When we develop an eCommerce website we make sure that it will be convenient for a customer to use it both on PC and on mobile devices. But a desktop and mobile versions of your online store are two different things: the customer perceives and uses each of them differently. As more and more people are getting used to making purchases with their mobile devices, we should make sure that everything works well and you aren’t losing a single customer.
There are several important things you should pay attention to in order to understand the customer better.
Your homepage is the face of your eCommerce store
The content on the main page should be relevant, readable and attractive. Get rid of the unnecessary text. Show the graphical elements in a favorable light. The homepage should create a proper understanding of the brand and show the main advantages of becoming your loyal customer.
Small details matter
The user’s attention should be grabbed once he opens the store: your company’s logo, a sign in option, special offers (better time-limited) shown on the quality photos, filtering & sorting option. Don’t forget to place “call to action” buttons under each block and pay attention how you name the buttons. Sometimes specifying the direct advantage from clicking the button works wonders instead of mentioning standard actions. For example, try “save 30%” instead of “buy now”. You can try to test the shape of the buttons. If you used square corners for buttons all the time, try round ones.
Do not use ambiguous phrases for naming product categories. A user may miss the necessary product interpreting it as “something else”. Make sure that each category leads the customers to products they intended to see there.
If there is an intention to reveal some additional info to the customer, do not forget that it may be useful for one client and be something quite unnecessary for another. Write a short phrase and make it clickable. The user will click the phrase and read the content if necessary.
You can increase the chance of making a purchase by showing the recommended products with the clients’ reviews on the homepage. Sometimes it happens that you don’t plan to purchase the product, but when you see the hype around it and the limited number of this item…You just can’t help buying it.
Show more than one expects to see
If you have offline stores, it would be a good idea to show their locations on the map. Imagine the situation. Your customer is having a cup of coffee with friends and recalls that he needs to buy a gift for his relative. An ideal variant is placing an option “Find a store” at the very bottom of the website. It happens that your store is just nearby. A great luck isn’t it? Moreover, it saves the customer’s time as all locations are already there, on the map of your online store. There is no need to open Google and start searching for the necessary street, etc.
Other two magic things which customers value very much is an opportunity to use a callback function and track the status of the item. Not only it reduces anxiety when you are waiting for your purchase but increases trust to your online store.
Each corner of the e-store should be tested
The number of e-stores which don’t operate well is quite impressive. This means that certain things are not controlled properly from the technical point of view. But this news is not that bad because such cases help to detect bottlenecks and to win where others lose.
You can always check the usability of your online store in order to see the missing elements, the error pages and look at things from the customer’s point of view. The only thing left to do is to make sure that the eCommerce store doesn’t face the most typical usability mistakes and operates well 24/7.
If you want your website to stand out from the competition, just tell us “hi!” for we could run a usability audit and offer the solutions on improving the situation.
Usability is a sphere which changes all the time. Stay with us to be aware of the latest eCommerce marketing trends and useful tips for boosting your business online.
