UX Design for eCommerce: Best Design Strategies to Consider

Quick Summary: Are you considering creating new eCommerce websites and mobile applications? What you see is what you get. Haven’t we all heard that before? It may not be true in all facets of life but it definitely makes sense in the eCommerce sector. There is so little time to make a favorable first impression.

If a website takes more than 40 seconds to load, people will leave right away. 90% of users uninstall the app due to poor performance. These website and app performance stats highlight the importance of UX in eCommerce.

The global eCommerce rate is expected to grow at an 8.9% rate in 2023, and the sales to $5.8 trillion. Another study by Forbes states that 24% of retail purchases will happen online by 2023.

There are approximately 12-24 million eCommerce websites worldwide. Are all of them successful? Many digital products fail. Yes, the answer is no. Even Amazon’s UX is average but it does great business because of many other reasons. However, we will discuss that in some other blog. Some of the most common UX/UI mistakes that companies make are as below.

• Poor mobile optimization
• Unclear messaging
• Complex menus
• Low image quality
• Bad navigation
• Out of stock items showing in the listings

The above points are just a few examples. This blog will discuss the best strategies and principles to ensure a good eCommerce user experience for your customers. Let’s get started.

What is eCommerce UX?

Ecommerce UX is nothing but a summary of the customer experience on your mobile application and website. It has nothing to do with product prices, discounts, or flashy taglines. Your website or app should do the talking, giving the customer an idea about your brand, products, and your vision. This happens when you have your eCommerce UX according to market needs and design trends. Offering smooth navigation will help you keep your users engaged with the products and provide an excellent user experience.

Right from the time customers arrive at your eCommerce website, they’re watching everything closely. Don’t expect a customer to be patient with a slow loading website or sluggish checkout process. Customers have plenty of options and they will leave immediately.
Again, eCommerce UX transcends beyond online purchases. It also includes return policies, prompt chat support, digital download options and much more.

Difference Between eCommerce UX and UI

People often use eCommerce UX and UI interchangeably but they are not the same. Think of UX and UI as people involved in making movies. User experience (UX) is like a movie director whose job is to ensure a thrilling experience for viewers.

eCommerce UX: How will the story proceed? How will the character’s lives intertwine with each other? What emotions should the actors convey? Will the audience leave with a happy feeling? In short, eCommerce UX is the complete experience that includes usability, functionality, and visual elements, and if it encourages customers to make a decision.

eCommerce UI: On the other hand, UI design for eCommerce is the visual element. Imagine UI as the production designer on a movie set. His job is to create an alluring set, full of vibrant colors while being relevant to the situation. Viewers must experience a visual treat. On a website, the UI refers to buttons, icons, notifications, and aesthetics. These elements on a website must be relevant and enhance the user experience.

10 Best Practices for eCommerce User Experience

There is no sure shot formula to create the best eCommerce UX design, but it’s totally different from the product design process and hence the roadmap will be unique. Let’s follow the steps below and get the basics right. This will enable you to create an enjoyable customer experience.

Clear Brand Positioning

Users form an opinion about a website in approximately 0.05 seconds. These impressions are mostly related to the design. Time is not a luxury for an eCommerce website. Rather than using confusing content and gaudy images, the website should quickly convey what you sell and how your product differs from others in the market.

Take for example McDonalds, its catchy logo design speaks to people. Right from the design, colors, to the fonts, everything leaves a long-lasting impression on customers. Its aim is to encourage regular people to grab a quick meal and leave happily.

A fine dining restaurant would adopt a much different approach to brand positioning because it targets a separate market segment. The names of the dishes, staff etiquettes, to the settings will tell an altogether different story.

Understand customer wants and needs

You must understand customers' needs to deliver a superlative user experience. If you’re a UX designer for an automobile spare parts dealer, you must understand your customer base, their product preferences, demographics, etc. Use valuable tools like Google Analytics to get such information.

Think from the customer’s perspective. Would he buy a particular spare part for his vehicle? There are some unwritten rules in every industry including automobiles like preference for a particular tire, air filter, or shock absorber.

The Mercedes owner will think differently from the guy who owns the Nissan Versa S. Recommended engine oil on the checkout page and observe their reaction. Did they buy or remove the item? Another good idea is to include a feedback widget on the page to obtain the required data.

Clear CTAs

Include a call to action (CTA) on your website because they are an integral part of eCommerce UX. You can expect customers to act as you wish. Sometimes, they need a little push or guidance. Note that the CTAs should be clear and not pushy.

The CTAs must be bold and differ in appearance from other content on the page. Additionally, it should convey what clicking on the text would do and direct them to the desired pages. Do not go overboard with the CTAs. Adopt a uniform pattern for CTAs on each page. Each CTA should be impactful and highlight the importance of choosing a particular product.

Streamlined Checkouts

The customer may like your product and add it to his cart, but that’s where the real battle starts. Without an optimized checkout process, he will lose interest and exit the website. There may be multiple reasons for his disinterest including a long checkout process, extra shipping costs, lack of payment methods, trust issues and others.

• 47% of customers found the shipping costs to be very high.
• 25% abandoned their carts because the website made it mandatory for them to create an account while
• 19% customers didn’t trust the website with their payment information
• 18% of customers found the checkout process to be too long.

UX designers must optimize the checkout process by clearly stating the number of steps during the UX design process. Also, specify mandatory and optional information. Most importantly, the checkout process must be simple to prevent distractions and the main product page must reveal additional shipping charges, if any.

Mobile Friendly Website

Websites appear differently on mobile devices as compared to laptops and desktops. Mobile eCommerce sales amount to $2.2 trillion in 2023. If the site does not load properly on a mobile device or does not provide a pleasant shopping experience, customers will not stick around.

Use performance improvement tools like Think With Google to determine your website’s mobile friendliness. Adopt a responsive approach wherein your website delivers seamless performance on all devices. Enhance your eCommerce mobile app design by using the right plugins. Pay attention to pop-ups, CTAs, pinch and zoom features, etc.

Top-Notch Images and Descriptions

Unlike brick & mortar stores, customers can’t feel your product online. Hence, the images should do the talking. Use high-quality images to advertise the products. Ensure that they are not exaggerated and they should be close to the real product or you may receive flak for making false promises. The images should display the products from all angles and if possible, also show the best way to use them. Include accurate and helpful product descriptions to enhance the customer’s eCommerce user experience.

Fix Security Issues

More than 30,000 websites fall prey to hackers every day. Businesses are expected to incur losses of $343 billion due to online payment frauds between 2023 to 2027. Imagine your customers having to deal with such problems. It could be harmful for your reputation.

You may want to take measures like-

• Using strong passwords
• Educate your customers
• Create a database copy
• Multi-layer security
• Work with a trusted payment partner
• Robust firewalls
• Install an SSL certificate
• Don’t save customer’s card info
• Use safety plugins
• Update your hardware and software

Tell your customers about the measures you undertake to ensure website security. It will instill confidence and trust in them.

Boost Website Speed

47% of customers will quit browsing your website if it takes over 2 seconds to load. There could be many reasons for a slow loading website. Optimize images if necessary, remove unnecessary plugins, evaluate your hosting, reduce HTTP requests, and use browser caching. In short, do whatever is necessary to ensure a fast loading website.

Improved Navigation

Most people who visit your website arrive with the intention of purchase. If they don’t find what they want or if they have to browse for hours to find the right product, they will not purchase from you. Nor will they recommend your services to anyone in their circle.

61% of customers stated that efficient website navigation and search options were one of the main factors that defined their shopping experience. Improve website navigation by keeping the homepage simple and direct. Adopt a logical approach for menu placement. Include icons like arrows or pointers that tell customers where to find particular products.

Solution: Avoid displaying too many links in the main menu, keep them between five and seven. Improve visual appeal by adding icons or buttons for links. Highlight sales, discounts, and today’s specials on the homepage. Add sub-categories if required. For example, create two categories for commercial air conditioners and home air conditioners with the AC category.

Always think from a customer’s perspective. How would you want your shopping experience to be? Ecommerce websites with the best UX keep it simple and organized, it's one of their keys to success.

Customer Support

Even if you do all the right things, customers may face issues while purchasing products. They will need guidance. Provide them with proactive customer support before, after, and during the purchase process. Invest in trained customer service representatives, AI chatbots, and omnichannel customer support to ensure a seamless shopping experience.

How the Finch Design Helps in Creating Outstanding eCommerce UX?

We at Finch Design help businesses of all sizes with reliable design consultancy. We help you create a clear roadmap for your eCommerce website development. When it comes to creating outstanding eCommerce websites, design is the first thing you need to begin with. We provide you with UI/UX designers that your business needs.

Finally

We have discussed everything about eCommerce UX in this article. We have also suggested the best practices to create an outstanding design for your eCommerce website or applications. Revisit them again before making a final decision. We are a leading UI UX Design agency, offering comprehensive design and consultancy services. You can connect with us for any of your needs.