Good user experience requires more than just an eye-catching design. It involves multiple components working together to help visitors navigate a site and complete their goals most efficiently. 

Every element must be optimised with a good user experience, from website structure to product details.

What is UX, and why is it important?

UX stands for user experience, all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products. 

It’s important to note that this includes interactions in different devices with different screen sizes; these may consist of using a desktop then switching to a mobile phone.

If you have a great user experience on desktop but not mobile, you can still risk losing potential customers. With ever-increasing traffic coming from mobile devices to eCommerce sites, it’s essential to make the appropriate changes so that the site looks good on any screen.

A good user experience can also help you increase your order value by allowing customers to find the products they are looking for easier and faster. Not to mention, the shopping experience would be pleasant; customers would want to stay on your site longer, purchase more items and go back to the site to make repeat purchases. 

Good UX can also help you retain more customers, which increases your customer return rate. This happens because shoppers are more willing to return to an eCommerce store they find pleasant and easy to use.

Remember that understanding your target customer’s behaviours and expectations is key to optimising UX. 

By understanding your ideal customer’s expectations and how they interact with a site, you will make accurate UX decisions. 

Guide Users with Personalised Product Recommendations

Personalised product recommendations can help you guide users to the right products and allow them to discover new ones. 

This may increase their average order value and create a better user experience. It’s like having a customer representative giving product suggestions.

For example, you can have product recommendations to display similar products to the one the customer views in a section called “Customers who bought this item also bought …”. 

This means that customers will discover new products or even find alternative ones they probably weren’t looking for.

Another well known used recommendation is a “best seller” or “trending” section. 

These work well because they offer social proof. It makes customers think that if other people find those specific products useful, they may be the best items to buy or even the most popular. 

Another way to use recommendations is to up-sell and cross-sell products. To up-sell, you can show visitors similar products they are looking for. You can showcase complementary products that can enhance the product experience. 

For example, eyelashes can be paired with eyelash glue to make them easier to apply.

Organised & Easy to Navigate Website Structure

Imagine walking into a store and finding bed sheets mixed up with bathroom products or aisles with mixed up signs. How would that make you feel? Disorientating, right?

Your eCommerce visitors can get a similar feeling if you have poor website navigation. 

It can take them longer and be more challenging to find the products they’re looking for, making it hard to discover new ones.

What makes good website navigation? It depends on your customers and the way they shop. This will determine your product classification and what categories you choose to highlight on your main menu. Standard best practices can be used to enhance the user experience.

Another best practice is to use filters to help the customers find the type of items they are looking for with more ease. Some standard filters are category, price, colour, and size. So, for example, if someone visits the tops section, they can then filter for the type of product. This process will save a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted skipping product pages. 

Get Customer Feedback

Even following best practices, there will always be room for improvement. Getting customer’s feedback is very important to find out what areas need improvement and make the appropriate changes. Customers even provide suggestions for improvement, saving retailers the time of guessing the answer. 

Some essential elements are crucial to having a successful feedback process. One of them is automation. 

Automate feedback request emails to be sent out after a customer’s first purchase and after periods. 

It’s good to set dates where they are sent out automatically to save time. This will guarantee consistency and allow you to scale the process. 

You could also offer an incentive for customers to provide feedback. For example, offering a discount code or a gift on the next purchase is a great way to encourage customers to give feedback. In addition, apps that can help smooth out this process and track results can be integrated with platforms like Shopify.

Once the feedback is collected, you can showcase it under specific products or different parts of your eCommerce site. It will help gain the trust of new visitors. If you get bad feedback, Make sure the issue is being fixed.

Offer Save to Wishlist Option

Adding to the cart can sometimes be a big commitment. For example, a visitor may like a product but may want to keep browsing for more items to compare before purchasing, or they are just unsure and want to save products for another time. 

Whatever the reason may be, giving the option to save products before purchasing allows users to shop comfortably without being pressured to make an immediate decision.

Without such an option, users would have to remember the products they like and then try to find them later, which would mean more work and time from the customer, which will become a bad customer experience. Also, the “save to wishlist” option provides you with another way to get the user’s information. Once the customer clicks to save their products, you can take them to a simple registration to keep their list. 

This is useful as you can then send emails to those customers to remind them to finish their purchase. You can even send them a unique discount code to motivate them to purchase sooner rather than later.

Allow Users to “Drop a Hint” 

Saving an item to a list works well when customers are shopping for themselves, but what about when they are looking to get a gift from someone else? 

Having a “wish list” or a registry option allows users to send “hints” for gift ideas.

Let’s say it’s the wedding anniversary. One of the partners is asking the other for a gift idea and what they would like, so a hint is sent, making it easier for both people, therefore, providing a good user experience for both. 

Even if there’s no special occasion, this feature can encourage users to share products with others, bringing more traffic to the site. You will also get the chance to get the email address from both—the user sending the hint and the recipient—which can be used in the future. 

Create an Omnichannel Experience

Providing a unified or omnichannel experience is key to success in a multichannel world. It will make sure all your visitors get the same messaging and brand image whatever their platform. 

This provides a better user experience and makes your brand more memorable.

A lack of consistency can confuse customers and their expectations about your store. For example, should they choose your store for fast shipping, high quality, or affordable pricing? 

Delivering mixed messages can confuse your customers and put them off.

Create Trust with Transparency 

The more precise your website can be with information, including product details, company policies, and shipping, the more trust you’ll be able to gain from your visitors. 

Being confident and transparent can help your visitors feel more confident about their purchase, knowing that they have all the information they need to make a decision. 

In doing so, this creates a more comfortable user experience. However, there are key places where you should be as straightforward as possible, such as on product pages, since they are essential in bringing in conversions. 

It would be best if you showed the essential information: product materials, dimensions, special instructions, benefits, and other product information.

Offer Social Proof

Social proof can be shown through customer reviews, user-generated content like social media, the number of followers or email subscribers. 

The more information you can provide that can show support from others can influence visitors to gain more trust in the work you are doing, reducing potential doubts or concerns about your products, which will make a better user experience. 

Engage, Re-Engage, and Award

Customer journeys don’t usually end with their first purchases. Ask for feedback; this is essential to engage with the customer constantly to keep at the top of their minds. You can send out emails and place ads on social media. 

Once your customers return to your store, figure out how to make their experience as appealing and efficient as possible. For instance, you can show them a list of their last viewed products.

An award system for top customers is a good idea putting in place special offers and exclusive product offers that can also encourage the customer to return. 

Make sure that any special promotional codes or offers are easily redeemable. Otherwise, it can cause a bad user experience.

Are you ready to smash it online? 

Euphoric is a specialist digital marketing agency based in West Sussex. 

We have a reputation as an agency that consistently delivers high rankings and sustainable results with our SEO marketing strategies. 

We would love to chat if you would like to discuss how Euphoric can help you with your SEO strategies.