9 Unique Ways to Improve User Experience in e-commerce

The competition in the E-commerce market is fierce, making it challenging for businesses to attract customers. There are countless alternatives available in the market for customers to shop from.

One of the great ways to grab the customers' attention is by providing the best-in-class shopping experience for customers. Offering a great customer experience involves multiple factors such as good site navigation, simple design and layout, website structure, and many more that need to be optimized rightly.

Sometimes, you may have the best product at affordable rates with an E-commerce store and E-commerce platforms ready to sell your products. But, the only thing you are missing is the user experience. If the customers are not satisfied with the shopping experience, there are fewer chances that they might return to the store again and help generate sales.

You can get your online store optimized for a best-in-the-class user experience by hiring a professional. In case you are using Magento for your online business, you can hire Magento developer to help you with that.

Most of the e-commerce sites face many challenges in offering customers the best user experience. To overcome such challenges, here is a list of the top 9 best practices to improve the user experience for your online store.

What is e-commerce User Experience?

The e-commerce user experience (UX) can be defined as the customers' shopping journey in your online store that comprises all the aspects that go into offering a unique shopping experience.

According to one study, it has been noted that approximately 88% of customers do not opt to purchase from an online store after having a bad user experience. A pleasant user experience helps customers increase the average order value and can quickly get the products they are searching for. This facilitates shoppers to stay for a long time on the website and even motivates them to purchase other items.

Offering a superior user experience is essential for any business that may help to retain and allure new customers. To offer a seamless shopping experience, you must include:

• Personalization and customization.
• Appropriate calls to action buttons.
• Easy checkout process.
• Fast loading site speed.

Providing an amiable user experience to the customers by changing the entire website is quite a big deal. It may be time-consuming and needs to be implemented correctly. But, there are certain functionalities and features that you can leverage in your online store to improve its user experience.

Importance of UX for Online Stores

Customers are considered to be the king of the e-commerce market. And, if they are not satisfied enough with the products or services you offer, you will not make any profit. A bad user experience may lead to site abandonment, reducing the chances of the customer returning to your site.

Offering an excellent user experience may lead to conversion, establish trust and even motivate customers to spend more money in your store. So, here are specific tips that can help your e-commerce store expand and provide customers with the best shopping experience.

Audit Your Business with Certain Questions

After designing your website, you need to audit your business with questions like:

• Is the website looking attractive to look at?
• Is it easy to search for specific products or not?
• Is the page easy to load?
• How easy is it to read the content provided on your website?
• Are the customer service, support, and after-sales service good or not?

Top 9 Best Practices to Improve UX on an e-commerce Website

Before optimizing user experience, it is advantageous to understand the customers' behavior and expectations. You will be able to make accurate UX decisions only by understanding ideal customers' expectations and their interactions with a site.

In this article, I have prepared a list of certain practices that can help you offer a pleasant shopping experience to your customers and stand apart from the competition.

• Make Your Website Fast & Easy to Navigate

A good website has a fast loading speed, easy navigation, and a simple search bar that contributes significantly to your e-commerce website. Site speed is equally essential for both desktops and mobile. According to one study, it has been noted that around 53% of mobile visitors may leave a site if a web page takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Having a simple site design and layout makes it easy to navigate. If the website is challenging to use and has a complex design, you will lose many prospects. Ensure using automatic scrolling and appropriate filters to help users find exactly what they are looking for. Don't forget to keep the balance and prioritize beautiful UI by using the best Figma mockup plugin and other methods which are vital to the high-quality eCommerce website. As a result, it will help save time and generate more sales on your E-commerce store.

• Ensure Designing Mobile-Friendly Website

According to one study by Statista, mobile devices account for almost half of the web traffic worldwide. You might be providing a great user experience on desktop devices but not on mobile devices; then, there are high chance that you might lose a lot of potential customers. Online stores that fail to offer a consistent mobile experience might lose E-commerce sales.

People may not use the same device while shopping online. They might switch from one device to another. So, ascertain that your site is mobile-responsive and also functions well on other screens. Ensure using plugins on your E-commerce site so that customers can utilize all the functionalities and can enjoy a seamless shopping experience. Building a mobile-responsive site may help reach a broad customer base and leverage more sales.

• Personalization - Key to Good UX

One of the best ways to provide a good user experience and establish trust is personalization. In their busy schedule, people prefer to shop online while they are on their lunch break, watching TV, or enjoying their free time. People want a seamless shopping experience; this is where personalization plays a significant role.

Offering a personalized experience, the customers feel valued and are encouraged to make a purchase. You can provide customers with suggestions depending on their past purchase history, preferences, and search content. Understanding such shoppers' behavior might help speed up their shopping process and can even quickly finalize their product in the shortest time possible.

• Simple & Easy Checkout Options

Keep the checkout process as simple as possible. Sometimes, the customer may select the product and decide to make a purchase. You need to help finalize the deal by improving the user experience and simplifying the sales process. According to one study by Statista, it has been suggested that 27% of the customers abandon the purchase because of the complex checkout process.

To offer customers a top-quality user experience, you need to check that they are provided with a proper path and easy checkout option after selecting the products. There should be no distractions that hinder their purchase process. Most visitors think of abandoning their carts if the checkout page requires a sign-in to complete the purchase process. They can easily complete the checkout process and purchase if a guest checkout option is available.

• Ask for Feedback & Offer Social Proof

Collecting and analyzing customer feedback is crucial as this feedback helps us identify the areas of improvement and can even provide new ideas and suggestions. The store owners can collect feedback through automated emails sent to the customers after purchasing a product and after a specific time frame. As a result, it will increase consistency and may help grow your business.

The customers are offered discounts, gift cards, or offers on their next purchase, encouraging them to take action. Customers don't easily trust a product when they are unaware of it. Providing reviews for the products helps increase customer experience and even increase E-commerce sales. After collecting the feedback, the store owners can display it on their E-commerce site. This will help build trust amongst the target audience. On getting negative feedback, you need to ensure timely follow-up and see that the issue is being solved. 

• Offer Multiple Payment Methods

Customers prefer choosing the most affordable and convenient payment method. It can be either through a credit card, digital wallet, cash, or any other mode of payment. After selecting the product, they want to purchase and proceed further with the checkout process. They opt to make payments through their most convenient payment option such as debit card, credit card, or cash. But, the unavailability of such payment options, leads to a bad user experience. To provide a delightful user experience to the customers, you need to add all the possible payment methods.

There are plenty of choices available in the market today. But, shoppers prefer making payments through their most convenient method and which they prefer the most while making payments online. Ensure payment methods are widely used among your target audience and within their location. Offering customers varied payment gateway services options may help leverage E-commerce sales, high security, and customer convenience.

• Make Sure Using Appropriate CTAs

Generally, your purchase Call-to-action (CTA) for online stores will be the Add to Cart or Buy Now button. Having a clear and concise CTA is essential. This eventually helps convert traffic into sales. The button needs to be easily displayable and should differ from the rest of the page. This can even be done by adding color contrast and using other tactics.

CTA needs to be short enough to have a clear message. You can easily encourage customers to click and finalize the product by clicking on the checkout. Call to Action sometimes creates a sense of urgency for the users that makes it tempting and think to purchase quickly. For example, notifying customers that there are only 3 products left in stock pushes shoppers to purchase soon rather than wait long enough.

• Get on Social Media

Getting on social media is one of the effective ways to stay tuned with your customers. Establishing an active presence on various social media platforms makes customers feel valued. It also helps establish brand credibility and enhance the user experience.

Reviews make it easy for the customers to relate easily to the matched products. Statista has suggested that nearly 84% of people purchase a product depending on the recommendation gained from the people they know. People even make a purchase based on social media referrals. Reviews help establish brands' credibility and trust among potential customers and even create a better user experience.

• Exit Intent Pop-Up

Properly utilizing pop-ups can boost your website and be very beneficial for your business. A good pop-up aids customers to make selections and even helps improve the sales performance of your online store. An exciting pop-up with discounts, offer or coupon code may allure customers and can even change the course of action.

Too many pop-ups even seem to be disliked and annoying to the customers which ultimately results in a bad user experience. Ensure the effectiveness of your pop-ups and shopping cart checkout process. However, it should not affect the customers’ journey towards the checkout process.

Conclusion

Offering a good user experience to your customers is of high importance. Most successful e-commerce sites such as Amazon, Apple, and Flipkart mainly focus on satisfying customers' needs, maximizing the user experience, and leveraging these experiences to generate more sales.

You can use the e-commerce UX best practices covered here to boost your e-commerce sales. To ensure success, an online store should focus on UX and other functionalities such as speed, performance, accessibility, and many more. Providing these excellent user experiences to your customers acts as a fertilizer for your online store that will help grow your e-commerce business.