Soumi Biswas A website forms the first point of interaction for customers. So, ensure your customers / Visitors have good user experience when they visit your website. Remember, unless visitors have a good user experience, they will not turn into regular customers. Therefore, to make your casual visitors turn into potential leads and buyers, focusing on the website design or eCommerce UX is crucial.
1. eCommerce UX Design is Vital for eCommerce Sites
What role does design play in a website? You must bear this question in mind.
This blog post will offer broad insight into the significance of design for websites, especially eCommerce websites and even for mobile applications. Also, you will get to know about the important strategies and principles that must be kept in mind to come up with an effective eCommerce UX design.
1.1. The eCommerce Scenario
The retail landscape is in a state of flux. While brick-and-mortar stores are facing threats from larger chain stores, the eCommerce industry is facing tremendous advancement owing to the advancement in technology. To keep up with the recent trend, brick-and-mortar stores are taking their stores online. Similarly, eCommerce stores are adapting to the latest trends in eCommerce UX design to grab the attention of customers.
In other words, brick-and-mortar stores are transitioning to online mode to ensure good sales and profits. Similarly, eCommerce stores are trying to make their site more engaging to survive the stiff competition. To make sites more engaging, eCommerce needs to be highly successful in its design process.
As per an article, 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site the moment they go through a bad user experience. Bad user experience is a huge weakness for eCommerce websites.
2. Things to Implement to Make eCommerce Stores Successful
Just like eCommerce UX design is important for the success of an online store, some other factors must be considered. They are:
- Simplicity
- Stability
- Navigation
- Credibility
- Security
2.1. Simplicity
Make your website straightforward and user-friendly. It should take just a few clicks for the users to make a purchase.
The fewer the clicks, the better the user experience. Moreover, customers will also fall in love with your site.
2.2. Stability
Make it a point to ensure that your website loads very quickly. It should not crash even if there is a high traffic load. In short, it should be stable. When the functionality of a site is good, your visitors are bound to have a good experience.
2.3. Navigation
The navigation process of any website is very important. If the navigation process is simple, customers will visit the site again and again. But the opposite will happen if the site is complicated to operate or navigate. This will cause a business to lose a valuable customer.
Similarly, if a customer finds it hard to navigate a site or find any items, they will move over to your competitors that offer seamless navigation. So, eCommerce store owners should make it a point to make their site very simple to operate.
2.4. Credibility
Maintaining proper connections with business associates or clients is very important for any business professional. Since there is no face-to-face communication, maintaining a virtual connection through proper branding is very important.
Also, a proper marketing strategy can be taken to increase the trust of customers in the business. This, in turn, will help businesses to get more customers. It can come from small replies to customer feedback or comments on social media.
When customers are valued, they start to trust the brand/business. As a result, credibility is improved.
2.5. Security
Just like a good UX design assures customers of a smooth user experience when accessing the site, proper site security assures customers that their financial details are safe. In other words, their card or banking details are encrypted. Also, their personal contact details are not vulnerable to leaks or hacking. Displaying a privacy statement on the website is a great way to provide that security assurance.
3. Key Factors for eCommerce UX Design
Some other key factors that need to be implemented for a successful eCommerce store are:
3.1. Utility
This factor helps to determine how quickly a user gets to the target page and whether they could reach that page on their first attempt. This criterion is very important, especially when a site is introduced to visitors/users for the first time.
3.2. Accessibility
Can your website be accessed from all web browsers? Or does it take longer to load from a desktop than a mobile device? Are there any non-working links on the site? If you can answer all these questions, it becomes easy to understand if the product meets the accessibility criterion.
3.3. Usability
This criterion helps determine the convenience and ease of the user’s interaction with the user interface of the website or mobile app.
3.4. Desirability
Lastly, desirability is the sole factor that helps to focus on the user’s or visitor’s desire to use a particular product or any solution in general. As a rule of thumb, the visual component is very important.
These factors must be determined when thinking about the success of an eCommerce store that is truly based on design.
4. What is eCommerce User Experience?
To put it simply, eCommerce user experience aims to offer the end user an experience that they will consider great. Plus, it will ensure that visitors have a simple and seamless shopping experience every time they browse the site or app.
To offer end users a great user experience, designers of an eCommerce site or an app should consider the following points:
- Effective use of visual elements
- User’s ability to leave feedback about the goods and services
- Security of user’s data
- Operational simplicity
- Easily available contact details related to the business
- Strong branding
As a part of the eCommerce UX design process, optimizing the functionality is very important. One should remember that just overwhelming the visitors with lots of information is a good way to get more return customers.
As per a study, 47% of users are more likely to return to a site or page if it offers less loading time. Slow loading is considered the death knell for any website, including eCommerce sites. Experts have pointed out that long loading times will result in losing potential customers. This can be bad for any business as it usually leads to the loss of millions of dollars.
4.1. Reasons That Bog Down a Site
Plenty of reasons are present that lead to a website performing poorly. But the two supreme culprits are images and scripts. As per a study conducted by Adobe, 39% of people stopped using a site if the images take too much time to load. However, a site’s load time can be greatly reduced by minimizing and combining the JavaScripts.
Often JavaScript files add up the load time of the pages or websites. Plus, these files can create hard-to-track bugs on the website. With the help of the waterfall visualization tool from Chrome’s developer tools, resources that usually slow down the site can be identified.
5. Understanding eCommerce and Design
According to a survey, it was predicted that by 2021, global eCommerce sales will reach 4.48 trillion dollars. Already, in 2021 the eCommerce market was valued at $4.89.
The number proved to be inspiring for eCommerce store owners. Why? As the figures indicated huge business prospects for them.
However, to succeed in the crowded market, businesses need to take the right approach. Going by the present market scenario, businesses need to cater to the online shopping experience of their customers.
More buyers are looking forward to a good user experience when visiting a site or exploring an app. Hence, sellers or businesses should try to focus on eCommerce UX to automatically improve their traffic and sales.
There is no denying that the design of a site helps visitors to connect with the online business or with the brand. Also, the design is responsible for making the experience of visitors highly interactive for both – the website and the application. Therefore, focusing on UX, especially for the eCommerce store is vital.
6. UX and SEO are Related
Well, the eCommerce UX design is related to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). One cannot deny the fact that UX can affect SEO. For instance, if the site is not user-friendly and is hard to navigate then the site will face a tough time getting leads or even repeat visitors.
When the user experience gets impacted, the site gets less traffic. Less traffic leads to poor ranking across SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
7. Focus on UI and UX for eCommerce
If you are running an eCommerce website or an app, you might be aware of the fact – the success of the eCommerce store depends on several factors. The factors are:
- Quality of the content presented to the customers
- Quality of the design – website and mobile app
- Quality of the product or service going to be offered
However, among the multiple factors, UI/UX design holds a supreme place. So, if all design elements are put into practice, it will contribute towards a great user experience that a target user/ visitor always looks forward to.
When talking about design elements – simple and clear micro-interactions to easy payment flow, fast feedback from systems, and many more things can influence the eCommerce user experience and have an impact on profit for those businesses who are a part of the eCommerce game.
In other words, good user experience leads to good sales and ROI for any business. So, eCommerce site owners should make it a point to work on improving the UX design for eCommerce.
But before delving deep into the design practices, it is imperative to know about the eCommerce systems and practices that are followed widely.
8. eCommerce UX Design Practices to be Followed
The eCommerce industry is growing rapidly. This explosive growth became more clear during the recent COVID pandemic. To keep business running, even small-scale businesses moved online to attract more customers.
However, just moving any store online is not enough. Rather, some design secrets or strategies need to be implemented to ensure an increased conversion.
Keep reading this blog post to learn about design considerations.
8.1. Captivating Homepage Design
The homepage is usually the highly visited page on any site, including the eCommerce site. It is true that the purpose of any homepage is to create trust and drive sales. This, in turn, helps businesses to get lifelong customers.
While creating a compelling homepage can be a bit tricky, it should be done carefully, especially when you have a vast collection of products to display.
Make sure the homepage is not cluttered with too many products. Cluttering might make visitors confused while navigating your site. So, to make the eCommerce site compelling, try to evaluate the options available for designing the homepage.
8.2. Intuitive Navigation
Offering intuitive navigation for your eCommerce site is especially important. This is helpful not only for your visitors but also for your business. Remember, a well-built site guides visitors through clicking the CTA button and eventually leading to the sales funnel.
Just adding a Call-to-Action might be a simple task, but offering uniform navigation is important. This will ensure a user is not spending enough time and energy figuring out what to click or where to click when looking for a product.
8.3. User-friendly Checkout
Creating a user-friendly checkout is important for attracting customers and keeping them engaged with the store for a long time. By ensuring a smooth checkout, visitors are more likely to visit the site again.
A proper progress indicator will help customers know where they are standing in the checkout process. Adding a chatbot can help customers to go through a smooth checkout.
Remember, the most frustrating part of any eCommerce checkout is cart abandonment. When this happens, it is considered as a loss for the business since they will lose potential customers.
8.4. SEO Friendly Landing Pages
For success on an eCommerce site, an SEO-friendly landing page is important. To attract traffic for the landing pages and convert visitors into buyers, certain things must be followed. For instance, the use of SEO automation tools helps to create SEO-friendly pages easily. Plus, it helps sites get links from relevant sources.
Care must be taken from creating duplicate pages and ensuring that the landing pages are optimized properly for search engines. Also, too much code must be avoided.
It is important to ensure that keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions are present on the pages. Adding testimonials helps improve the SEO and ranking of the page.
So, when hiring an eCommerce web designer, make sure they follow all the necessary guidelines for a proper user experience.
8.5. On-site Search Box
This is crucial for the eCommerce site design process. If this feature is a part of the eCommerce UX process, it helps the users to filter products based on their search queries. The search box can offer results based on the input and matching with the product’s recommendations.
The search box is somewhat like Google’s search which makes use of the structured attribute search, along with filtering and sorting for generating personalized product recommendations. Users who can use the on-site search engine tend to convert even more than others.
8.6. Sales Funnel
It is important to understand that a well-designed UX/UI can contribute toward a better flow of visitors through the sales funnel. For instance, on the product presentation page, a carousel with identical items can be created. So, if a visitor is unsatisfied with certain products, they can receive a notification about comparable items in which they might be highly interested.
8.7. Customize Field for Better Engagement
Personalization helps to evoke a sense of loyalty. A recent eCommerce UX trend is customization. This has taken the eCommerce industry by storm. Due to customization, users can select their preferred items from the site.
Or they can assign their preference on how things should be organized or even displayed while engaging with the website.
Some good examples of websites that make use of customization are Reddit and BBC. They are not eCommerce sites, but they show the path on how customization improves the UX. Hence, any eCommerce site can implement the same and control the interaction with clients.
8.8. Product Comparison
Usually, buyers love to compare products before making any final purchase. They consider comparing an item offered by you and even others before moving ahead to the sales funnel. It is the tendency of the customers to see in what way your product is better than others or vice versa.
Buyers view other sites to check what other information is offered by your competitors and not by you. Often some websites hide certain information in their snippets and compel the visitor to visit your site. This can be bad for any eCommerce. Hence, various product comparisons should be made as a part of the eCommerce UX design.
8.9. Provide Detailed Product Information
It is crucial to show high-quality images for your products. Similarly, offering a detailed description will help buyers to understand the product and take decisions regarding the purchase. With visual hierarchy, it becomes easy to offer the right kind of information. So, it is vital to offer the necessary information that any user might be looking forward to.
Instead of long descriptions, short descriptions must be used. Also, descriptions must be divided into sections, such as size, detailed features, and shipping. For additional information on the product, a collapse navigation tab must be used.
These are some important design practices that need to be focused on while working on the eCommerce website design process.
9. Set Standards for eCommerce UX Design
Most retailers, especially eCommerce store owners, should pay attention to the user experience of their customers. Following certain set standards for eCommerce UX design helps to work on good customer flow and even ensure steady financial returns. It must be kept in mind that the shopping flow stands for the general user journey.
If all eCommerce design elements are implemented properly, it might result in less cart abandonment, more impulse purchases, and overall greater conversion.
The user journey includes:
- Website discovery
- Product Search and Browse
- Product Page
- Cart
- Checkout
- Confirmation
To ensure a smooth user journey, eCommerce store owners should make it a point to make the customer’s shopping experience an enjoyable and hassle-free one. This calls for paying attention to the UX design.
10. Other Practices That Need to be Followed
Some other practices that must be followed are:
10.1. Show Relevant CTA
Despite having some interactive elements on a website, having some CTA buttons is still important. These elements lead any visitors through the next stage of the sales funnel. Implementing some CTA elements effectively is bound to bring results.
10.2. Effective Presentation of Items
To make eCommerce UX more interesting, proper presentation of the items is crucial. Care should be taken regarding – how easy it is to view products on the site or whether details of the items can be viewed easily by the buyer. Thinking from the buyer’s point of view is crucial. This helps to take an improved approach for UX design.
10.3. Add Social Proof
The eCommerce website design makes it a point to include social proof for customers. This greatly influences the behavior of the customers. According to research, social proof works on the principles of persuasion and it has helped eCommerce websites greatly.
To bolster the confidence of buyers, social proof like reviews or customer ratings or customer comments can be added. Often products sold on Amazon contain different kinds of social proof.
10.4. Shopping Cart Design
The shopping cart should be designed in a manner that helps with maximum conversion. Remember, a good shopping cart is bound to keep buyers engaged with your site.
In other words, the buyers might be more interested in the products they are viewing. This, in turn, will help to ensure that they complete the checkout process. So, the design of the cart should be simple; yet, with full emphasis on clarity.
The cart page should be easy to navigate. Plus, it should have a compelling CTA button. These factors must be considered while planning the eCommerce UX design of the site or mobile app.
10.5. High-Quality Images
When you are running an eCommerce store, you must go for high-quality images for the products you are selling. Good images help customers to understand the product in a better way. Plus, high-quality images of a product must be taken from different angles. This helps to highlight the product in a better way.
10.6. In Scale Photos
To improve the user experience of visitors, the eCommerce UX design process must integrate in-scale photos. After all, maximum users try to gauge the size of the product from the product images. Hence, it is a promising idea to offer pictures that are taken in a real-time setting. It offers improved visuals through which customers can interact with the product in a better way.
10.7. User Generated Content
Based on a digital marketing company, 77% of buyers prefer photos posted by present customers over photos taken by professionals. So, businesses should encourage their regular customers to offer feedback on the product or simply share their experience after using the product on social media platforms.
The mention of brand names across social media can be easily shared with potential visitors who can turn into customers. This type of interaction is important to improve the eCommerce user experience.
11. The Various Perspectives That Show eCommerce UX Design Is Important
What are the perspectives that must be kept in mind while considering the eCommerce UX design?
Well, there are three perspectives to keep in mind. They are Business Aspect, UX Aspect, and UI (User Interface) Aspect.
11.1. Business Perspective: Branding and Promotion
Websites and mobile applications for eCommerce need to be created with the business scheme in mind. They are a part of the business plan with certain goals in mind and there should be certain plans to achieve them. So, the design of an eCommerce site or application should start much before.
Certain issues that need to be considered and agreed on are:
11.1.1. USP of Website or Mobile Application
It is important to assign the benefits that will make your site or application highly different from others. Thus, making the design the core value of the web or mobile app.
11.1.2. Defined Target Audience
In eCommerce, deciding on the buyers from the first stage of the project is especially important. Knowing their age and culture, wishes, product interests, level of literacy, social media influence, and habits must be considered. Designers should come up with the shortest route to make the purchase successful.
11.1.3. Positioning and Tone of the Brand
How does a business house need to describe its brand? Or is the brand very friendly? Is it for the masses or for the elite? Are the products offered by the brand easily available or are they just exclusive?
These questions might not be meant to be relevant for business as they are more concerned with profit, points of sales, and finance. However, these issues or questions are important because the answers will determine the future brand image of the brand. Hence, it is not wrong to say that the design forms the face of the brand.
11.1.4. Marketing and Sales Channel
Beyond doubt, it is hard to assign all the social media channels for selling or promoting a product. However, as a part of effective business planning, one should start thinking of it right from the core. This will allow the design team to track and even support the experiences, such as interacting with the product and getting to the product.
Even if the designers make great efforts in setting and strengthening the marketing and sales through various means, from the landing pages to branded items and everything in between.
11.1.5. Type of Business Relations
Based on the type of business relationship and the target customers, the core aspect of the UX design can be influenced. Depending on whether the site is a B2B or B2C, a proper layout can be picked depending on the possible user behavior.
11.1.6. Typical Environment Use
Designers need to know under which conditions users might use the website or the app. Similarly, they must know when and where they might be using the site. These factors are extremely important as they have an impact on layout decisions.
Along with the layout, color schemes, typography, transitions, and interactions are a global goal to make the shopping process easy and enjoyable.
11.2. UX Perspective
Regarding eCommerce, it is important to understand that selling goods through a website or through a mobile application is an important course of action. Businesses look forward to the fact that consumers will keep buying from their website or app. Only then will it ensure steady profit for the business.
These are some characteristics that can make any eCommerce store appealing. The goal of any eCommerce store is obvious: to make customers visit the store and compel them to make some purchases.
One must keep in mind that a great user experience is important for user retention. In the case of eCommerce web or mobile app, the crucial parts of UX are:
The product’s utility should be inherent in the design. This, in turn, will help the users to buy and select the products.
Based on usability, the consumer journey must be kept very straightforward and clear. Often complicated menus or too much time to load are the sole reasons to see a drop in the number of users. So, while planning eCommerce website design, these points must be considered.
Regarding accessibility, it is important to focus on eCommerce UX design so that user groups like people with disabilities can be focused on.
Desirability shows the look and the feel of the app that will make the user experience a delightful one.
In this regard, it is extremely important to have a modern and trendy design for your website. Only then the success of the website is a sure guarantee. However, the supreme point that needs to be worked upon is simple navigation.
11.2.1. Mobile eCommerce Best Practices
In case you are targeting the mobile audience, it is important to adapt to the mobile UX designs at once. There is a reason for that. Mobile eCommerce has its own rules and regulations for ensuring a good UX for the users. So, some must-have considerations for improving mobile eCommerce usability are:
- Focus on thumb focus interaction
- Priority search should be at the top of the page
- Support image scaling with double-tap or pinch gesture
- Descriptive and mobile-optimized forms
- Save function for the shopping cart UX
- Audio detection and auto-suggestions
- Voice recognition for speeding up the searches and interactions
- Smooth and fast payment with in-built payment systems, such as Google Pay
These are some of the best practices to be followed for mobile eCommerce. Following these practices will ensure a good eCommerce UX experience for all.
11.3. UI Perspective
Just like the eCommerce UX perspective is crucial, the same is for UI. The UI allows the designers to focus on looks and styles, apart from transitions. These factors are important for the success of the eCommerce site.
Designers of any eCommerce website design company must take the following points into consideration. They are:
- Bright colors should be in line with the brand’s image.
- Decide a style that goes well with the nature of your business. In other words, people should be able to tell what your business is all about.
- Focus on the primary areas of engagement.
Here, one should keep in mind that the general harmony of the UI perception will lead to aesthetic satisfaction that provides a positive customer experience.
12. Recent Trends in eCommerce UX Design
As you might know, to survive in this competitive business environment, eCommerce stores must offer a user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing site. Only then can they be successful in getting more customers for their business. More customers mean more sales and leads to huge profits.
In case you are running an eCommerce store and wondering about the UX design trends that you should implement, then you must try out the following.
- Vertically aligned menus for proper mobile responsiveness
- Holistic eCommerce experience by adding new products and expanding the market
- Video or 360-degree visualization for better interaction with the products
- Use of bright and bold colors to stand out from competitors
- Unconventional layouts for a better user experience
- Virtual and augmented reality to enhance the multisensory digital experience
- Sophisticated voice user interface to make purchases easy through voice commands
- Animated content for a better user experience
- Delving into the Metaverse
- Branding with illustrations
- Integration with social networks
13. Role of Design in eCommerce: In a Nutshell
When you are building your eCommerce site or app around a great user experience, it is going to get you more traffic. When any casual visitor finds eCommerce UX to be a good one, it is bound to impress them. As a result, they will spread the word about your business.
It must be kept in mind that UX design is not just adding some Buy/Purchase buttons to the sites or having a properly structured navigation menu. Designers must aim to make the product page attractive and appealing. This is because aesthetic visuals will take the user to their goal.
In this competitive business environment, buyers should be able to differentiate your brand from that of your competitors. Also, they should get attached to your page because of the personalized experience that you or your eCommerce site and mobile app are offering.
Visitors are more likely to return to your online store if it offers simple navigation along with an enjoyable shopping experience. Hence, businesses need to optimize every element of the UX eCommerce design – starting from site structure to product details. Only then will your target customers get what they are looking for.
To implement good design practices for an eCommerce website, it is better to work with any reputable eCommerce website design agency. They will take into consideration the UI/UX design factors for the successful development of the eCommerce marketplace.
This, in turn, will guarantee your potential visitors turn into repeat visitors. Repeat visitors mean good sales and great ROI value.
14. Consider Hiring a Company for an eCommerce Website with Good UX
If you are planning to improve the user experience of your website or mobile app, make it a point to hire a professional eCommerce website design company for this task. By hiring the highly skilled web designers of eWay Corp, businesses can greatly benefit. Our designers will carry out the design considering your brand goals. Plus, the designers will portray the vision through a good eCommerce lens.
A successful eCommerce UX/UI considers everything, right from initial overviews to the purchase process. With proper design practices in place, businesses can see a dramatic increase in their retention and revenue.
15. Why Hire a Professional eCommerce Website Design Agency for a Good eCommerce UX?
The reasons to hire a professional eCommerce website design company for dealing with eCommerce UX are plenty. However, the most important reasons are listed below:
15.1. Keep Up with Trends
As a part of eCommerce web design services, designers of any eCommerce website design agency should remain updated about the latest design trends. The UX design is constantly evolving. The professional designers will be able to implement the latest trends and ensure target customers have an intuitive navigation experience aligning with the new UX and usability principles.
15.2. Top Design Experts
Business professionals who are running an online business look forward to outscoring their competitors. By hiring design experts from any eCommerce website design company, they can stay assured of getting good results. The design professionals give extensive knowledge of UX design and are rightly implemented through their work.
15.3. Excellent Results
For eCommerce website design, it is important to ensure excellent results. When you work with professionals of any eCommerce website design agency, a great result is guaranteed.
Concluding Note
The eCommerce UX should always focus on customers. Businesses need to ensure that they are offering a great shopping experience across all platforms. With good eCommerce UX in place, there is nothing to look back on or worry about. It is bound to offer increased conversions.
Also, it must be kept in mind that the eCommerce website design should not be limited to aesthetics. Designers must ensure that visitors are able to surf the site and make necessary purchases. With proper UX/UI optimization, the needs of the business and the buyers can be met. Contact us for eCommerce website design services.
