How UX Improve the Shopping Experience of an eCommerce Store
Reading Time: 5 minutes Whether we speak of eCommerce stores or online shopping; there is no shortage of either one of them today. With more and more businesses coming up, people are flooded with websites to choose from while making a purchase. At such times, besides prices and discounts, the single most important factor in their minds is the comfort. And the shopping ease and comfort of a website is solely dependent on its UX design. Therefore, the need for building an excellent UX design can’t be underestimated.
From the minute, your customer lands on your website; it is your job to ensure his experience his smooth and fun. People love shopping and the last thing they need is a buggy website putting their spirits down. Listed below are a few elements you must analyze your e-commerce store for and if you think they’re below standards, you need to get working on them immediately.
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Make it responsive
You might have the best website in the world but until and unless it works equally well on other devices, it is no good. If statistics are to be believed, around 50% of online users use mobile devices and there is a steady 10% rise in the numbers each year. Think of it this way, if you are present on the web, you’re only accessible while your customer is in front of a computer. But if you have a responsive site, you’re accessible to all devices and this will surely boost your sales.
Make it load super-fast
In today’s fast-paced world, no one has the time to wait. While your website takes five seconds to load a page, your prospective customer would have navigated through five more sites! There are statistics that say even a single second’s delay in loading time reduces conversions by 7 percent. No user will wait for more than three seconds if your page doesn’t open in front of them. Therefore, having a fast loading website isn’t optional anymore. It’s a must. Here are a few things you can try to reduce the loading time of your website –
- Get a good hosting plan after a thorough review
- Use caches
- Reduce external scripts
- Compress your images
- Check out the ultimate guide to WordPress speed optimization article
Keep it clean, simple and easy to use
‘Less is more’ is the slogan of the hour. When technology giants like Google, Microsoft, etc. are keeping their designs simple, clean and minimal; why can’t you? Giving unnecessary options and cluttering your site will only distract your user and reduce your conversions. Instead, only add what is necessary and use that extra space to display your elements beautifully. So, when you are setting up your site, keep this in mind.
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Another thing to remember is keeping your navigation smoother than sand. There are a high chance customers will abandon your site if it doesn’t let him navigate smoothly. There use diverse options and make your navigation smooth!
Make your photographs irresistible
A picture is worth a thousand words. When you’re shopping at a retail store, you can see, feel and touch your products first hand. The goal of your E-commerce site should be to replicate that experience so that the user can make the purchase without any hesitation. Big and clear pictures are also a great way of attracting customers into shopping. Remember when it is online; a picture is all a consumer should determine whether the product is a good fit for him. Therefore, add multiple pictures with different angles (zoomed in and zoomed out) as they can answer any aesthetic related question your user might have. This will also increase the trust level among your prospective users and improve sales.
Master product filtering
When your customer enters your website, it is ideal to give him a glance at everything your store must offer. But what after that? Your online marketplace might have hundreds and thousands of products. You can’t expect your users to sit and browse through all of them to find the best items. Therefore, give them convenient filtering options.
Start with broader ones like gender, apparel, etc. and then go narrow like dresses, skirts, bags, shoes, etc. Good websites also offer multiple filtering options at once such as ratings, price, brands, color, delivery time, etc. And do not list your items in just one category. You might have red dresses that are both cotton and offer same-day delivery. So, make sure they appear in both categories.
Now on the marketing side, here is a good resource that your marketing team can make use of “19 E-Commerce Statistics You Can Use to Inform Your Marketing Strategy [2020]”
Let them compare
Don’t crowd your web page with product descriptions, reviews, and other options upfront. Instead, let your users see multiple products and click on them to see the details of the products they like. This emphasizes the comparison and gives them a better glance at things. Also, use algorithms to give suggestions to customers. Once you see his buying patterns, suggest similar products to him on the same page so that he has a comparative view of things relevant to him.
Another thing you can try is to allow them to open two products on different windows. This gives them the time and space to go through everything they like, compare and then concluded as to what they wish to purchase.
Add-to-Cart buttons
This part is crucial. After all the browsing, comparing, selecting and deciding, what the customer needs to do is make the purchase. But do you want them to buy just one product at a time? If your answer is no, you need to place your add-to-cart button on your page in a smart manner. The idea is to let users narrow down and add everything they wish to buy at once and then head towards payment. Customer’s buying habits are very similar online as well as in retail stores and therefore, their buying experience needs to be similar too!
With these things optimized, your website should be ready to make some awesome sales!
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Co-Authored With
Catherrine Garcia is an experienced web developer, currently working as a freelance web developer at WPCodingDev. She enjoys her writing and always on the lookout for high-quality blogs.
