More and more people are becoming accustomed to the idea of online shopping. The consequence of this is that consumers are making more informed shopping decisions, in part based on their experience of using a particular ecommerce website. This puts UX design at the forefront of modern ecommerce. If your ecommerce website is not providing a positive shopping experience, as much as 69.89% of online shopping carts will be abandoned by customers before they reach the checkout. To avoid this outcome, you need to start implementing UX-based website optimizations.
Doing this will significantly improve your website conversion rate, in addition to bringing other benefits such as enhanced SEO, reduced customer acquisition cost, more repeat purchases, and increased word of mouth referrals. Fine-tuning your UX can be accomplished through the application of a number of best practices. In the rest of this article, we will go over a number of these practices that were proven to work on multiple occasions.
Use Clear CTAs
An ecommerce website lives and dies by its
calls to action. If your customers have trouble taking the necessary actions to
buy your products and services, they will take their business elsewhere.
Conversely, good CTA design will allow your customers to shop
without having to stop and think about what they’re supposed to do next. There
are several tricks you can use to create quality CTAs. First, you should make
sure they stand out from the rest of the rest of the page. Second, you should
make clear what happens after you click on one. Finally, they should be worded
in a way that elicits positive associations in the mind of the consumer.
Provide Quality Product
Descriptions
Product descriptions are a way to help your
customers make informed purchasing decisions. The better your descriptions are,
the easier it will be for customers to figure out whether your products are the
right choice for satisfying their needs and fulfilling their desires. Since
there are many kinds of products, it is difficult to generalize how to write a
proper description. However, there are some guidelines you can follow to
increase the odds of writing something worthwhile. For starters, don’t copy
manufacturer descriptions, as they are not written with customers in mind.
Second, use Z-patterns and F-patterns in order to take advantage of how our
eyes work while reading. Finally, write in a way that is clear and concise,
instead of verbose and ambiguous.

Image Source: Codetiburon.com
Use Evocative Product Images
The one major downside that ecommerce stores
have when compared to their brick and mortar counterparts, is the fact that
prospective customers can’t try out products online. To make up for this,
ecommerce storefronts have to rely on other means of showcasing what a product
can do, and one of them is to make ample use of images. So if your store offers
physical products, be sure to provide a number of high-resolution photos along
with the description. The photos should ideally be taken from multiple angles,
to give customers a sense of their scale in space. Ideally, you should also
snap some photos of products being used, so customers have more information to
go on when making their purchase decisions.
Highlight Your Discounts
It is no secret that customers love discounts.
Some statistics suggest that people are more likely to buy a product it’s on
sale, than one that has the same final price, albeit without a discount. To
leverage this behavioral peculiarity, you should consider having a dedicated
discounted product section on your website. This will enable customers that are
prone to discount seeking behavior to find what they want with ease. Another
option would be to give customers the option to search for discounted products
only. This is a standard practice for a lot of online retailers, and it is an option
that is fairly easy to implement.

Image Source: Freepik.com
Use Chatbots For Customer Service
An unfortunate side-effect of going digital
for all your shopping needs is the fact that you no longer have anyone to turn
to for help while you shop. Or at least, this used to be the case until
recently. Nowadays, digital shops have bolstered their ranks with equally
digital personnel, namely chatbots. These automated conversation systems can
simulate how a real salesperson would behave, giving prospective customers
someone to talk to while they browse your site. Chatbots can be set up to
answer common product related queries, to give live customer support, and even
to finalize purchases. Engagement is key to good UX design, and chatbots offer
a means of providing it at little cost.
Display Progress Indicators
While digital retailers such as Amazon pride
themselves on their 1-Click Ordering system, in reality online shopping always
involves taking some minimum number of steps. The only problem is, the number
of these steps vary from one ecommerce outfit to another, which makes the
process of finalizing a purchase needlessly confusing. And no one likes to be confused
when they are about to exchange their money for a product. To alleviate this
issue, your ecommerce shopping interface should always include a progress
indicator for giving customers an indication of where they are in the
purchasing process. This will let them know what additional steps they can
expect, as well as allow them to have a ballpark estimate of how much longer
they will have to wait before they finalize their purchase.

Image Source: Freepik.com
Optimize For Mobile Shopping
A lot has been written on the topic of
mobile-friendly UX. The story usually boils down to promoting some set of
responsive design principles, whose purpose is to have a site display equally
well on different screen sizes. But there is more to mobile UX than this.
Specifically, customers that use mobile devices for shopping have a different
control interface at their disposal. Using your fingers to navigate a website
is a different experience than using a mouse and keyboard. Some mobile-friendly
UX adaptations that you can implement include providing click-to-call and
click-to-scroll buttons, having sticky headers and footers for easier
navigation, and getting rid of pop-ups. If you have trouble implementing these
changes, seek help from reliable companies specialized in website design
and development.
Conclusion
UX-based ecommerce is not a new concept, but it is one that is still being implemented only sporadically. However, as more and more businesses enter the ecommerce arena, the importance of providing a quality UX will only increase. Once customers realize that they don’t have to settle for an inferior online shopping experience, they will quickly start flocking to ecommerce outfits that are enjoyable to use. If you follow the guidelines which we have set out in this article, you will be one step closer to becoming one of them.
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