Without a doubt, one of the most common yet popular social activities enjoyed by many all around the world is online shopping. While consumers spend billions of hours on their devices scrolling through pages of eCommerce stores, the average visit lasts less than a minute.
Hence, if your eCommerce website is slow, sluggish, and visually unappealing, you can be sure that your customers will leave very quickly. Brands and businesses need to prioritise user experience (UX).
In this article, we will explore the benefits of developing a good UX and how you can go about it in terms of designing an eCommerce website.
Understanding UX
Considering the devices you use every day, user experience and user interface are two critical components to take note of when designing an eCommerce website.
UX is a little more complicated to define. It focuses on the product’s intangible traits, such as your thoughts and feelings when using it. UX encompasses every facet of the customer’s interaction with your company, from the final products to the services.
With that being said, UI involves the functionality and appearance of the product, while UX encompasses the complete experience. Together, these two components are vital to the design of your website. For example, they are impacted when a responsive web design is used to make the website match every device. The consumer will have a better UX since the UI runs seamlessly between devices.
The benefits of having a good UX when developing eCommerce websites
- Better customer loyalty and satisfaction
- Boost conversion rates and customer engagement
- Improved brand recognition and competitive advantage online
- Streamlined process and operation
Key considerations when designing eCommerce UX
1. Visual branding and design
Keeping your design simple yet concise is a topic that always comes up in UX research and design. This concept can be applied when developing an eCommerce website. A convoluted design will only make it complicated for your customers to find the things they are looking for and complete a transaction. Bear in mind that your objective should be to boost conversion rates while helping your customers to complete their purpose.
2. Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Creating user-friendly and easily navigable websites that provide your customers with the information they are looking for is the common goal between UX and SEO. Search engines, such as Google, determine your eCommerce website’s reliability and legitimacy by assessing more than just the technical aspects of your site.
They also observe consumer behaviour to determine the quality of your UX. A website with a high bounce rate will not do well with search engine algorithms.
3. Simplified payment options and checkout process
One of the primary causes of cart abandonment is unnecessary checkout processes that add to its complexity. Keeping things simple enhances UX. Ensure a well-thought-out checkout process for straightforward, simple, and efficient navigation.
It is also vital to take into consideration your consumers’ diverse needs when doing so, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as the choice of card payments. To further simplify their checkout process, you can also allow them to save their preferred payment method for future transactions.
Key practices when designing eCommerce UX
1. Providing concise and clear product information
It is vital that your eCommerce site present every pertinent detail about your services and products. In order to do so, each product or service should have its individual description page that offers various details, such as its user manuals, size charts, costs, major attributes, and availability.
2. Utilising high-quality videos and images of your products
The best practice when it comes to a good UX is offering high-quality, sharp videos and images of your products. They help to boost your products’ exposure, enhancing the overall presentation of your eCommerce site.
A high-quality video and image of your products will also help your consumers visualise how they can use what you offer. However, do keep in mind that you should also optimise your images and videos accordingly so that they do not affect your website’s performance and load speed.
3. Offering excellent customer support
Customer care lays the foundation for customer support across various eCommerce platforms. As long as you ensure a consistent shopping experience regardless of the platform and channel, helping consumers in ways, such as solving an issue and making a purchasing decision, is critical.
Conclusion
Achieving a good UX is not a one-off journey. It involves constant assessment and modification. You can do so by conducting user feedback and UX audits. In addition, keeping up-to-date with the latest UX trends, such as micro-interactions, augmented reality, and voice user interface, can help you ensure that your eCommerce website meets the evolving needs of consumerism.
Here at EFUSION, we are more than just a website design company. As one of Singapore’s leading eCommerce web design services providers, we constantly keep ourselves up-to-date with the latest trends, developments, and practices to offer our customers the best. In addition, with our PSG eCommerce grants, our customers can enjoy quality CMS website development services at an even more affordable price. Contact us to get started today!