The eCommerce sector is flourishing, with Statista predicting eCommerce sales of about $8.1 trillion by 2026. That’s a rise from the $5.2 trillion recorded in 2021. The majority of this boom is because of the rising focus on user experience and conversion rate for eCommerce sites.
Now is the best time to boost the number of loyal customers by optimizing the User Experience. Speaking of eCommerce conversion rate, you must consider the customer journey when they visit your website. After all, you can enhance the customer experience and increase conversions only if you acknowledge their needs and problems.
This post will discuss how an eCommerce website design or UX impacts conversion rates while covering solutions that can help enhance the site’s overall UX.
Impact of eCommerce UX Design on Conversion Rate:
1. The User Impression
UX can be defined as the experience the user gets while visiting your website until their purpose is achieved. UX, of course, begins with the user. Hence, acknowledging what your customer wants from your website is essential to understand & overcome the UX Design Challenges. However, the issue that several eCommerce website designers face is making assumptions concerning user expectations or impressions. And most of the time, those assumptions are wrong.
Without proper research, shop owners tend to create an eCommerce website that fails to meet a customer’s expectations of UX. So,
Use Analytics:
An incredible resource all shop owners can access while creating the UX is the data derived from analytics. It is out there, so don’t step back from using it to your advantage. If your eCommerce website is live, look at the analytics data to understand where you are going wrong. Therein likely lies the issue.
Collect Feedback:
There are several ways to access customer feedback. There is a reason why your website is not converting browsers into loyal customers. Therefore, ask those individuals what is not working out for them in terms of the UX. You can leverage social media or send surveys to customers who purchased from you earlier but likely had a poor user experience.
2. User Journey
Besides designing the UX per the customer’s needs, you should also consider the user journey involved. Is the journey satisfactory? Or, are there any hiccups in their journey? A primary reason you lose out on conversions is the user getting lost somewhere along their journey.
That happens mainly because the user journey is not seamless. Maybe they missed out on an email they were sent containing the required links. Perhaps the users have problems logging in due to password discrepancies. Maybe your landing page is too crowded, making the buying process complicated.
You might have to consult your designer. Or, if you’ve done the eCommerce website yourself, either way, make some time to fix the user sales journey. Keep it as straightforward as possible. Remember, people don’t like complexity. They do not have the time to navigate through a cluttered website just to arrive at the checkout section.
- Ensure the User Journey is Simple While Using Mobile Devices:
As per a recent report, about 58.33% of web traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices. So, what does that imply for your online store? Simply put, there won’t be conversions if the online user journey is not smooth. Developing the perfect UX for mobile-first ecommerce website may be more practically driven than you imagine.
For instance, about 75% of individuals use their thumbs on their smartphones to get work done. Hence, creating a UX considering this ‘thumb factor’ is significant to a good shopping journey. Being able to drag and swipe conveniently are other essential gesture controls for a user seeking a good shopping experience.
3. Website Speed
People don’t like wasting their time. With their hectic lifestyle, they just want to visit a website, buy, and checkout. As such, a slow-loading website will bring down conversions. If a web page takes time to load, the user might head over to your competitor’s website with a faster load time.
Moreover, your website will not be crawled and ranked highly on Google if your eCommerce site is slow in performance.
Therefore, checking your web pages’ load speed is essential. Do not wait until the sales rate drops. There are things that you can work on to boost your website’s load speed.
Image Optimization:
Large-sized images can hamper your website’s UX as well as load speed. Hence, ensure you use the correct image format and size—not too small or too big.
Don’t Use Too Many Redirects:
Using too many redirects can negatively affect your eCommerce website’s UX. Besides, they can also slow down the website load time. Thus, make sure to reduce the number of redirects you use on your website.
4. Checkout Forms
Research has discovered that a complicated checkout process is a significant reason for the high cart abandonment rate. Checkout forms that ask for unnecessary customer information or forms with an unclear design often result in decreased UX performance and sales loss.
Hence, it is vital to streamline your checkout process wherever possible. For instance, Apple keeps user data simple. Apple consumers find the checkout forms to be decent, as their address and customer data performance rate are 52.7.
- Reanalyze the Form Yourself:
Do visitors have to fill in complex and lengthy input fields? Too many fields in the checkout process are frustrating for several users and will affect your eCommerce website’s conversion rates. Simple, short boxes require simple and short inputs—this is all you need.
Allow Auto-Fill:
Auto-fill is highly convenient, especially when you don’t have much time but still want to make a purchase. As per a study by the Baymard Institute, about 26% of participants gave tedious and endless form fill-ups as a reason for not becoming loyal customers. Undoubtedly, enabling the auto-fill function can help with conversion rates.
Accept Different Payment Options:
When you accept different payment options, you allow your business to serve customers who might not be using a particular kind of credit or debit card. That, in turn, helps increase the conversion in ways you didn’t imagine. Besides, offering ample payment alternatives to consumers also helps lower the cart abandonment rate.
5. Page Layout
When designing your eCommerce store, especially the product pages, ensure they are customer-centric—complex and cluttered product pages lower sales and conversions. Customers expect a certain kind and amount of information to make their final purchases. Does your website offer that information readily? Or will they have to look for it?
Use high-quality product videos or images to improve CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). And the related product description should be published near the image users are viewing. Ensure that you provide all the relevant information the users want to know before making a purchase.
For instance, do include shipping information, price, size, color options, or other significant product features that are essential to encourage a purchase. However, ensure that the layout is easy to understand and navigate. Arrange your products into categories and provide filters to let users narrow their search based on particular attributes.
Maintain a Precise Product Description:
The specifics and information of a product should be easy to scan for a user. An effective and straightforward product page layout with bullets works great. Avoid bulky paragraphs and irrelevant information.
Select the Right Font:
Choose easy-to-read and clear fonts and font sizes for the body text, headings, and subheadings. Test out your font selection across different devices to ensure a legible and consistent UX for all users.
Use a Clear CTA:
Place a clear CTA (Call-to-Action) alongside the product descriptions and images. After all, this is the ultimate thing you want your customers to do—tap on the CTA and make the purchase. Therefore, ensure you use standout buttons or icons to help boost conversions.
Include Social Proof:
We are currently living in a review-oriented world. That being said, include product ratings and reviews on your product pages for increased conversion rates. Best Buy offers a ‘user review’ performance of a whopping 88.1. They place user reviews under product pages, which helps enhance their website’s UX performance.
6. Discounts and Promos
Who does not like a good deal? Users don’t enjoy heavy browsing just to find those bulk discounts and clearance items. Whatever the discount, placing it at the forefront, where the users can see it right when they open the website, will make them check it out further.
Along with promotions and deals, you should highlight the latest products on the website’s homepage. As per a survey by Salesforce, there are about 75% of brand-new search queries for online shopping every month. This implies that people are undoubtedly searching for new items.
Promote Your Products and Deals on Social Networks:
In tandem with the products and deals you feature on your eCommerce website, make sure to promote them on your various social media networks. It’s all about having these bargains and products readily available for the users to view and, consequently, explore everything your store offers.
Wrapping Up
Although CRO varies from business to business and sector to sector, it’s possible to steer it carefully with proper measures. We hope the above-mentioned factors for enhancing the eCommerce conversion rate and UX helps drive more customers toward your website.
Continue testing until you determine what works right for your eCommerce store. Think from the perspective of the consumer. And make necessary changes to offer customers a pleasant and smooth shopping experience.
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