When starting an online store, store owners usually focus on some common things!

Those are payment gateway, product description and paid ad campaigns. 

What they often fail to realise is, convincing people to spend money is a serious business! That it requires a business to deliver a fantastic user experience to be able to sell something!

The consequence? 

7 out of every 10 online businesses take a performance nosedive because of poor usability! 

Since you are here, it means you want your ecommerce store to be among the remaining 3 who focus not on just revenue growth but winning hearts as well. 

Just so you know, the journey to the hearts of your potential ecommerce customers is laden with pitfalls. So it would pay to know about possible mistakes beforehand!

Brace yourself!

Before we get all serious and tell you what UX design mistakes you are possibly making, let us make sure we are on the same page regarding ecommerce UX design.

So what in the world is ecommerce UX design?

Ecommerce UX design is the process of stepping in the shoes of your online customers. With those shoes on, you are to assess every aspect of your online store website. Then find all the areas where your customer may feel confused, irritated or frustrated and remove them. Your purpose has to be to deliver an experience that is simple, well-rounded, enchanting and enjoyable! In a nutshell, massively dopamine inducing and relaxing!

Let us offer you the meat of the discussion i.e. the mistakes you must avoid in ecommerce UX design. 

1. Not making your store responsive enough

According to a report, about half of the global ecommerce revenue is from mobile devices! Yes, half!

It’s the same for ecommerce traffic as well! No wonder Google considers mobile responsiveness a ranking factor. 

Unfortunately, many store owners ignore this. They rely on the default responsiveness of their CMS which often leaves a site cramped and cluttered! 

Since a significant portion of your revenue is likely to be generated from mobile devices, it is perplexing as to why one would not put it at the top of his/her priority list! 

Helpful stat

• 1 out of every 2 visitors of a site would refrain from using a site that is not appropriately mobile responsive even if they like the business. 
• Over 8 out of every 10 adults want a site’s mobile version to be equally good or better than its desktop version. 

How to avoid this?

When having your store developed, have additional code segments implemented to make your site fully responsive. That’s not enough, though. You need to test it from a potential customer’s point of view and see if it delivers a good user experience. 

If you are using a CMS like Shopify, WebCommander or BigCommerce, then download a plugin or app that can enhance responsiveness. And make sure it works properly. It always pays to test a site before going live!

2. Not using an adequate number of captivating images

Did you know that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than texts? 

No, I am NOT saying that text is not important! It is crucial in delivering your message!

However, as your online customers cant judge your product physically, they would prefer an equivalent online experience. And fantastic images DO facilitates that!

In most cases, store owners go for the default images they get from their supplier’s website. Investing money on a professional photographer and breathtaking images feel like torture on their bank accounts!

Yes, it would be very convenient if you think along those lines. But you should know that you are slashing at your site conversion and revenue generation if you do!

Useful stat

• About 3 out of every five people online want something stunning. 
• About half of all online buyers would see between 3 to 5 pieces of content before making a decision. 

How can you avoid it?

It’s simple. Even if you have to borrow money from your sworn enemy, do make sure you can manage dazzling and creative photographs for your online store. Look at the images your rivals used and try to do better than them with your images. 

3. Not optimising images on your site

Before I tell you the details, let me tell you what I mean by “image optimisation”. 

Image optimisation, for this discussion, making your images super-light while retaining graphical quality. 

Unoptimised images can jeopardise your business in more ways than one. 

First of all, it would load slowly. Meaning your site would load slowly too. And you know what! A 1s delay can reduce site conversion by 7%. Most importantly, a slow site irritates visitors. Not what you want your potential customers to feel. 

Second, people would not find your site reliable. Meaning they are highly unlikely ever to come back!

Useful stat

• Over 2 out of every 5 users would abandon a site if the images load slowly.
• A half-second delay in loading time of a site causes 25% reduction in search volume for Google.

How to avoid it?

If possible, implement lazy loading of images on your ecommerce store. That way, your site load time would not be affected by images. 

It is also mandatory that you compress all the images on your site. This would make the images lighter and load faster!

4. Not including video on product pages

I couldn’t possibly emphasise on videos detailing the use of a product more! 

Studies have found that people on ecommerce sites as well as social media find videos a lot more engaging! This is something almost all ecommerce store owners don’t prioritise and wonder why people are not buying from their site!

Remember that Chinese proverb? The one that says a picture is worth a thousand words! Well, you know what! A video is made up of a whole bunch of images put one after another! Imagine the story you can tell with one instead of relying on large volumes of text!

A video detailing the how-to-use of your product or service tells your visitors how exactly you can resolve their pain points! Why would anyone neglect such a great way to wow their customers is beyond me!

Useful stat

• Videos are over 50 times more likely to rank on Google SERPs.

How to avoid it?

Make a short video detailing every aspect of your product or service. It’s best if you keep it under 1 or 2 minutes. Since it is not soothing many of your rivals are doing, you would able to acquire a competitive edge here with a demo video. 

5. Not performing A/B testing of user experience

A/B testing, also called split testing, is the process of showing two variants of an element of your site to two segments of your site’s incoming traffic. The purpose is to find the one that performs better. 

After taking their stores live, most business owners think they don’t have to think about their site anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth! 

In this fast-paced world, new trends are washing over us all every week if not every day! With it changes the expectations and demands people have regarding online shopping. And how can you figure out which trend or change in what element would please your customers more? 

The answer is a/b testing. Something very few ecommerce business owners perform or spend money on! I hope they knew the mammoth revenue volume they are missing out on!

Useful stat

• Less than half of all online businesses are investing in a/b testing.

How to avoid it?

The solution is simple. Run a/b tests periodically on each element of your site. This way, you would be able to improve your overall site user experience consistently!

Yes, it would cost you, but the reward is going to be so much more!

If you are wondering what tool you can use, well VWO and Optimizely are great choices. (I included these tools to enhance your user experience with this article).

Make your visitors feel good! They would love you! From both their hearts and wallets!

I couldn’t end this discussion (where we discussed mistakes) on a better note! And before I say adios, I would like to tell you something. 

That is, the mistakes you can potentially make with your online store are not limited to the above five! There is so many more! So it would pay (literally) to stay informed and keep learning from your and others’ mistakes. 

Thus a great philosopher once said, “one who learns from the mistakes of others is wise”! 

Good luck enchanting people into choosing you over your rivals!