E-commerce and UX: what do customers expect?

by Anton Boshoff
Tue, 19/02/2019 - 15:13

 

You should implement an e-commerce digital marketing strategy that includes improving your UX. A better design will ensure that your customers do not simply abandon their carts because your website was too difficult to use. 

For example, ensure that your product pages are listed in a way that makes sense, such as grouping women’s shoes and fashion together. You should also tie your site together with another marketing channel, such as developing an e-commerce email marketing strategy. 

Your e-commerce website design should focus on how the consumer will interact with your site, rather than how many products can be sold. Below are some tips on exactly what consumers expect in terms of e-commerce in South Africa and its UX. 

Speed is needed

The loading speed of your website can have a significant effect on how many customers you retain… and lose. Think about it like this: a customer navigates to your homepage, eagerly awaiting to see your products. But what they get is a white loading screen. They will probably close the tab before your site even loads, meaning that you have missed out on adding to your customer base. 

You will need to test the speed of your site, as this accounts for almost 11 percent of why customers abandon their carts. Speeding up your website is not a difficult feat, but if you cannot afford to do it at the moment, you can look into making your loading page fun and even interactive. If your consumers can interact further with your brand, they will be more likely to move from filling their shopping cart to checking out. 

Create a coherent design

The design, colour and layout of e-commerce sites are one of the most important aspects to work on to improve your business. If you had to go shopping and see a store that was disorganised, unattractive and hard to navigate, would you continue to shop there? The short answer is no, and the same applies to online stores. A clean, simple and easy-to-use website is what almost every consumer demands today. 

Your website should have product groupings that make sense. You could have women’s clothing and shoes as one page, men’s shoes and clothing as the next and so forth. Consumers need to be able to find exactly what they are looking for without difficulty, otherwise, you run the risk of losing them before they make a purchase. Be sure that your contact page is simple to find and clearly located on your home page. If you have specific colours that have been used in your logo, incorporate those into the website. 

Carefully curated product selection

Having a large product selection might seem like the best option for building an e-commerce website, but too many choices can be just as bad as too few. This is because consumers want to find what they need in a minimal amount of time, which ties into increasing the speed of your site by lowering the number of elements it needs to render. 

“Decision paralysis” is a real issue that UX designers and e-commerce businesses have to deal with, and what it means is that consumers feel as though there are too many choices to make and ultimately end up making none. To remedy this, you should select your product offerings very carefully, rather than trying to source dozens of products, stick to your niche. You should also allow people to search by brand or category, as well as offering them a search function for more specific needs. 

The customer is king

Whether you sell online or in a physical store, the needs and experience of your customers should always come first. The speed of your site is the most important aspect to work on, as a slow site could lose a lot of customers. 

You also need to have a coherent design, one that is natural to use and that will engage consumers. Having too many products is not always the best idea, but if you have a few select pieces consumers will be happy to buy from you. Speak to Rogerwilco about creating a powerhouse e-commerce site using all of these techniques.

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