During the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce grew steadily, becoming so relevant that it transformed into the only way to keep a global economy in crisis alive. Social distancing immediately suspended the operation of physical contact channels, and customers only had online businesses as an alternative to satisfy their needs.
But this does not mean that simply having a website with published products is enough to start succeeding. On the contrary, it is very evident that while some are overwhelmed with so many deliveries, others desperately watch their sales stagnate. But this is true beyond the current context, as even in times of complete normalcy, there are many aspects to consider to keep your e-commerce healthy, and among them, improving the user experience (UX) is a priority.
Perhaps this is your situation, and you are eager to get the right clues to start working on improvements for your e-commerce. Does your site have few visitors? Or, on the contrary, does it have visitors but doesn't convert? It is likely that potential customers are not finding the product or service they are looking for in your store. Or, even if they have found it, due to some deficiency in usability or the performance of the sales flow, they could not complete their purchase.
Precisely, in this article, we will see what actions you can take to make your e-commerce business take off and not let more customers slip away.
You have already identified symptoms that tell you something is wrong with your e-commerce. To know precisely what is failing and how you should improve it, it is necessary to perform a complete review of the website and all processes involved in online sales. We are talking about a complete analysis or UX / CX audit that usually includes an expert evaluation of usability and user experience, and a data-backed performance analysis. Going into more detail, an audit of this type should evaluate the following:
- Navigation: menus, links, footer, etc.
- Home, product, and category pages.
- Content: usability and optimization of texts, images, and videos.
- Forms: optimal functioning and usability.
- Help center and documentation.
- Error control and prevention.
- Internal search, indexing, and filters.
- Checkout: cart, payment methods, etc.
- Audience: who they are, how they arrive at the site (traffic sources), how they behave at different stages of the conversion funnel, and how they interact with the site's content, functionalities, and elements.
If you're thinking that this has gotten complicated because you need to hire a team of experts to do this work, we have good news for you: this is not an expense, it's an investment in UX and usability, which, especially today, is very profitable, with an estimated return of $2 to $100 for every $1 invested. In other words, you will only get benefits such as:
- Performing a quick but very thorough review of your e-commerce site.
- Detecting usability and UX flaws.
- Receiving concrete recommendations to improve user experience and usability.
- Saving costs by not having to recruit people representing your different customer segments, as the review is carried out by testing experts.
A UX / CX audit for e-commerce should present its conclusions in an actionable report that emphasizes the elements to optimize to improve the user experience and illustrates best practices with examples from local and global markets. With the insights on the table, it's time to analyze and make a series of decisions that we could summarize into two important options:
-
A continuous improvement strategy for the e-commerce site you already have in operation: if you choose this option, it is vital to prioritize the improvements you need to make, analyzing each one by its ease of implementation versus the expected impact.
-
Completely redesign the site to start from scratch with a store that already considers all the necessary optimizations. In this case, our recommendation is to build the new site on a specialized e-commerce platform, such as Shopify, a solution we have implemented with our clients. The advantage is that you will pay for a service that already includes all the necessary web developments to launch an e-commerce store, such as templates, image galleries, integration with various payment methods, shopping cart, payment in various currencies, digital product downloads, inventory management, content translation into other languages, email marketing, metrics, etc. Don't try to reinvent the wheel: use a platform that has already been proven by companies worldwide and dedicate your efforts to building the business instead of spending hours designing an interface and developing technological solutions. Stick to what you do best.
For the final part of this article, we have reserved information that will be very useful for you to start drawing your own conclusions and take some measures now to improve the user experience of your e-commerce. We share with you some errors that we usually detect in our audits with clients and tips to fix them:
-
An inefficient platform: This defines the capacity to support simultaneous transactions and design possibilities. Before creating your store, research thoroughly to choose the best option according to your needs.
-
Confusing navigation: Use clear categories to organize your products; this helps people achieve their goal.
-
An inefficient search engine: If the customer already knows what they need, they will prefer to use a search engine. Optimizing it will ensure an agile experience and quick finding of indexed content.
-
No company information: Since there is no direct contact with the seller or a physical store, you must provide guarantees of seriousness. Who created the company? Where is it located? Where do the products come from?
-
Missing policies: The customer needs guarantees that you will respond to a problem, and knowing them builds a relationship of trust. Publish them in a visible place.
-
Inaccessible contact methods: These are useful when the customer has a problem and tells them they can confidently provide personal information.
-
Forgetting contextual help: Not everyone is an expert online shopper. Facilitate the process by offering help in steps that might be more complex.
-
Few product details: People cannot touch or see your products directly. Talk about their benefits, differences from competitors, materials, and colors. Use evocative phrases and don't forget technical details.
-
Products have only one low-quality photo: Photos help the customer imagine using the product. Publish several good-sized photos from different angles, details, usage context, and dimension references.
-
No related products: This is a very effective tool to increase sales. They should appear below the product description.
-
Lengthy payment and shipping flows: Use quick and simple forms. Do not force the customer to register and ask only for the strictly necessary data to complete the transaction.
-
Having only one payment method: e-commerce is reaching more and more people by offering various ways to complete sales.
-
Not notifying about shipping costs: Always inform your customers on the product page or a specific, easily accessible page.
-
Poorly designed shopping cart: This is a cause of purchase abandonment. It should allow easy adding and discarding of products, reviewing quantities and total price, and seeing complementary products.
-
Social media disconnected from the website: You must promote your e-commerce site, and social media are a great platform to reach your target audience, study the market, interact with your customers, and generate business.
-
Forgetting SEO strategy: Good design is not enough. Implement an SEO strategy to position your pages in Google search results so people can find your products.
What did you think of this article? Have you already conducted an audit to improve the user experience in your e-commerce? Tell us how it turned out. We look forward to your contributions in the comments.
Brooke Lark and Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
