Experience in Seven Different Ways
Ecommerce is certainly having its moment right now. The market is expanding at a rapid rate with user demand reaching more than half of all the consumers.
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People now prefer to shop online more than they do in real life. Of course, the impact of COVID-19 has something to do with it as well, but still, the number of consumers rising was on the books for a long time.
But even with such increasing demand, there are those business owners who have a minimal to an almost non-existent presence online. If you’re one such business, you’re missing out on a lot. The land of opportunity awaits you!
Besides the non-digital businesses, some businesses already have a web presence but their websites don’t add much value to the user experience (UX). In a landscape of competition, you have to add value to your UX as much as you can.
This is the main thesis of this post. In the coming sections, we’ll be discussing the importance of user experience, and the six ways in which you can improve the UX of your website.
So without waiting any further, let’s start.
User experience is the brand itself
To some users, the user experience might not be something of much importance. It shouldn’t be that way.
User experience matters a lot. It’s a major factor in the customer retention metric aka how long is a customer present in your store. Moreover, it also differentiates you from other brands in that you focus on the user first and foremost.
But within a website, certain things can ruin the user experience. Everything from poor navigation, search functionality, elongated checkout processes, poorly designed CTA’s, a slow loading website, and more, can contribute to a poor user experience.
Now, to the layman, this might seem a lot of work but it’s not. With the right ecommerce developer, you can create a wonderful user experience. It’s therefore, best to work on them right now rather than down the road. Why? Because of the consequences of not doing so.
If a customer experiences a poor user e experience, they are more likely to avoid purchasing from your store, abandon products, and leave before even the site loads up, or don’t click on any of the CTA’s. One problem leads to another and so on.
What it ultimately leads to is a lack of trust in your brand. If you don’t focus on UX, then you’re not even a brand. You’re just another eCommerce website looking to make a quick buck.
To avoid this, you need to focus on the UX as much as you can. The first step is always identifying the problem and acting on it as quickly as possible before it goes out of hand.
Improving your eCommerce UX
Each website is different with its own set of unique needs. As such, there is no one size fits all approach towards improving the UX. Once you’ve identified what needs to be fixed, you need to look at how the fix would benefit your business. Oftentimes, business owners copy others and in that process, they compromise their business layout.
Regardless, certain basic fixes can take your UX to the next level.
- Conduct an Audit
This is the most essential step. You can visit a website auditing tool like GT Metrix or page speed insights to see where problems lie within your website. This will audit your website for you and give you insights on where you can improve your website speed. If you haven’t optimized your site just yet, there is one problem that will always come up: load speed. Ideally, you want to keep your website load speed at 3 seconds. This ensures that your website is visible to users the moment they click on it. If it takes longer, it could potentially mean that you’re going to lose a customer.
- Upgrade the look
Unless the work done on your website is professional, there are going to be some issues related to the design. You don’t want your users to navigate through a website that’s no that nice looking and exhibits poor design choices. You want a stellar user experience. Look at your website and see where you need to improve the designs. Let’s give you a headstart: check your CTA’s, fonts, colors, and other things to see if they’re visually appealing.
- Ask for feedback
This follows along with our previous example. If you already have a set number of users who are coming back to your store, then you need to utilize them. By that, we mean asking them politely for feedback on how the store should improve. This can give you a wide range of ideas about audience perception and if you implement them, it could mean a lot for the customer. Moreover, asking for feedback is a good branding tool that can help you to improve your customer experience.
- Use visual storytelling
Just written content alone isn’t going to take your website to the next level. You also need to use an adequate amount of visuals to tell the story of your brand as well as your products. High-quality images are the first step in the process. On top of that, you can also use a variety of different visuals like infographics. If you want to go one step further, you can try and integrate video content as well. These are all marketing materials aimed at making customers finish their purchases.
- Make things easy
Certain hurdles within the eCommerce journey deter customers from purchasing a product. One of them being the fact that the eCommerce journey is just too difficult and making a purchase seems like forever
You should avoid this case at all costs. Ideally, you should make the eCommerce journey as short as possible. This ensures that the purchase is completed quickly and efficiently.
- Offer virtual assistance
Now, customer service is essential. But providng24/7 human customer service requires a higher budget and resources. Also, in this age of technology, don’t you want something that’s a lot more resource-efficient?
Yes, you would, and yes they exist. Ai chatbots are the future of customer services, making sure that you can provide consistent customer services around the clock.
Conclusion:
So these were the six ways you can improve your UX in general. Hopefully, with these tips, you will have a better grasp of the user experience. To conclude this post, we’ll just say that start implementing these strategies as soon as you can.
We hope you enjoyed reading!
Author bio: Tooba is a security nerd and eCommerce writer at B2BWoo.com. When she’s not busy covering the latest eCommerce trends, you will find her reading comics, history books, and TV-shows.