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If your website hasn’t been updated within the last three years, it’s time for a refresh. Your website is an essential factor in establishing and maintaining your company’s brand, and if your site feels outdated or is difficult to navigate, your customers will be less likely to purchase your products or services.
With mobile commerce being projected to become 54% of all digital sales by 2021, your site must be optimized for mobile devices. Designing your site with a mobile-first approach and ensuring responsiveness will help ensure the best user experience for your customers.
The mobile user experience must have a quick site speed and easy access to the shopping cart. Avoid having users click to update forms when making edits to their cart but instead streamline form fills and mobile payment options.
With mobile commerce being projected to become 54% of all digital sales by 2021, your site must be optimized for mobile devices. Designing your site with a mobile-first approach and ensuring responsiveness will help ensure the best user experience for your customers.
The mobile user experience must have a quick site speed and easy access to the shopping cart. Avoid having users click to update forms when making edits to their cart but instead streamline form fills and mobile payment options.
Another factor to consider in optimizing your eCommerce site experience is improving your site’s navigation and product organization. The primary purpose of your website is to sell products and services. So, it’s essential for customers to be able to easily locate what they’re looking for.
Making your products visible and accessible is the best way to guarantee an optimal buying experience for customers and browsers alike. Consider the following questions to enhance your site's organization:
Organizing your products in similar groupings or by popularity will make the buying process more straightforward and efficient for shoppers.
When customers interact with your site, they should receive as close to an in-store experience as possible. That's why keeping your product photography and content up to date is a crucial element of eCommerce.
According to a 2017 Salsify survey, 87% of consumers viewed product content as very important when deciding to buy. Be sure to include detailed product descriptions — we're talking measurements, durability, special features and more. This content will also help boost your site's SEO performance as well.
Customers tend to buy more from eCommerce sites with high-quality product photography that's one year old at most. Displaying your products using multiple angles, in natural lighting — and without distracting backgrounds — will best showcase your products. Interactive options, like viewing a product in 3D and video, can be beneficial for many retailers, especially when customers cannot experience the product in person.
The checkout experience is the most critical component of your eCommerce website design and therefore, the user experience must carefully be considered. Optimizing your checkout flow directly impacts customer satisfaction and sales as 21% of users report abandoning their cart due to an overly complicated checkout process.
Keep your checkout process simple and concise. Minimize the number of steps in your checkout flow, and optimize your cart experience by making it easy for customers to update their information using auto-fill form fields.
Ensure customers can remove items from their cart with a simple "remove" button and auto-populate sales tax and delivery costs based on location to minimize surprises in the total cost. Finally, make your site's payment options clear and allow third-party checkout functionality such as PayPal and Apple Pay.
Maximize efficiency by providing a guest checkout alternative to creating an account, with the option for users to save their information for later purchases. An enhanced eCommerce customer experience is to autosave their cart if they navigate away from your site in order to prevent customers from having to rebuild their cart each time they visit.
Finally, users tend to utilize multiple devices and will expect a similar experience across desktop, tablets, mobile web and apps. More recently, with Apple leading the way, users expect a handoff between devices so users checking out using an application on an iPhone can seamlessly continue the cart process on an iPad.
Don't let your investment in brand marketing and front-end design go to waste by failing to provide an incentive to your potential customers if they did not complete their purchase.
With over 60% of buyers leaving their shopping carts, cart abandonment presents a significant threat to your ROI, and abandon cart emails are an effective method to protect your investment in your customers.
The most compelling abandon cart emails simply remind customers what they’ve left behind. Capitalize on direct communication with customers by incorporating more individualized messaging and even an additional discount to purchase.
Beware of over-utilizing abandon cart discounts, though, as some customers will abandon cart to game the system to trigger the discount. Use them sparingly and always start with testing to identify the threshold of discount and audience segmentation that will successfully increase conversions.
If you're looking to optimize your eCommerce experience, Integrity Web Consulting has the technological expertise you need to provide the best user experience for your customers. Contact us today to get started.
