With increasing competition in the eCommerce sector, everything comes down to the very minute details of your online store. That is why everything that goes into the making of an online store is important.
Two of the crucial elements of any website or an online store are UI and UX. In most cases, they are so important that UI and UX are the deciding factors whether a customer will revisit your online store or not.
As UI/UX carries so much importance for your online store, it should be a priority to make them as smooth and efficient as possible so that the customers enjoy visiting your site.
Understanding UI and UX
What is UI?
UI stands for User Interface. Whenever you visit a website, you are welcomed with designs, images, and messages in different colors and patterns. These are the things you interact with as a visitor.
In simple terms, all the things that you see on your screen when you visit a website are its UI components. In modern times, many things go into designing a user interface for a website. It is not just any random colors and texts.
Developers use psychological data and color science to create stunning and compelling UI for websites.
What is UX?
UX stands for User Experience. Well, people just don’t visit a website and then look at the homepage for hours. They use the websites to read something, solve their queries, order something, etc.
To do that you have the search button, categories, banners that help you to find the things that you are looking for. This whole back and forth interaction between a user and a website contributes to the user experience.
Just like UI, UX also has a lot of factors like ease of use, efficiency, etc. So developers pay a lot of attention to create the best user experience for visitors.
Importance of UI and UX in Customer Experience for Online Stores
“As per Statista, the eCommerce sector will have 21.8% of the total global retail sales by 2024.”
Even the current market cap of eCommerce retail sales is about 4.28 Trillion USD which is huge!
The ecommerce sector is growing constantly and the COVID-19 pandemic is working as a catalyst forcing all businesses to go digital. If you look at a bigger picture then most of the businesses sell pretty much the same products or at least they outsource their raw materials from the common suppliers.
This results in very competitive prices and in order to boost up the sales via online stores, even the small things can play a very big role. To understand this, let’s take an example, let’s say you are a customer and you wish to buy a wallet with your name engraved on it.
Now, you have found two websites that offer wallets and can also print custom names on them. You visit both the sites and the prices are identical and the customer reviews for the products are also satisfactory.
The only catch is that the first website is a bit slow to load and it is hard to find how to add your name to the wallet on the first site. On the other hand, the second site is very interactive to use, fast to load, and everything is easy to find.
So what site will you shop from? I think the answer is quite simple, the second site, right?
That is because it is more interactive and easier to use. So you see, even with similar products, the difference-maker here is the UI and UX of the two websites.
“As per the data, 39% of the users will stop interacting with a site if it takes too long to load.”
Online Stores are all about displaying your products to the best of your limits and to do that, it is important to create a stunning UI and UX for the visitors.
UI/UX Tips for Better Customer Experience
Now that you know the importance of UI/UX for customer experience for an online store. Here are some UI/UX tips that you can use to better the customer experience on your online store.
Make Your Simple and Snappy
The minimal aesthetics are back in trend now and that also seems to be the correct choice. It is recommended to keep your online store as simple as possible.
“Aesthetics are very important as people form 75% of their opinion on a website’s credibility purely based on aesthetics.”
This does not mean that there is no scope for creativity, it is just that you should avoid adding too much unnecessary information on your homepage. It is recommended to use the right balance of text, images, and clever use of fonts.
Do not overwhelm a visitor with the product descriptions and call-to-action statements right away. Along with that, you would also want to reduce the loading time on your site. No one likes a slow-loading website these days.
“Stats suggest that if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of the users will leave your site”
Make sure that everything on your site loads smoothly and doesn’t take much time. In that way, you will not lose potential visitors.
Make it Easy to Find Products
Imagine that you are in urgent need of some product and you couldn’t find it on a site that is supposed to have it. This will not only make you frustrated but it will also make sure that you won’t ever visit that website.
It is ideal to add a lot of search features to your site. A lot of ecommerce websites use voice search and even image search to find and display the products on their search results page.
What you would like to do is add a lot of search features like search by keywords, voice search, image recognition, etc.
This will indeed make it easy to find products on your site. Also, make sure that you add a search bar on all the necessary pages of your website. This will just enhance the customer experience overall.
Provide All The Product Details
It is crucial to provide all the details about the products that you are selling on your online store. Add all the necessary details about your products.
There shouldn’t be any hidden terms and conditions, the replacement/return policy should be mentioned clearly alongside the product. It is also good to mention the warranty(if applicable).
One of the things that you can try is to assign a product code that is unique to every product on your site. This does not only makes it easy to find when a user visits your site, but it also helps in making sure that he/she is buying the right product.
The product description page is where you can include your call-to-action message and you should also not hesitate to repeat the unique features that are exclusive to your product.
The Filters and Loading Should be Smooth
This tip also has a lot to do with the search results page. Here you should make sure that the user can easily filter and sort the products according to his/her preferences.
For your online store, you should make the filtering and sorting process very easy. Ideally, it should be present at the top of the search results page so that the user can filter out and sort the products at the very beginning. This saves a lot of time for the user.
Along with that, the other important tip is related to how you decide your products to load. Some websites use a “Load More” button to display more products on the search results page. Some use pagination to give more refined search results. A lot of online stores also use infinite scrolling for their websites.
It is totally up to you to decide which one is the best for your site. However, pagination and infinite scroll are the popular methods used nowadays.
Make Signup and Checkout Easy
Perhaps one of the most criticized things about online stores is that they ask for too much information while signing up.
“Data clearly indicates that about 68% of the users cancel to submit a form if it asks for too much information.”
So you should make your signup process really easy and avoid asking for too much information. I know it is important to get information in order to deliver the products to the customer but all you have to do is find the right balance.
Making the checkout process easy is also very important as it is the last phase of a customer making his/her purchase from your site. This is one of the areas where you can leave a good last impression.
Make sure to provide all the checkout options to the customer so that he/she does not have to look out for other options. In addition to this, a lot of online stores also offer loyalty programs, discounts to regular customers and you can use that too. This will make the customer happy and it will also encourage them to visit again.
Conclusion
Those were some UI/UX tips for a better customer experience on your online store. It would be very great if you follow all these tips. Having a good UI/UX helps in establishing a strong bond with the customer and it encourages users to visit your website again. Make sure to use these tips and create a stunning UI/UX for your online store.
