In the world of eCommerce, there are a few key factors you can bank upon to attract and retain your customers. User Experience, or UX as popularly called, is certainly one of them. Even if you are offering unique or world-class products, all your efforts will go in vain if you do not follow the best eCommerce UX practices for your online store.
According to a survey, more than 80% of users are less likely to return to the site with a bad UX. Isn’t this a good enough reason to revamp your eCommerce store so that you offer your customers an amazing UX every time they visit the site?
However, it is difficult to create one best UX solution that suits everyone but there are some key best practices that can help eliminate the frustrating parts for the end users.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
Top eCommerce UX Trends and Best Practices
From simple navigation to utilizing user-generated content, let us have a look at key UX strategies for your eCommerce site.
Prominent, Super-organized and Easy-to-use Navigation
Generally, all we are concerned about is how the homepage should look, how the product details page should be structured but many of us ignore the most crucial aspect of any website, let alone an E-commerce store, and that is the navigation menu.
What’s the point of having the website if a user is not able to find what he/she wishes to purchase? When they can’t find it, they won’t buy it. As simple as that!
An easy-to-use navigation will ensure an excellent user experience. Here’s what you can do to ensure that you have a user-friendly navigation and follow UX best practices for eCommerce.
- Simplify your menu with fewer items which would make it easier for users to find what they are looking for.
- Add layered navigation to help the users navigate through your product catalogue.
- Make sure that the rest of the pages are no more than 3-4 clicks away from your homepage.
- Keep the navigation in the same place using the same style, on all the pages.
- Provide different ways of navigation- by brand, by new arrivals etc.
Hassle-free Checkout and Registration
It is found that most of the time a site’s bounce rate and abandoned cart is due the complications in the checkout process. All your UX efforts pay off when a user adds certain items to the cart. But imagine if he/she leaves the site because of the tedious checkout process or a compulsory registration? Now, that is really heart-breaking.
It’s a bit tricky to eliminate certain steps in the checkout process though. But remember- More the steps between user and payment, higher the cart abandonment rate will be.
- Remove all the distractions from the checkout page. Do not divert customers by showing offers or discounts.
- Provide all the major payment methods. According to reports, more than half of users expect a variety of payment options during the checkout.
- Guest checkout is a must. Do not force users to sign up.
- Shorten your forms- have as few fields as you can afford. Having auto-suggestion can help users fill their information more quickly.
- Have a seamless look and feel for your checkout pages.
Effective and Omnipresent Search Option
A search option is one of the most ignored functionality of the majority of eCommerce websites. Most users prefer to search the product directly using the search bar. But when they cannot find the product, they cannot buy the product.
- Put the search option on every page and possibly on the same location (usually top-right or top-center). It should be prominent and easy to use.
- Incorporate auto-complete with auto-suggest functionality. It makes it easier for users to find what they want.
- Offer sorting and filtering functionality for the search results as well. It will help the user to narrow down their search.
- Don’t limit the search functionality just to the product names or brand names. Support all kinds of searches such as categories, attributes etc.
Design personalized user experiences in eCommerce
The biggest thing that we all have learned during the pandemic is to have empathy. There is going to be an immense amount of emphasis on humanity than anything else. Businesses have realized that they are dealing with real people with real emotions. What better time to start offering a personalized experience to let your users know that you care for them?
A personalized user interface can result in a better user experience. The website can be personalized based on user’s browsing behaviour, previous actions, purchase history, demographics and other personal data.
Although web personalization is a bit difficult and time-consuming task but not impossible. With the help of data collection tools that we have today, creating a personalization shopping experience is not that complicated.
- Offer relevant product recommendations based on user’s previous interests/purchases
- Different users visit the website for different purposes. It is a nice idea to personalize the site as per their roles.
- Cross selling of the products- When a user is looking at a product, you can show them another relevant product somewhere on the sidebar or at the bottom of the page.
- It is important to understand traffic segments and serve each segment with its deserved attention.
- With the dominant use of mobile devices for eCommerce, device based personalization is a fast-growing trend.
Smart Product Visuals (Product images and description)
Let’s accept the fact that we cannot sell the products to the users online exactly the way they shop in a physical store. And that is, perhaps, the biggest convenient factor over an eCommerce store. Users won’t be able to touch and feel the product before they buy it online.
So, the best way to describe the product is through the well-photographed, high quality and large images. It conveys the value of the product, in a better way.
- Show more than one angle of a product.
- Include a video of the product. It can help the user understand the product, how it is used or made.
- Include pictures of your products taken in realistic environments. The product in context is the best way to display its size and proportion.
- If you have the control, use the white background while photographing the products. It allows the product to stand out with less distractions.
- Use a 360-degree view to provide an experience close to physically going into the store and engaging with it.
User Generated Content
Sometimes, the most complete product description can still have few doubts in users’ minds. This is when reviews from other customers will help to answer some questions that users may have. It provides more insights about the products.
Almost 3/4th of the user base prefers to see pictures taken by other customers instead of images offered by the website. Trusted reviews can be the deciding factor for users confused between the multiple products.
- Always encourage your customers to share their experience with the products on websites or social media.
- Differentiate between the positive and negative reviews. That should provide the sense of overall quality of the product.
- Display reviewer’s details along with the review. It is helpful to users to know a little information about the people posting the reviews.
Clear Communication
magine a user has added a product in cart after spending hours on the website and at the time of checkout, he/she gets to know that the product cannot be delivered to his/her locality. Can you imagine the frustration level?
There are various such scenarios that can affect the user experience and eventually the conversion rate. After all, no businesses like to see abandoned carts.
- Provide all discounts, taxes etc. upfront.
- Provide the details about the shipping charges, free delivery etc. at the product details page itself.
- Have a functionality to show the delivery time based on PIN code, Area code etc.
Conclusion
User experience plays a very important role in a website’s performance. It is a widely accepted truth that the user buys the experience, not the products. The shoppers expect a seamless and frictionless shopping experience all the time.
A great UX drives loyalty, increases conversions and encourages customers to share a positive word of mouth about you. Hopefully, these tips will help you make the essential design changes to your website for a great E-commerce experience to your customers.
