The success of an eCommerce store majorly depends on the kind of experience that it provides to its users. User experience is of vital importance for customer acquisition as well as customer retention. With fierce competition among brands in the e-commerce market, the one which provides a simplified shopping experience to its users wins the race.
Why is UX so important?
Consumers do not easily forget a brand that offers a great user experience. UX is important for your online business to provide comfort to your visitors and make them loyal to your brand. It is the user experience that will keep your customers stick to your store in the long run.
Now, the important part, how to simplify the online shopping experience for customers? Think from a customer’s point of view. Treat yourself as your own store visitor, browse your website and ask yourself whether you are finding a comfortable experience or not.
There are always areas for improvement. In this article, I will provide you with 7 useful tips to simplify the online shopping experience and enhance the customer experience. Check them out.
1. Design your Home Page well
Your home page is the interaction point for your visitors. It decides whether the user is going to spend some time on your store or take an early exit. No matter how amazing your offerings are, if the home page of your eCommerce store doesn’t please the visitors, you are going to see a significant increase in the bounce rate and eventually lose out on potential customers.
Do not miss out on the prospects. Make your home page attractive, something that keeps the excitement in the visitor to browse your store. Give it a good design. Make your first impression count.
2. Provide easy Search Functionality
Enable easy search functionality for your customers to search for their desired product effortlessly. Well, even before this, place your search bar in the right places and make it easy to spot.
Your site search functionality should understand your users’ queries and provide relevant results. An effective site search should be responsive enough to display appropriate results on abbreviations, misspellings, related product searches, etc.
Try out Knowband’s Search Auto-suggest addon for Prestashop that allows you to customize your search bar as per your choice and helps you enhance your site search functionality.
3. Simplify your checkout process
Do not make your users wait for too long to place the order. The longer it takes for them to check out, the higher the chances of cart abandonment.
Make sure your checkout page offers easy login facility like Social login, a Guest checkout for those who do not want to get themselves registered on your e-commerce store, an easy option to update the product quantity without going back to the product page, multiple payment options, etc.
Try out our One Page Checkout for PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento and Magento 2.
Read: One Page Checkout vs Multi-Page Checkout: Which is better and Why?
4. Make your site mobile responsive
A majority of online shoppers prefer to shop from their mobile devices. Not everyone carries a laptop with him/her every time and not everyone is available at the desktop, but almost everyone owns a mobile phone today. This is why a mobile-optimized e-commerce site is a must for e-retailers in order to gain more mobile traffic and improve the online shopping experience of their mobile users.
5. Have a mobile app
Today, almost every business has their mobile app. Having a mobile app makes the shopping journey of consumers more convenient. In addition to this, the benefit of having a mobile app is that consumers are generally logged in into the app even when they are inactive. It avoids the re-login headache, and on top of that, offers faster loading and quick entry into the store. A mobile app is a necessity today for consumers as well as for merchants to simplify the customer experience.
6. Encourage reviews and ratings
Reviews heavily influence a customer’s decision to purchase a product. When shoppers search for a particular item, they look for its reviews to ensure its quality, to know whether it’s worth spending money or not.
Similarly, ratings define product quality. A well-rated product automatically builds up the trust in the user about that product and encourages them to make a purchase. This enhances user experience and reduces product return.
7. Enhance customer support
Consumers are filled with queries. It can be about some offerings, product availability, product return, etc. Anyone would love getting their queries resolved as soon as possible. Online shoppers are no different. Providing customers with an easy way to reach out to your support team makes them feel more relaxed and satisfied. Allow customers to contact you by dropping an instant message, email or a phone number.
Conclusion
Online businesses have realized the importance of providing a simplified shopping experience to users. If you want to grow as an eCommerce brand, focus on your customers’ needs and try to fulfil them. Take care of your customers and you will need not worry about your conversions much.
If you find the above-mentioned tips on “How to simplify the shopping experience of your customers?” helpful, do leave a comment below.
Keep it up, I am very impressed by reading your post. Your post is having great content about the user and shopping experience which is very helpful for those people who love shopping.
Thank You!
Thank you for your kind words, Carlos
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the community. Content show the great command and interest in the topic. It ll help to increase the conversion rate. This blog is able to visit again and again. shoppingland is site that are very near to follow this instructions.
Glad that you liked it, Zain
I’ve been wondering whether shopping in stores or online
Could you be more clear, Mr. Flower?
very good well done , thank you
Glad that you liked it, Helene