11 Ways You Can Improve Your eCommerce Store’s User Experience
Times have changed and so have the ways of shopping. But your customer is the same as it used to be. Every customer wants a seamless shopping experience, especially in an online store. That is the promise of online shopping; to provide a fast and convenient shopping experience. As an eCommerce website owner, your primary objective is to make the shopping process as smooth as you can for the end-user. It all comes down to the user experience of your online store. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, I’ll be talking about user experience and also explain its importance.
What Is UX (User Experience)?
User experience is defined as a person’s sentiments after using a system, product, or service. Similarly, eCommerce user experience is defined as the overall experience of the user after interacting with your eCommerce site. It’s all about how visitors feel when they go through your online store and how easy it is for them to perform the desired action. So, apply the concept of user experience design when you are building your eCommerce website.
What is UX design?
User experience design can be defined as a sympathetic approach to design where the needs and objectives of the end-user are taken into consideration.
Why Is eCommerce UX So Important For Online Stores?
The customer is the king, and if he’s not satisfied with your service, you’re not going to make any profit. This statement holds for all eCommerce stores. Poor user experience leads customers to abandon your site, and in fact, 88% of users are less likely to return to a site after a bad user experience.
But if you provide a great user experience, you will earn customer loyalty, increase conversion rate, and encourage customers to spend more money on your products. Customer satisfaction is the key here. A better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400%.
How to improve the UX experience of an eCommerce website for the customers:
- Listen To Your Customer
- Make a Mobile Responsive Website
- Prevent Broken Links and 404 pages
- Decrease the Load Time of Your Online Store
- Showcase Organized Product Variations
- Personalization Is the Key
- Reward Your Customers
- Optimize Product Description
- Improve Your Website Design
- Provide Virtual Assistance to Your Customers
- Provide Various Payment Options
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- Listen To Your Customer
The first step to improving your user experience is listening to your user base. The opinions of the end-user matter the most as they can give you better insights than the people that manage your online store. Read both negative and positive reviews, resolve your customer’s queries, and reply with a solution to their complaints. You can use feedback forms to understand the customers’ experience of your website.
- Make A Mobile Responsive Website
All prominent eCommerce websites have launched their mobile apps and have also optimized their websites for mobile phone users. Another important fact to remember is that mobile users are 5 times more likely to abandon a task if the site isn’t optimized for mobile users. That alone should be enough to get your attention towards mobile optimization. Your eCommerce user experience design should be focused on building a mobile-friendly website because it will increase your customer reach and increase your sales.
- Prevent Broken Links And 404 Pages
Broken links and 404 pages are a nightmare for you and your site visitors. Unfortunately, since online stores have so many products listed, broken links, as well as 404 pages, are bound to appear as you add and remove products. All of these scenarios can and will negatively impact your user experience. Even when it is a fault from the users’ end, they will hold you responsible for the inconvenience.
- Decrease Load Time Of Your Online Store
One of the biggest reasons that compel people to shop online is that they don’t have to wait to buy anything or stand in the checkout line to pay for the items in their cart. Online shopping is all about saving time.
- Showcase Organized Product Variations
People are diverse, and your products should be too. That’s why you need to have different variations of your products, especially if you are in the business of selling consumer goods. Your customers will get irked if they can’t find the desired variation of the product. You may have the product variation your customers want, but it’d be to locate in an unorganized online store, which will lead to customers abandoning your website.
- Personalization Is the Key To A Good User Experience
Personalization is one of the best methods for eCommerce websites to build customer loyalty and boost UX. One striking benefit of personalization is that it makes your customers feel valued which leads them to make a purchase. Through the power of personalization, you can provide a better customer experience and make huge sales.
- Reward Your Customers
When you receive a reward for any action you perform, you are more likely to do it again. That’s how the human mind works. So, reward your customers when they complete a conversion action. This positive reinforcement can be given with reward points, gift cards, gift coupons, and discounts. All major online stores let their customers earn reward points on sign-up, shopping, referral links, etc. Applying a reward system to enhance eCommerce UX is a sound strategy.
- Optimize Product Description
People like to know ‘why’ they should be buying a particular product and if you can answer that, you will be able to sell your product. For this reason, you should optimize the product description to provide the best information to your customers.
- Improve Your Website Design
The customer’s first impression of your online store is based on the view and design of your website. It depends upon the website theme, organization, text size, product images, clear product information, and layout. An eCommerce user experience design considers the needs of customers. To improve your UX, apply evenness to the design of your website and make it easier for users to navigate through.
- Provide Virtual Assistance To Your Customers
Even if you have a well-organized eCommerce website, some people would still find it hard to navigate because not all visitors are familiar with online shopping.
- Provide Various Payment Options
The eCommerce user experience also depends upon the ease of payment. It is frustrating for customers when they are unable to buy products from your online store due to a lack of payment options. And this lack of payment options can result in losing your valuable customers.
