Seven UX ideas to improve your ecommerce sales

All we need is conversions, and retailers around the globe keep developing new and new ideas to increase the rates and make site visitors buy. Some of them are really innovative, and some of them are controversial, to say the least, but it doesn’t mean that the best techniques can’t be distinguished. Building a good ecommerce user experience is significant for any business that wants to achieve high results.

Ecommerce UX takes a crucial role in creating a superior customer experience. Considering this fact, personalization can generate more sales, and customers are 40% more likely to spend more than planned when they get a highly satisfying personalized experience.

That’s exactly what we are going to discuss today — the killer user experience ideas that can explode your ecommerce sales and improve the online shopping experience. So, if you want to find your website’s weaknesses and turn them into your main strengths, you’re definitely in the right place.  

1) Improve customer service with chatbots

Do you know that over 40% of consumers don’t really care about who is providing support as long as it is high-quality assistance? Otherwise (Read more...) they completely tolerate chatbots if they solve their problems. For many business owners, it’s a perfect solution to use chatbots for some reasons:

• A great opportunity to cut costs by 30%;
• Automate customer service;
• Answer over 80% of common visitors’ questions faster;
• Human agents can focus on more challenging and demanding tasks;
• Support a 24-hour business availability;
• Gather feedback from potential customers;
• Offer discounts, content, and other deals.

Getting a chatbot in 2020 makes sense not only due to the benefits above but also because they become more and more common.

For example, banks are going to automate up to 90% of their customer interaction using chatbots by 2022. It is highly likely that in a few years they will become a must for any commercial website, and no wonder — more and more customers are looking for immediate 24/7 customer support. 

Anyway, if you have qualified and responsible human agents, there is no need to fire them because the future is already here. Restructuring the process can be great for any business: delegating routine tasks to chatbots and challenging tasks to people is a win-win.

Fortunately, you can find lots of great chatbot platforms available on the market that can help you automate customer interactions and marketing tasks. 

2) Get rid of navigational lags

Unclear website navigation may be losing your customers. The research has shown that if 10 people visit a regular conference call platform with standard navigation options like Features, Platform, Services, Solutions, and try to find the same piece of content on the website, they will all make different navigation paths.

To be honest, this is a common situation for many websites. People often prefer to follow standard labels. Instead, you need to be super clear and super specific — that’s how you can help customers find what they need before they leave. 

Messy site architecture, site speed, or the lack of a search bar – all of these drivers can lead to navigational lags on your websites. The more difficulties your visitors experience, the more likely they will leave. 

Make sure that your navigation options are clean and clear. Conducting a detailed technical SEO audit is always a great way to scan all of your website pages and get actionable insights on any issues that may appear. This approach will help you reduce the number of navigational lags and build an efficient experience on your website.

3) Display trust seals

Everyone knows that shopping online is riskier than shopping offline. If you want to show that your business takes financial security seriously, you need to increase the best sense of trust when people buy online. That’s where you can use your trust seals to increase trustworthiness and sales on your checkout page. 

However, there are a few important things to consider. First, not all seals are effective. They work well enough only if they are recognizable and associated with safety. So, adding a random trust seal is probably not the best idea. 

A study by Baymard revealed how Americans treat particular trust seals. According to the results, Norton, McAfee, TRUSTe, BBB Accredited, Thawte were the most recognizable and the most trusted seals. 

Don’t try to display your trust badges all the time, as it can have the opposite effect. Customers are likely to ask themselves: “Why does this website show this to me all the time? Maybe, it’s trying to scam me?” and they can bounce. If you want to make sure that you’re going to add effective trust seals, do an A/B test and choose the best option. 

Tip: Consider including a disclaimer about the security and encryption of buyers’ credit card information.

4) Include all fees upfront

It all depends on what you expect from your buyers. Do you want them to make one purchase and leave for good, or maybe turning most of your site visitors into loyal customers seems a better idea? If you like the second scenario more, a transparent pricing policy is all you need to provide the best customer experience and keep them coming back. 

There are different reasons why a lot of companies don’t want to show their prices.

For example, one of my clients prefers to follow this strategy because it’s difficult to say how much their services will cost and all client cases are different. But if you have clear and understandable pricing for products or services, make sure to include all retail and shipping prices upfront.

As a result of all this, you can build a good relationship with buyers that leads to a successful customer experience.

5) Include reviews of satisfied customers

Adding customer reviews is always a win-win. You know that online reviews can significantly affect your conversions. When people look through the testimonials of satisfied customers, they are more likely to make a buying decision. But there’s an even more powerful tool than testimonials.

Today a lot of ecommerce sites find it worthy to feature customer-generated content like ratings and product reviews. On Amazon, many of us won’t purchase without looking at the review section. Moreover, “review” related search queries have a high search volume and conversion potential. 

For instance, if a user is looking for “best camera for streaming reviews”, he needs something intentionally that can result in a conversion. No matter what your traffic and rankings, you can still increase your ecommerce sales by using this simple tactic.

Consider that including tons of positive but fake reviews is a bad step to take. Even the negative reviews should not be deleted — just respond to them politely and try to draw attention to the positive aspects. 

6) Use a guest checkout process

Making customers create accounts on your website before a purchase is a widespread sales tactic among ecommerce businesses. In most cases, marketers use their emails to send out business promotional newsletters. But let us suppose that buyers don’t want to waste time proving their contact information before making a purchase. All they need is to buy your product online with no strings attached. 

Consider that 23% of customers are ready to abandon their online shopping cart if they have to sign up for accounts before buying your goods. So, if you don’t provide an opportunity to buy something without completing registration, you will kill conversions. Consider that your website makes it possible to browse or purchase without handing over an email address. 

7) Provide a great mobile experience

Providing a user-friendly mobile ecommerce UX can encourage 77% of online shoppers to buy from businesses whose mobile apps or websites help them make quick purchasing decisions. I mean that all retailers should focus on the mobile experience and try to provide an omnichannel customer experience through different devices.

Make sure to optimize your website for mobile and use responsive design. Get rid of any kind of a mess (unnecessary words, unnecessary visuals, pop-ups, etc.) and simplify your mobile interaction form. It’s also important to keep your content short and informative for a mobile audience. All this takes time and effort, but the result is absolutely worth it. 

Bottom line

Ecommerce user experience is an ongoing process that takes some time, effort, and money. But the more you invest, the more sales you will get.

I hope that these seven UX ideas can give you a clear idea of how to improve your website to explode your sales and keep your customers coming back to your store. I know that not everything will work well for you, but it’s up to you to test them to figure out whether they work for your business.