Most people don’t realize the amount of work that goes into building a successful eCommerce business. Maybe you have great products that people will love. You might also be doing everything right with digital marketing. These are elements of success, but if your website doesn’t deliver a good user experience, people won’t want to shop with your business.
That means eCommerce brands need to do everything they can to optimize the user experience. Beyond loving your products, you want customers to love using your website. You want customers to be able to open the site and achieve their goals quickly and with little effort.
What can you do to create a better user experience on your eCommerce website? With this post, we will look at a few tips to enhance the user experience on an eCommerce site.
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It Starts With Performance
You can put all the effort you want into other elements of the user experience, it won’t matter if the site doesn’t perform well. No one wants to use a website that is slow or suffers technical failures. Start by looking for ways to speed up the website. Maybe you need to update your software, or you could consider a new hosting service. Optimizing images and enabling web caching are other ways to improve performance. There are also various tools you can use to test website performance.
A good website is easy to navigate. Your customers should not feel like they need to learn how to use the website before they can start shopping. One way to do this is to go for a cleaner, simpler design. Organize every page and remove elements that don’t serve a clear purpose. You should also use common menu designs and navigation elements so customers have familiarity from their first visit. Adding a site search feature is also a good idea for improving the user experience.
Organize Product Listings
No one wants to go to a site so they can search through everything to find what they want. Since you want customers to be able to find the things they want to buy, you need to organize products into categories. You can then list the categories in menus to make them easy to find. You could also add various subcategories and filters so customers can narrow their searches. For example, a clothing website could have a category for pants. Beyond that, it could have subcategories for different types of pants and filters for colors.
Better Product Descriptions
Customers need information to help them make decisions. If they feel like they are not getting enough information, they might not make a purchase. If they have to go to a different site to find the information, it won’t be a good experience. You might also lose the sale if they find the product somewhere else. That means you need to go beyond the highlight features that attract customers. You want to make sure your description covers everything a customer might want to know.
Images and Video
Beyond a good description, visual content can do a lot to enhance the user experience and increase sales. For example, you might want to add images from more angles so customers can see the full product. If the product comes in different colors or variations, have pictures of all the options. Video can also make a big difference. Having videos of people using the products can provide the customer with a better idea of what it might be like to use the product.
Make the Purchase Process Easy
There are few things that can ruin an otherwise good eCommerce experience than a bad checkout process. That means you should look for ways to make it as simple as possible. Simplify any forms to the basic information needed to complete a purchase. Remove steps that don’t get the customer closer to finishing the sale. You should also offer as many payment options as you can.
Personalization
Personalized experiences are almost always better than generic ones. Not only are they better for the user, but they can also be better for the business. The website could offer users the ability to create a wish list of products they like. You could also recommend products based on the user’s history on the site. Another option is to send customers personalized deals based on their profiles.
Optimize for Mobile
The mobile experience plays a significant role in modern eCommerce. Many of your customers will want to use your site from a mobile phone. If your site isn’t designed for mobile, it will not deliver a good experience for these users. One of the top tips in this regard is to use a responsive web design. There are various other best practices you can use to design a mobile-friendly website.
User experience is critical for running a successful eCommerce website. With the tips in this post, you can create a better user experience and get more sales.
