In 2019, maybe even more so, the best place to hide a dead body is (still) page two of Google. The author of this popular meme is still unknown, but the fact remains: page one visibility is the only result that counts.
Thus, e-commerce site owners, web developers, and content marketers strive to achieve and maintain that much-coveted first-page ranking. You focus on search engine optimisation (SEO) and strive to speed up your loading times. You carefully pick your long-tail keywords and meticulously craft your meta descriptions. You spend hours trying to build backlinks, maybe even invest in some Google advertising.
But what about your customers? Can you configure your product site to be friendly to spiderbots and also to your leads and prospects? In this article, we look at the role of user experience (UX) in e-commerce success and list some of the design mistakes that may be damaging your conversion rate right now.
Top 7 UX Mistakes to Avoid in E-Commerce
Like most online retailers, you may have spent thousands of dollars, in order to drive traffic back to your website. But what happens when the lead gets there? Have you made it easy for them to find what they need and move straight to checkout?
Your website design is a key factor here, as it creates that crucial first impression about your brand. You may have the best, cheapest, or most effective product around, but if your customer’s initial experience is difficult or unpleasant, you are bound to lose the sale. Worse, you’ve just paved the way for the competition to score that conversion, at your expense.
Convert every lead that lands on your e-commerce site by avoiding these top 7 UX mistakes:
- Incomplete product information
Even today, many consumers are still wary about purchasing goods online. Unable to touch or feel a product, they may not feel comfortable making a decision to buy, relying only on information like the product title, description, image, and price. Therefore, as a retailer, if you leave out even one piece of detail, you will likely fail to close the deal.
Here are some tips on how to optimise your product page:
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- Make the product title clear, easy to understand, and straight to the point.
- Use a high-quality and authentic image that matches the actual product. Steer away from stock photos.
- Provide at least 3 or 4 images to give the user a complete view of your product.
- Keep your product description short but comprehensive and easy to read.
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- Shopping cart update functionality
Shopping cart abandonment is a global phenomenon, and it just shot up to 75.6% this year. There can be several reasons why a customer would decide to leave a cart before checking out. Maybe the product appeared in the search results but turned out to be out of stock. It could be that the site doesn’t accept her preferred mode of payment. Or it could be the shopping cart functionality itself.
If a customer drops several items in your store’s shopping cart, do you allow them to edit their final bill close to checkout? Let’s say they want to add more products or edit the cart’s current contents, do you compel the shopper to go all the way back to the listing page? If your site is guilty of this oversight, you can easily fix the issue. Start with:
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- Providing “edit” and “remove” buttons next to the products in the cart.
- Automatically updating the cart and total bill when the customer makes changes, instead of having to do so manually using a separate button.
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- Unclear call to action
Once in your website, how many times do your visitors need to be reminded to buy your products? As many times as it takes, until they reach checkout! Some marketers skip this part, assuming that every shopper who selects an item will end up purchasing it, but this doesn’t always happen.
Help them out by providing a clear, unmistakable call to action, to guide them all the way to conversion. Highlight every positive aspect about your product and answer any questions your visitors might have. Make sure that your message and value proposition are apparent, simple to remember, and easy to associate with your brand.
- Complicated checkout process
Does your checkout process seem like too much work? Have you gone out of your way to make them feel safe and secure about entering their financial details? Remove any potential causes of friction at this crucial step, so that shoppers can ease their way to the final sale.
Keep your checkout forms simple and require only the most necessary fields. Test several calls to action and make them stand out. For example, instead of the generic “submit” button, try something more specific ones like “ship to my address”.
- Ignoring ‘special’ visitors
Are you overlooking a potentially lucrative market segment? Make your website inclusive and more accessible to persons with disabilities. You can do this by:
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- Using a suitable font size and contrast for people with visual impairments.
- Avoiding distracting visuals that may cause problems for people with dyslexia.
- Allow users to change the display and content settings of your website, according to their preferences.
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- No user reviews
User reviews are an important source of credibility for any website. After all, potential customers will listen more to their peers than to any old brand. Positive reviews serve as a signal that your brand is trustworthy and that your products are of good quality.
Encourage your customers to leave a review on your website or social channels. But at the same time, allow for the occasional negative feedback and comments, which are still a great way to acquire customer input and identify ways for you to improve.
- Hidden shipping rates
Are the shipping costs easy to see during your checkout process? Many e-commerce stores usually make this information visible only upon final checkout – a turn-off for shoppers that consider shipping costs a big part of their purchasing decision and one of the leading causes of shopping cart abandonment.
Display your shipping rates for all locations you service – not at the end of the checkout process, but within the product information page itself. This way, the total cost is clear to your customer right from the beginning. No surprises. This is even more important, if you offer free shipping for certain products or order quantities. Because everybody loves free stuff.
Is your conversion rate falling below target? How many of your abandoned shopping carts are you able to recover successfully? Do you find that most of your sales come from once-off customers and hardly ever from repeat buyers? Avoid the 7 UX mistakes that we detailed in this article, to ensure a frictionless, hassle-free user experience.
If you want to turn your e-commerce site into a certified customer magnet, Digital Excellence is your ideal business partner. We have helped some of the world’s biggest brands to optimise their sales funnel and drive the best leads straight to conversion. Let’s have a chat about how you too can get the most out of your marketing spend.