer needs to support it.

Q: So should you use it? Surely more information from the buyer is good?

A: Probably not*

*Of course it depends on your store’s needs.

Fields in the checkout are typically there because the merchant needs them for a reason, such as the name and address, so they know where to send the item.

As such there is an expectation from the customer that you are going to follow the instructions. Meaning that if you don’t, you fall into the over promising and under delivering trap. Queue the less than 5 star review or awkward customer phone call or email.

Experiences with clients

So at a couple of stores I’ve worked with, we had the field on the cart page of our Shopify store, the label for these fields was often “Instructions for order” or similar, which lead most people to mention…