Over 85% of U.S. consumers do at least some shopping online. The percentage of the market is set to grow, at the expense of large physical malls. Every company needs to embrace e-commerce and provide a seamless online experience.
In this competitive market, a good experience can make or break a sale. A slow website, an awkward interface, these things can quickly send customers elsewhere.
This blog will cover five proven strategies for a good customer journey that will increase sales and satisfaction.
Optimize Website Speed and Mobile Responsiveness
Your website must load quickly, including on mobile devices. A recent survey indicates that if your website takes more than 6 seconds to load, nearly half of searchers will move on. While you can’t do anything about slow networks, you can take steps to optimize speed. Google also takes page speed into account when ranking websites. Some quick tips:
- Compress images and files. Large images slow websites down, but good product images make sales. Use image optimization to make images match the size of the device.
- Use a mobile-first approach. Many people now use their smartphones as their primary device to access the internet, and a site that loads fast on a phone will also load fast on a computer.
- Leverage caching. Make sure your site is set up properly to cache images and improve navigation speed.
- Get a reliable hosting provider. Look at other sites they host and how quickly they load.
Create an Intuitive, User-Friendly Interface
If your site is complicated and hard to navigate, customers will get frustrated and go elsewhere. Make sure that your site is easy to handle, across multiple devices. Have it tested, ideally by people less familiar with your company. Here are our tips:
- Use clear categories and filters. Make sure they make sense and reflect how people are really using the site. Routinely check search terms being used to see if they are calling up categories.
- Implement predictive search. This allows people to type fewer letters, especially on mobile, and navigate faster. Make sure to use a high-quality predictive search interface.
- Ensure consistent design, especially for call-to-action buttons. All product pages should have the same layout so that things are easy to find.
Provide Rich Product Information and Visuals
Online shoppers are buying your product sight unseen. They are making their decision based on the product information and visuals you provide. As they can’t touch, lift, or otherwise handle the product, your images must do a lot of heavy lifting. Our suggestions:
- Use high-quality images taken from multiple angles. Think about how the product will be used for example, it’s important to show the underside of a toy car. Modern tools allow you to change the color of an image to show the product in more available colors.
- Include videos if possible. When a video doesn’t make sense, a 360-degree view can be helpful. Make sure to only have the site load videos when called to do so both to optimize speed and reduce annoyance.
- Write clear, benefit-driven product descriptions. Take questions from shoppers and, ideally, update product descriptions based off what they want to know.
Social proof can help too. Don’t forget customer reviews, giving customers the option to upload a photo with their review makes it even better. This is a cheap and easy way to get pictures of the product being used in different ways.
Offer Personalized Shopping Experiences
Nobody wants to feel like an account number. According to McKinsey, companies that excel at personalization generate 40 percent more revenue. And just putting somebody’s name into a cart abandonment email isn’t going to be enough. Fortunately, these days, e-commerce systems can collect large amounts of data that help with personalization. Some easy things to do:
- Recommend products based off browser history.
- Offer personalized discounts or product bundles. Use their purchase history or browser history and if you can get it personal events such as birthdays.
- Implement AI-driven chatbots with personalization and use product quizzes to find out how people use or intend to use your products.
Simplify the Checkout and Post-Purchase Process
Most abandoned carts are due to things like shipping turning out to be too slow or expensive or the customer changing their mind (sometimes to go get it from the store). However, 18% of people who abandon carts do so because the checkout process is too complicated. Others may struggle through it because they really need the item, but then not come back. Complicated checkouts equate to lost sales.
Here are some tips to make your checkout a breeze:
- Enable guest checkout. 19% of carts are abandoned because people don’t want to create an account. While it’s tempting to force account creation to get valuable data, it is a major turnoff for consumers.
- Offer multiple payment options. 19% of carts are abandoned because people don’t trust the website with their credit card and 10% because the site doesn’t have enough payment methods. Offer PayPal, Apple Pay, Klarna, etc. (Don’t just offer PayPal either, as quite a few people don’t like them).
- Send real-time order updates and easy return instructions. Always provide a tracking number so that people can follow the shipment themselves. Make returns easy, especially during the holiday season, when cart abandonment rates shoot up.
Keeping the checkout simple increases the chance, that people will complete their purchase instead of going somewhere else.
So, in short, the best tips we have for keeping your online shopping experience smooth are to increase website speed, create a user-friendly interface, provide good product information, personalize the experience, and simplify checkout. A great online experience is not just about tech and design but about thinking like a customer.
Audit your e-commerce store with these tips in mind, including getting friends or family members less familiar with what you do to check your site. If your e-commerce site needs help, contact Tailbase to book a consultation with us. We can help you improve your customer experience, conversion rates, and bottom line.