Enhance UX to Reach eCommerce Success
Your store is already set up and your team is more than ready to fulfill some orders. However, no one seems to be interested in checking out something from their carts. What seems to be the problem? We understand that it’s not easy to answer that question in a day. This is especially true if you have a lot going on with your eCommerce navigation UX website.
If you ever heard about UX or user experience, take note of this because it will greatly contribute to your eCommerce success. Knowing how to make your buyers’ online purchase experience largely contributes to your average sales within a given time. This can determine if your online business will stay in the game. This may also be the key to help you get more leads in the future. Read on so we can help you get started in boosting your website’s UX so more customers will be willing to visit your site and buy something from your listings.
Importance of eCommerce UX
As ironic as it sounds, UX is mainly important because it makes things easier for your customers. To make it easier for them, you need to put in a lot of thought and hard work. We’ve included some of the main reasons that UX is a big deal in eCommerce businesses.
Better Communication Channels
Websites with good UX systems make it less complicated for the customers to communicate to the support team should they need any assistance. It’s also easier for these buyers to browse through each of the pages because they don’t have to interpret jargon. They also don’t need to sift through large walls of text just to know how to navigate through the entire website.
Given this fact, we recommend you to use a simple writing style to get your message across. It’s also better if the language matches their vocabulary. This way, it will be easier for them to relate to your business and transact with you in the near future. The easier the language that you use to communicate with them, the better the eCommerce UX that you can provide them with.
Smoother Transactions
In this aspect, product listings are the highlights. After all, these are what the potential customers are after. If you give them product listing pages with layouts that are easy on the eyes, they can browse through more products that they might be interested in. If there are too many listings in your website, having a search engine ready is convenient for them. Make sure to make the loading time for the search results as short as possible. This will help prevent frustrations while they are looking for what they want to buy from your store. Moreover, only ask for essential information when checking out. For most platforms and couriers, the buyer’s name, address, and contact number should be enough. Never force your customers to provide any sensitive information.
Seamless Browsing
If you want someone to buy from your site, we suggest that you create a UX system that will take them as few clicks as possible to complete. This is where the bulk of the logical work comes into play when designing search UX strategies for eCommerce success. Aside from preparing each product listing, you need to sort them by categories as well. This will make it even easier for them to find what they are looking for.
Improving your eCommerce UX
There are various ways to help you up your sales game. By enhancing your eCommerce UX, you can send the message across that you’re serious about doing business with your potential buyers. If you’re consistent in making the browser experience the best for them, you will get a better chance at getting more sales in the long run.
Thoroughly Plan the Sales Funnel Process
This is considered the most important step in improving your eCommerce UX. Before you work on the specifics, you need to see the bigger picture first. This includes seeing the steps that your potential buyers will need to take before they can finally check out their orders.
When you try to visualize the pages they will visit before checking out their order, you have to make sure your page is optimized for the job. This means that you have to fix certain website aspects such as cart pages, category pages, and home pages.
After checking out, you also need to consider the after-sales experience of your buyers. This will help determine if they will undergo the same checkout process. In other words, having a good after-sales experience will help them determine if they will buy from you again. Some of the after-sales processes that you need to take care of include refunds, return logistics, and transactional emails.
As soon as your potential buyer visits your website, your tracking pixel will come into play. Aside from the usual advertisement, you may also use the gathered data for remarketing in the future. This is especially helpful if these buyers will not check out the items after their first visit.
If your pixels captured some of their contact information, you may use it to follow up on your potential buyers. This is especially important if you’re planning to launch a lot of new products in the near future. It’s also advisable to use the contact information if you want to send them cold calls or marketing emails. If ever they left something in their online shopping cart, you may use the information to follow up on them in case they are still interested in these products.
Ask for Reviews
There are various ways to help you obtain reviews from your buyers. One of the simplest means is to conduct a quick survey. As much as possible, the survey should not exceed 20 questions. If you can keep the question to five to 10 questions, that would be best, so you will not exhaust their attention span. They should also be short and easy to understand. If you can give them choices for each corresponding question, that would be better. However, also make sure to leave a blank field for answers that are not included in your provided choices.
If you’re planning to conduct surveys or other forms of reviews that are beyond 10 questions, provide some rewards for the respondents. This will help motivate them to complete the survey within your given conditions. Some of the rewards that you may offer your buyers include discounts, freebies, shipping fee perks, and limited edition items specially made for your customers.
To make sure that the survey can be as accurate as possible, show the survey form right after checkout. You may redirect them to the survey page after successfully checking out the item. Alternatively, you may send the link of the review through their email address.
Improve the Navigation Interface
As much as possible, reduce the number of website redirects. More redirects mean more waiting time on the end of your buyers. This means building frustration for them every time they have to wait for the loading of the new page.
Once they start browsing for the products, you may constantly remind them that you’re ready to assist them if they have any questions or concerns. Optimize your live chatbot. With this in mind, make sure that the notifications for the chatbot do not get in the way of your visitors’ browsing. Also, make sure that they can easily get rid of the notifications once they start popping up. Otherwise, they may get irritated and immediately opt out of your website.
As soon as your buyer is ready to check out the products, you may show them some related products that they may be interested in including in their cart. Like with the chatbot, make sure that the notifications for the related products do not block the entire screen. If they find it more difficult to browse your website because of this, there’s still a chance that they will not proceed with checkout.
Work on Enhancing the Shopping Experience
As far as your potential buyers are concerned, shopping for different products should be a pleasant experience for everyone. If you can, take out certain elements of shopping from physical stores and apply them to your website. Make them feel as if they’re buying something from a brick-and-mortar store.
Strike a balance between fast-loading and high-quality-looking images. Make sure these show important details such as product dimensions and different angles. Also include features that enable the buyers to zoom in or enlarge the images as they see fit.
As for the product descriptions, make them comprehensive. If possible, provide a long description and a short description for each product. This will help you cater to buyers who have no time to read everything. At the same time, you can readily accommodate buyers who want to know as much as they can before buying anything. The product description should give you an idea of how the products look and feel when you have them in your hands. Also, include their technical features if possible. If you’re selling clothing, provide the size of your model so they can make necessary comparisons.
Create a page or a specific section for reviews and feedback. This will give your buyers the voice to express their satisfaction and other concerns that they may have at the time. Allow them to include images and video clips with the text so other buyers can have an idea as well. With these in mind, make sure to only let the buyers who have purchased something leave their reviews. You have to do this to eliminate the chances of fake buyers leaving fake reviews.
Make Sure Your Product Information Pages are Easy to Browse
Usually, customers prefer buying more than one product at a time. Aside from the fact that shipping and other related logistics take time, it can also help save some money for them. Convenience is another major factor that they consider once they decide to check out some items from your product listings.
Given these premises, you need to make the product listing pages as easy to browse as possible. Don’t just think about browsing one page at a time. Also, consider the ease of browsing from one product page to another. If the customers change their minds and decide to go back to the previous listing, how easy is it to do that? Design your product listing interface with these things in mind.
Provide Notifications for Discounts and Offers
Potential buyers prefer websites and online shopping platforms that can provide them with numerous offers. Therefore, they consider it a nice gesture if you remind them from time to time if you have upcoming sales, discounts, and freebies. Let them know at least a couple of days ahead to build up the excitement. Remind them again a day before the sale takes place and on the day of the actual promotion.
If they still have some items left in their carts, you may include a gentle reminder or ask them if they’re still interested to check these out. Provide them with additional incentives within a limited time should they decide to proceed with the checkout.
If you’re posting relevant advertisement materials across different social media pages, make sure the promotions are properly linked to the relevant pages on your website. This will ensure that your potential buyers will not feel lost once they click the link. It will also be easier for them to determine how to use the promo and when it will expire. This will help them make better purchasing decisions. In the long run, this is important to reduce the chances of having product returns.
Make Your Website Compatible for Most Devices
You have to reach out to your customers to persuade them to check out your products. The best way to do this is to make your website accessible to most types of devices. The more people that your website can reach, the greater your chances of landing more sales in the long run.
Even if you don’t land as many sales as you expect, you can still use the data that you can retrieve from each website visitor. You may utilize the retrieved data to analyze the demographics of your potential market. Knowing more about this group of people can help you design a better interface for them. In turn, this interface can make it easier for them to browse your website. If they can easily find something that they want from your online store, you will have a greater chance of having more checkouts.
If you can, replicate the mobile gestures that your users have based on their social media behavior. By using the information from this alone, it will be easier for you to determine the elements that you have to enhance. Enhancing these will make it easier for them to seamlessly browse through your website. As much as possible, replicate the elements of the social media page functions that they normally use.
In line with this, you need to make your product pages as simple as possible. Mobile devices only have a small space to display your website contents. Therefore, you need to maximize the available space and make each part of the screen count. Get rid of any distracting elements on your pages. Because most people nowadays are visual, consider placing the images on the top part of the page so buyers can easily see them.
Boost Your Website Loading Speed
Any of your site visitors will hate browsing through a website with a slow browsing speed. Not only will this waste their time because they have to wait longer, but this will also build up frustration. Even the most patient of buyers will not be willing to check out your products if they have to wait for at least five minutes for every page to load. Given these things, it goes to show that fast website loading speed is still considered a major contributor to optimum eCommerce navigation UX. In the long run, this will also help increase your order value and your sales conversion rate.
If you want to further boost your loading speed, maximize the SEO technical tools that are available online. Some of these tools are free, yet they can still provide you with good website insights. Most of them even provide you with concrete and helpful tips, so you can get started in boosting the speed. If you want to boost your website further, invest in good eCommerce paid tools. The best ones out there can even help you with the restructuring of your entire interface.
Your images should be the right size for proper loading. Images with very high resolutions will take longer to load. If every product page loads too slowly, there’s a higher chance that your buyer will not buy anything because of frustration.
Set aside a specific budget, so you can buy hosting providers that can provide you with high loading speed. As much as possible, go for website hosts that are reputable in the eCommerce field. Furthermore, you may even want to go for dedicated servers if you’re eventually planning to expand your eCommerce business.
Make Your Checkout Process User-Friendly
If your checkout process is too complicated, you will end up having a large number of cart abandonment. Fortunately, you don’t have to work so hard to make the entire process much easier for your customers.
You may place real-time validation features to let them know that they are on the right track when they begin filling out the form. This is a lot better than letting them know that they need to enter the correct information just as they are about to check out the orders.
If you can’t help but have relatively long checkout forms, at least come up with an autofill feature. This will enable the buyers to go through the lengthy process only once. For their next purchases, they don’t have to fill out the same information fields because your system does this for them automatically. You may even use the information from their contact details and fill out the relevant fields for them automatically. In the long run, this can help cut down the checkout time to 50% less than the usual length.
If they still abandon their carts after doing these things, make sure to obtain their email addresses. This will give you a chance to send them more offers in the future.
After successfully checking out their products, make sure to update your buyer from time to time. Set up a system that can help them easily track the order, so they will be aware of its status. Also, make sure to work on sending them updates through their contact information. Let them know if you have discounts and promotions. If possible, send them freebies as well. Treat this as part of your marketing strategy.
Constantly Test Your Interface
It doesn’t matter if you test just one small part of your website or perform a large-scale assessment of all the website functions. The important thing here is consistency. Make sure to perform the tests when you schedule to do so. Don’t wait for minor and major problems to arise before you decide to do something with your team.
One of the most common mistakes when maintaining your website is to let it run for months or years and letting the errors fly by. It’s also dangerous to let your website remain stagnant even if you don’t see any apparent issues at the time. For one thing, you may not notice that there are crawlers and other website attackers that have been taking precious information from you.
Once you get a hold of the problems, they’re most likely out of hand already. When this happens, it will be more difficult for your team to fix everything. Starting from scratch will be the easiest way to go around it. It’s not only time-consuming but also a waste of money.
If you think about it, you can avoid this problem if you search for the problems and solve them before they have the chance to blow full-scale. Do a routine eCommerce UX audit. This will help you manage your time better while saving a lot of money in the long run. The best thing is that you don’t have to recreate product listings, gather another set of customer reviews, or create new images.
As soon as you’re done with routine interface testing, you can remove the elements that don’t work well with your buyer. Retain the ones that do or even work on enhancing them. Doing these things will not overwhelm the buyers because they don’t have to deal with major adjustments.
Constantly Working on Your eCommerce UX
There are various ways to make your online store’s presence be known across different social media platforms. Closing sales is even easier, especially in your first month. What should set you apart from your competitors is how you keep up with the eCommerce UX trends and the demands of your customers. More than your sales, your staying power can say a lot about how you thrive in your niche and how you’re handling your customers’ concerns. Remember that when improving your eCommerce UX, the system is just secondary. Your customers should always come first. What better way to improve in this area but by consistently solving problems related to your buyers’ experiences with your online store!
