Global eCommerce sales are expected to hit $5.5 trillion in 2022 and surge in the years to come with 76% of US adults preferring to shop online. The recent pandemic has significant contribution to exceptional growth in online shopping.
A need is realized by the retailers after the crisis that people expect the same offline retail experience comprises of personalized service, face-to-face interactions, branded displays, and recommendations translated into a digital format. With more places to shop and a shorter attention span, it has become essential to go beyond convenience and virtualize the shopping experience. Otherwise, they take no time to move to the competition.
Optimizing the shopping experience is a single fix to all of the challenges (engagement, sales, retention, and branding) that online retailers are facing. There are many eCommerce development companies that are lending a hand to the retailers to build UX-optimized websites or reimagine the existing website just the way brick-and-mortar stores renovate. However, there are multiple ways to engineer the best experiences that drive the result as expected.
8 ways to optimize the online shopping experience for exceptional results
- Make your website mobile-friendly
76% of the Ecommerce websites are browsed by the users on mobile.
The major threat to the Ecommerce website is not the competitors, but it’s a back button that users tap when the websites doesn’t function well on the mobile device. Even if your beautiful website loads slowly on mobile or have some resolution issues, then your website is more likely to have few users. Most importantly, time is money for users, and if the website won’t perform well, which means the store gives less importance to the precious time that users spending on the online store. It hurts the user experience.
The Ecommerce store should optimize the tech stack, design, and other functionalities to ensure the best performance on mobile irrespective of location and internet connectivity. The technology at the backend must be robust enough to make the website functions fairly on every device and graphics elements in UI design should be mobile-optimized so that website creates a positive user experience.
- Deliver personalized experience
As discussed above, the users expect a personal touch virtually that they receive offline such as making suggestions for the best pair, buying combos to avail of the discounts, and others. This is feasible in the Ecommerce store by tracking user activities through cookies or incorporating AI algorithms that silently observe every touchpoint of the individual users. When this data is combined with the CRM platform, making tailored suggestions becomes possible.
For instance, Amazon offers personalized recommendations below for every product detail page based on users’ browsing patterns. Also, customized emails are sent to the users for the products they left in the cart that are about to go out of stock or for informing them about sales on the products that they were searching for the last time. It delights the users and delivers the best experiences, which mostly turn up into improved sales.
- Enable self-service option
Research states that in the dynamic world, 73% of the users prefer to solve their product or service-related issues on their own without connecting or talking to the customer support team.
It makes perfect sense to create a user forum for the website or social media page where the users can leave their complaints and get answers to them. After knowing the queries that are repetitively asked, they should be included in the FAQ section so that the users can get troubleshoot the problem without much ado.
This way users get the self-service option that they are looking for and the valuable time of customer support gets saved, which is utilized in meaningful activities.
- Go omnichannel
Ecommerce stores are turning to a marketplace business model to broaden the range of offerings without needing to buy and store anything. It enables Ecommerce owners to make money by just acting as facilitators for the transaction. That’s great!
Another way to increase the sales and profits is to increase the reach to the users by making the products/services available for sale and advertising on multiple channels such as mobile, website, social channels, and other digital media forums. Incorporating an omnichannel business model in marketing strategy is a good start.
Based on market conditions and users’ preferences, the omnichannel efforts are bifurcated accordingly. For instance, turning eCommerce into mCommerce is a top priority followed by social presence creation, and then advertisements.
- Entice users with free…
Every one of us likes to get things free, be it a coffee sachet with grocery, branded napkins with brand items, or free shipping. It doesn’t cost much to the online retailers and they smartly accommodate the cost in the product/service price that users rarely think about. Why hangs fire? Let’s do it!
Bake the free shipping cost in the product/service cost to make the users happier, turn them into potential customers, and stay competitive in the crowded market.
- Keep high-quality content
When social promotions and ads bring your users to the website, they expect to see content that dispels their doubts and describes the product in detail. Keeping up with the “less is more” adage, try to keep less text and more high-quality images, videos, animations, and user-generated photos that improves the visual appeal and build trust in the brand.
Color schemes also play a vital role in grabbing users’ attention, so pay heed to color psychology when planning colors for the Ecommerce store.
- Simplify navigation and checkout
Make it easy for your users to search for the product when they land on the Ecommerce store and try to reach out for the product details. A good site search technology enables connecting the users’ intent with the right content, which ultimately delivers the best experiences.
When the users added the product to the cart seamlessly with a simplified navigation structure, it’s necessary to allow the users to pay hassle-free. Making the checkout process easy with a reduced number of fields and visuals let users know how far they are from the final payment. So getting the checkout process completed in 3-4 clicks is a way to convert the users without any frustration. Seamless navigation and checkout allow stores to deliver outstanding experiences and bring out the money that they are ready to spend willingly.
- Provide instant support
Every user who is ready to spend money on the product or service you are offering, then they like to get answers to their queries. That’s where immediate support provided with live chat is a reliable option that enables users to get answers right away.
The live chat software integration allows users to chat, provide feedback, and get price-related questions resolved in real-time. The easy connection and communication improve the customer experience, which results in potential sales.
Wrapping it up
We are always willing to visit the brick-and-mortar store that’s modernized with quality display boards, appealing window displays, and smiling reps warmly welcoming us. This is the experience that draws us to the offline store repetitively. A similar experience has become a minimum expectation of the users when they are visiting an online store to shop at the convenience of a sofa.
Users are looking for an Ecommerce store that loads pages at speed, performs brilliantly on mobile, aesthetic designs soothe their eyes, seamless navigation eases the search, and enables checkout in a click or two. If your store is not optimized for all of these things, then get it done, for continued traffic and conversion. Otherwise, the outdated website makes users fall behind the competition and you lose the valuable asset.
It’s high time to reimagine the online store for your customers and the experience they are looking for. Follow the aforementioned ways to recreate it.
