Chances are you’ve been in stores that are chaotic, disorganized, and crowded. Of course, you’ve also been in stores that are clean, simple, and easy to navigate. So, where would you rather shop? Probably in the store that cares about its appearance, right? Now, think about those stores as e-commerce websites. The shopper’s experience matters just as much, if not more, when the internet is at their fingertips and there are thousands of products like yours just a click away. Your website should offer your prospects a well-designed, easily navigated, and responsive online shopping experience. A good user experience (UX) is one of the most critical pieces of the e-commerce puzzle and essential to selling anything online.
But, what is UX, and how do I make it good, you ask? On a basic level, user experience is how an individual feels after using a product or service. A successful UX provides an interaction that meets the customer’s needs and allows them to seamlessly achieve their desired outcome in a useful, accessible, desirable, credible, and valuable way. You make it good by solving a shopper’s problem as seamlessly as possible. The fewer pain points a customer has to deal with, the better chances of a sale and the more favorably they view your brand.
Pain points common to eCommerce sites include:
- Slow load times
- Broken links
- No optimization for mobile
- Pages/products that are hard to navigate
In terms of website speed, every second counts. According to Kissmetrics, “a 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.” We recommend running a speed audit of your website and optimizing the back end for a quicker response. However, no amount of speed can make up for an e-commerce site that is not optimized for mobile! eMarketer predicts that by 2021, 54% of all e-commerce sales will occur on mobile platforms.
In recent years, UX has evolved to be one of the most vital markers of e-commerce success. Shoppers have come to expect multi-platform integration, multi touch-points, and top-funnel content throughout the customer journey. This nearly instantaneous, omniscient shopping experience is primarily attributed to the “Amazon effect.” Entrepreneur attributes the term to Amazon.com’s success, “which has upended retail practice and customer expectations, both online and off. By mid-2018, Amazon was already responsible for roughly 50 percent of the nation’s e-commerce sales and 5 percent of all combined offline and online sales.” From a UX perspective, what’s not to love; the ecomm giant has a strong relationship with its customers, a commitment to keeping prices low, and an obsession with making life easier and more convenient for shoppers. However, the Amazon effect makes it difficult for many small, mid-sized, and even larger companies to compete.
Regardless of size, it’s relatively easy to make changes to your current e-commerce website (or even redesign it entirely) to ensure a satisfying user experience that attracts customers from all over the internet. Interested in learning more about UX and how we can help optimize your e-commerce website? We’d love to chat. Contact ed@mittcom.com today.
