The ecommerce industry is booming, as the number of online shoppers keeps growing rapidly and it will only continue to grow, what with the increasing use of smartphones for online shopping. The ever-evolving technology enables people to browse online shops on-the-go, which is something each and every ecommerce store owner should use to his or her full advantage.
Apart from the constant technology innovations that make it quite challenging for business owners to keep up with the latest trends, competition on the market is getting fiercer with each coming day, which creates the need for constant work towards improvement in order to be able to stand out from the crowd.
There are a lot of factors crucial for the success of every ecommerce store, but there is one element that perhaps bears the greatest significance – user experience.
Good user experience is a key component of every successful ecommerce store, so you should always work towards providing your existing and potential customers with the best possible online shopping experience whenever they visit your website.
By providing your customers with great user experience, not only will they spend more time in your ecommerce store and be compelled to make a purchase, but they will also keep coming back to check out your new offers. Therefore, great user experience will help you increase your sales and conversion rates, thus help you generate more revenue and improve your ROI.
Here’s what you can do to improve the user experience of your ecommerce store and greatly increase your conversion rates.
Create Unforgettable First Impressions
More often than not, the first impression becomes a lasting impression, so you must make sure your site’s visitors form the best possible first impressions the moment they come to check out what you have to offer.
Your web design is very important for first impressions, so make sure everything is simple and clearly visible. Your store must be easy to navigate through and you should avoid clutter at all costs. Less is more here, so a simple web design is the way to go.
A responsive web design is incredibly important for your customers’ user experience, since the majority of them are certainly using their smartphones and tablets to visit your store. By incorporating responsive elements into your web design, you will provide mobile users with a seamless mobile experience while checking out your store, which will result in them being satisfied with your service, and this will certainly compel them to come back and do business with you again.
Implement Only High-Quality Images
A picture is worth a thousand words and, in this case, the statement cannot be more true. Your customers cannot touch your products, so it is crucial that you provide them with professional and eye-catching images of the highest quality that will perfectly present your products and all of their features.
Make sure that your product images are visually appealing and engaging and that they showcase your products in the best possible light. Also, make sure you enable a zoom function or a lightbox, so that your customers can see larger versions of your product images.
People typically remember 80% of what they see and only 20% of what they read, so make sure the images you implement into your ecommerce store are eye-catching, so that you can attract more quality leads and convert them into customers.
Implementing high-quality images into your ecommerce store will definitely result in better user experience, helping you enlarge your customer base and increase your sales and conversion rates, and ultimately generate more revenue.
Improve the Navigation of Your Ecommerce Store
Your entire ecommerce store must be easy to navigate through in order for your visitors to be able to easily find exactly what they are looking for. They need to be able to browse through your store without any possible distractions.
If your visitors have to jump over hurdles in order to find their way through, they will certainly leave your store and move on to your competition. That is why an easy-to-use site navigation is absolutely crucial for the success of your store, so you need to make it as simple as possible.
If you manage to do that, you will greatly improve your customers’ user experience and reduce your bounce rates, thus significantly increasing your ecommerce conversion rate.
You can make navigation much easier for your potential customers by adding a “recently viewed” tab on your product page, since that way they would not have to search forever for a product they viewed who-knows-how-many clicks back. You certainly know just how irritating and frustrating that can be, to say the least, so a “recently viewed” tab will ease that process for your potential buyers and result in their better user experience.
Furthermore, you can add the “What’s New” tab in your store, since not only will that help your customers check out your new products without having to search through your old ones, but it will also provide you with an excellent way to display and promote the new products on your offer.
By separating your new products from your old stuff, you will manage to tempt your customers to check them out, as they will instantly grab their attention.
Keep Your Customers Informed
If you offer some new deals and freebies or have launched a new line of products, but haven’t informed your customers, how do you expect them to know about it and visit your store to check it out?
You need to always keep your customers in the loop and provide them with every new piece of information regarding your products. If you offer new shopping deals, discounts, freebies or have any other update related to your ecommerce store, make sure you display your latest news on the homepage of your website.
Having a blog on your website is an ideal way to help your customers keep up with your every announcement, as well as help you engage them in your brand. Blogging can provide you with an excellent way to promote your brand and showcase all the benefits that your customers will experience if they decide to use your products.
One of the best ways of keeping your customers informed is engaging in social media, since the majority of your customers certainly spend most of their online time on various social networks. Therefore, make sure you establish your social media presence and promote your ecommerce store wherever you see fit.
The best social platforms to go for are the ones your target customers prefer to use, since you should be exactly where your customers are. There is absolutely no point in promoting your brand on Instagram, for instance, if none of your customers are using it.
Nonetheless, the best choices are certainly the ever-dominating Facebook and Twitter, but Pinterest and Instagram are also excellent platforms for promoting products and every successful ecommerce store is harnessing their power. Let’s not forget about Snapchat either, since it has recently found its place among the platforms that are great for marketing campaigns.
By keeping your customers informed about everything related to your brand, you will show them you respect them, thus you will instil trust and inspire customer loyalty. By keeping the communication with them going, you will ultimately turn them into your brand ambassadors who will help you boost your reputation and increase your sales and conversions.
Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates by Removing Any Friction
Cart abandonment is one of the biggest problems of many ecommerce store owners, so you need to make sure you remove any friction that keeps your potential buyers from making their purchases.
By managing to do that, you will build trust with them and encourage them to go through with their transactions, thus reducing your cart abandonment rates and increasing your conversion rates.
You will show your customers that your website is trustworthy by adding an SSL certificate, which will guarantee that your customers’ privacy is protected at all times, that is, that their personal information and credit card numbers will not be misused.
You should also add a privacy policy statement in your ecommerce store, preferably near your CTA button or anywhere where it can be clearly visible, since that will help your prospects trust you more.
Furthermore, you can offer free shipping, as that way online shoppers will certainly prefer purchasing from you to going to your competitors who don’t offer that kind of service. However, if you decide to offer free shipping, make sure you display that information on every page on your website, so that your potential buyers know what to expect before they arrive at your checkout page.
It’s also very important to clearly display icons of the payment systems you accept, as that will also help your customers know what to expect upfront.
All of this helps build trust with your customers, thus greatly reduces cart abandonment rates, ultimately improving your conversion rates and increasing your sales and revenue.
Conclusion
By following the aforementioned tips, you will certainly manage to improve the performance of your ecommerce store and transform it into your lucrative source of revenue that brings quality leads and conversions. Always remember that user experience is the absolute key for building a strong customer base and increasing your sales, so make sure you always work towards providing your customers with excellent service in order to improve their user experience and breed only positive results.
The author is highly qualified and writes blog posts weekly.
