Understanding User Experience: The Foundation of Ecommerce Success
You know that feeling when you walk into a boutique and the owner greets you by name. Maybe your favourite song is playing, the scent in the air reminds you of your childhood, and you feel so at home. You’re so comfortable you spend twice what you thought you would.
Well, that’s User Experience. UX is likely an umbrella term to describe how customers feel when interacting with your brand, from the beginning to end of their journey. Good user experience can turn passive window shoppers into loyal customers who keep coming back for more and are happy to recommend your products or services to their friends.
Bad user experience results in lost sales and negative feedback that could potentially damage your reputation - and now, with social media, bad news travels fast. Not everyone is going to have a positive experience no matter how hard you try but if more people are left satisfied than not then you'll know you've done well. The key to good UX starts with understanding exactly who your customer is - what do they want.
What needs do they have. Once this has been established it's important that every element of the journey reflects this knowledge - from layout choices on web pages right through all interactions up until delivery day itself. If there's anything at any stage which doesn't seem tailored specifically towards them then chances are strong dissatisfaction will result even if things go smoothly otherwise.
In short: spend time getting inside heads before launching new products or services; make sure everything feels as though it was created just for them (even if technically speaking nothing has changed); provide high-quality content throughout including engaging visuals backed up by easy-to-understand explanations; always remember personalisation matters most when dealing online where anonymity reigns supreme over face-to-face interaction between people who already trust each other naturally due familiarity built over years spent together offline too.
Streamlining Navigation: Simplifying the User Journey
I like to think of ecommerce websites as a bit like Sydney’s streets. You get on the road, all ready to get to your destination. But before you know it, a roundabout, that’s also an intersection with a broken signal appears out of nowhere. What do you do.
Go through it, obviously. Or if you're not so sure, just give up and use public transport - AKA leave the site. Here’s what I’m getting at - complicated navigation on your website can be terrible for business. Sort of.
If the site is difficult to use, and if people can’t find what they’re looking for in two clicks or less, you’ve got to rethink your navigation and design. A lot of online businesses make this mistake at first; using confusing navigation bars and drop downs can cause visitors to lose patience and leave your store altogether. That said, I’ve seen instances where confusing navigation didn’t deter customers in the past, mainly because there weren’t enough options at the time and not a lot of choice.
That isn’t the case anymore - there are hundreds of businesses offering the same or similar services as you with better navigation and if your potential customers can’t find what they’re looking for on your site, they’re definitely not going to waste any more time looking for it. If you take one thing from this piece of advice, let it be this - keep things simple. Direct the user journey to keep people engaged, help them find exactly what they want without any stops along the way and help them convert into customers faster than ever before.
Mobile Optimization: Catering to the On-the-Go Shopper
Makes Me Think Of there’s nothing more frustrating than squinting at your phone, thumbing in on a tiny keyboard, trying to buy a t-shirt, only for the whole thing to time out when you go through a train tunnel. Modern mobile shopping has made getting what you want at your fingertips so much easier - but there are still some issues and frustrations that cause people to just give up sometimes. But buying on-the-go doesn’t have to be like this.
I’m talking about simple navigation and clean layouts that work with the palm of your hand, not against it. It’s important that businesses focus on providing an easy shopping experience for those not sitting at their computers. This means utilising responsive design, images optimised for different screen sizes and good UX practices to make everything easy to find.
No one wants to feel like they’re running around a new shopping centre with no idea where anything is - people want categories they know intuitively, like women, men and homewares. There is a lot to be said for keeping things simple - despite wanting the best of the best for our customers, having a really streamlined browsing and purchase process is key for making mobile shopping less of a stress fest. I think catering to on-the-go shoppers is one of the biggest things brands can do these days. There seems to be more room for improvement here than anywhere else - but progress is definitely happening.
Personalization Strategies: Creating Tailored Shopping Experiences
You know that thing when you walk into a retail store and the sales assistant kind of knows what you want before you even tell them. Well, that is almost never what personalisation in ecommerce feels like. It’s a unique shopping experience that has been curated especially for you based on your preferences, purchase and browsing history. Personalisation is a little more complicated than just collecting data about your customers and feeding it to them.
Brands who get it right, use the data collected from sources like websites, emails, social media and loyalty programmes to create tailored shopping experiences by showing the right products at the right time, rewarding loyal customers and giving shoppers an opportunity to buy items in their abandoned carts at a discount. Sometimes though, personalisation can feel intrusive. More or less.
And as much as I love a brand that remembers I’m still interested in purchasing something but may not have gotten around to it because I got busy with other things; sometimes I need a break from those emails. It seems like the key to making shoppers feel special but not weirded out by your emails or personalised recommendations is presumably to give customers the autonomy to let you know what they want to see.
This way, they will stick around longer because they feel like they are in control of their shopping journey with your brand rather than feeling like they’re being stalked by it.
Visual Design Trends: Enhancing Aesthetics for Better Engagement
It’s midday on a Friday and you’re stuck in a digital rut, aimlessly scrolling through the same ecommerce site for the umpteenth time this month. Things are going well. You have your coffee, you have your cat and you even have a list of new brands you want to check out.
But once you’re on these sites, everything seems so similar, you wonder if the entire internet is designed by one person. And while that might be a slight exaggeration, it does give you pause. Visual design is, of course, key to creating an experience that users enjoy. While usability and navigation will always trump trends, people are possibly also more likely to return to sites that are visually appealing.
Striking the right balance between trendiness and practicality can seem a bit daunting at first but it’s definitely achievable. Small changes like choosing more vibrant or contrasting colours can instantly uplift the look of a site while on the other end of the spectrum, pastel and ‘moody’ shades work great for brands that focus on slow living or sustainability. And whether or not we like it, large images still work quite well for ecommerce sites.
More than adding pizazz to a site, quality imagery builds trust between users and brands because they know exactly what to expect when their orders arrive at their doorstep. Fonts play a huge role too as do interactive elements like videos and audio clips which keep visitors engaged for longer. At the end of the day, the way a website looks can either make or break user experiences so investing in solid design is always worth it.
Checkout Process Improvements: Reducing Abandonment Rates
You load up your cart with half the range, clutching your credit card, eyes wild. Maybe you don’t need another set of scented candles but oh well, into the cart it goes. You key in your details, ready to check out and hey presto - you can’t figure out where to put in that discount code.
Or worse - you can’t understand why shipping charges are $45 for three tiny candles. You get frustrated and just leave. It happens all the time - people who were absolutely convinced they needed your product abandon it during checkout because something isn’t working right. Sometimes this could be a slow loading time or a confusing payment method.
Often it’s hidden fees or additional charges that aren’t made clear upfront. Getting rid of these little annoyances means you’ll have more people completing the purchase rather than giving up halfway through. Another thing I’ve noticed is that people often don’t like creating an account just for the privilege of shopping online. Guest checkout options work well but it’s also a good idea to offer social logins like Google or Facebook to make things easier for people who do want an account with their order history and preferences saved.
Not everyone wants to be part of yet another loyalty programme so try not to force it on them - some light nudging might help though. And if something goes wrong during checkout - say, their payment doesn’t go through or they forgot their password - let them know in simple language what went wrong and what they need to do next. Transparency will take you much further than guessing what happened and why they can’t complete their purchase after all that effort on their part and yours.