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Only 1% of users say ecommerce websites meet their expectations, so I think it’s fair to say we’ve all got room for improvement. But where do you start when it comes to creating a flawless customer experience?
It’s a lot easier than you might think, and you don’t need a degree in web design or UX to create a fantastic user journey. Here are 10 simple ideas to get you started...
The first thing to do is check your site speed on Google’s free Page Speed Insights tool. You may already have a super fast site (go you!), but if your score is anything below 90 you should consider fixing it.
This free tool will give you an extensive list of all the things you can do to speed up your load time. It’s well worth working through these recommendations as 79% of online shoppers who experience slow site performance say they won’t return to the site.
There are 3 things customers expect when using the search functionality on your website:
PLPs are your product listing pages. Use filters (e.g price high to low) and sorting options (e.g colour, size) for an easy browsing experience. This prevents users from getting frustrated over being shown products that, for example, aren’t in their size, which could cause them to abandon their shop all together.
If you’ve created a good enough experience to get your users to the checkout, the last thing you want to do is create a frustrating checkout process.
W3.org highlight the biggest pain points for customers during checkout:
The easiest way to check whether you have a positive checkout experience is to go through it yourself. If you find anything annoying, unnecessary or time consuming, your customers will too!
The user experience doesn’t stop after your customer completes the purchase. Repeat customers are way more cost effective than trying to acquire new ones.
Make sure you’ve got the basics covered like order confirmation and dispatch emails (provide tracking information if you can). Go one step further than that and ask customers if they’re satisfied with the product and the experience. This is also a great way to rake in some positive reviews which you can display on your ecommerce store.
Your product photos need to be 3 things:
The same goes for product descriptions. If users can’t find the basic information they’re looking for in your descriptions they will become frustrated or will think the website is untrustworthy.
If there is a time where you haven’t provided all the information that the user is looking for, or they would just like to talk to a real person before purchasing on your website, make the contact information easily accessible.
Hiding contact information or not having it at all comes off as scammy and untrustworthy, so it’s worth putting a ‘Contact Us’ page in your main menu. Include a phone number, email and even live chat on the website if you can.
If there’s extra fees or expensive shipping that your customers are going to inevitably see at checkout, don’t hide it from them everywhere else on the website. This is only going to create a negative experience once they’ve invested all that time into shopping on your website for them to discover surprise shipping fees when they’re ready to checkout.
Either work these fees into the price of your products, or be upfront and display them on the product pages.
FAQs pages, shipping rates and return policies should all be easily accessible from every page. Many ecommerce stores put links to these pages in the footer so users can access them at all times. When you’re encouraging users to buy, information around purchasing should not be hidden on your website.
One of the most important factors around building a positive user experience is building trust with the user. Even if your website is brand new, there’s lots of ways you can build trust with potential customers:
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