How to Improve eCommerce Website User Experience?

by Juan Force Girl with Goals

All consumers nowadays want quick, easy, and hassle-free transactions, especially when doing their purchases online. Hence, an efficient eCommerce website user experience is important.

eCommerce has become highly popular with many emerging trends we now see in various website designs; from animations, 360-degree product previews, advanced filtering, dynamic product search and many more.

While these new features are initially made to give consumers a better shopping experience, they do not automatically guarantee effective and efficient eCommerce website user experience (UX).

In fact, some features, if not used strategically, may be counterproductive and instead of a faster, more efficient shopping experience, they may slow down the site’s loading speed ultimately resulting in poor user experience.

Let’s face it, not all the features mentioned above are needed to convince consumers to buy a product. In fact, they just want a website that’s easy to use, secure and loads quickly.

This means that businesses should focus on the best practices necessary for great user-website interaction and in turn, ensure a successful eCommerce website user experience for your consumers.

Here, we talk about the most important things you need to do to make your eCommerce website user-friendly for more visitors and sales.

7 Things You Need to Do to Improve eCommerce Website User Experience

1. Make it mobile responsive

Recent studies show that 54% of online e-commerce traffic comes from mobile devices. With more than half of all internet traffic coming from mobile devices, it is absolutely essential to make sure that your website is suitable for mobile viewing.

Nowadays, consumers are more likely to visit your eCommerce website with their smartphones because of the level of convenience it offers.

Knowing this and the competitive nature of the e-commerce industry, your customers will not hesitate to leave your site at the first sign of inconvenience.

Your website should be made to instinctively adapt to whatever device is accessing it in order to provide the most efficient eCommerce website user experience.

2. Organized and Easy-To-Use Navigation

The goal of every eCommerce website is to help shoppers get whatever product they want seamlessly. This means not running into any unnecessary pop-ups or links that can cause distractions and block their path to purchasing.

Navigation should be simple; buttons must be accessible and products must be easy to find with evident category and sub-category labels. It’s also useful to add a search bar to improve your site’s functionality.

This helps shoppers better navigate your site to find exactly what they’re looking for. Narrow down the search into specific categories like brands, new items and more to increase the chances of the product being seen; after all, customers can’t buy what they don’t see, right?

3. A Clean and Focused Design

With all the new fads coming up these days, simplicity and consistency is still a huge aspect of an effective eCommerce web design. Stay away from unnecessary decorations, features or gimmicks and strive for a clean and focused aesthetic.

Keep your website’s design consistent by using the same fonts, colours and style on all pages. Keep in mind that eCommerce websites have a constantly growing inventory of products.

Meaning, there’s a tendency that the site will slow down at a certain point and unnecessary features would just make things worse. The fine line between an overly cluttered eCommerce website and one that is neat yet informative is what makes all the difference to the customer.

A clean and focused design allows your customers to pay attention to your products and at the same time, highlights the value you bring to them rather than distracting them away from it. Make it simple, but significant.

4. Improve Individual Product Pages

The product detail page is one of the most vital pages in an e-commerce website design since it contains detailed pieces of information about a product such as its specifications, product photos and shipping costs, which will all impact the consumer’s purchasing decisions.

To ensure that you’re helping them make that decision, here are some things you must include on your website:

A highly visible add to cart button: Make sure that the add-to-cart button will not be overlooked. It should be clearly recognizable, in good, proportionate size and in a colour that makes it stand out from the rest of the page.

High-quality Images: Consumers pay close attention to the actual photos of products, especially when purchasing online since they can’t physically hold and see the product. They use these photos to further understand the products and compare them with other similar items.

It’s important that you use close detailed shots, high-resolution and variant images that show the same product in different colours or textures. Shoppers want to be able to zoom in and see multiple angles of the products to get a feel for them.

5. Use Breadcrumbs

A “breadcrumb” is a type of secondary navigation strategy that shows the user’s location on a website or web application. The term was coined from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale where the protagonists leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to their home.

Similarly, breadcrumbs in web applications allow users to determine their path that would easily lead them back to their starting point. Breadcrumb navigation is a convenient feature because it’s an alternative way for your customers to navigate around your website.

It is essential for websites that offer a wide variety of products grouped into different categories.

6. Allow Customers to Read and Add Reviews

In e-commerce, shoppers can’t see the actual products in-person so including a customer’s reviews page to your website is extremely helpful. With this feature, you can build brand trust even before the customer finalises their first purchase.

The reviews posted on your site will add credibility to your brand. A positive review can convince a potential customer to make a purchase from your online store, so let shoppers leave reviews on your product pages. Research shows that 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product from a website that features customer reviews.

7. Multi-Touchpoint Contact Page

A multi-touchpoint contact page contains your contact information linked to various platforms. When venturing into e-commerce, you want to make your brand reachable. A functional and well-presented contact page will be the first line of connection between you and the customer.

The easier it is for your audience to connect with you, the more likely you are to hear from them. Include multiple methods where your customers can reach you. You can also maximise your brand exposure by linking your social media accounts into your contact page.

Everyone is scrolling through these platforms for hours every day, adding social media buttons creates opportunities for self-promotion and customer engagement. This is an effective way to keep customers updated and connected to you.

The post How to Improve eCommerce Website User Experience? appeared first on Verz Design & published here with their permission.