Shopping
online is a modern convenience. However, it’s surprising how many
e-commerce stores make online shopping more of a ‘search’ quest as
opposed to an enjoyable experience. User experience online infuses much
less of a ‘power’ quotient as compared to the regular shopping in
retail stores. Here are 4 surefire ways to enhance user experience on your site: - Improving search functionality: When
it comes to the search mechanism on your site, make sure it isn’t some
outdated ‘junk returning’ functionality! With all the technology that’s
available these days, finding what your customers want should be as
easy as pie! Unfortunately while search mechanism remains the most used
on the web, they still remain one of the least successful ones.
- You need to provide speed, clarity and easy access to whatever the user wants.
- If
the user doesn’t find what he or she is looking for, he may visit
Google for the answers. Past patterns determine current behavior and
the customer knows that Google will almost always return a positive
hit.
- Chances are, once the user has left your site, he or she will no longer come back again!
- Instead
of having just product based queries on your website search function,
make sure to also include non product based queries. Examples include
search terms like ‘payment’, ‘service’, ‘warranty’ etc.
- If
your store does not have an item in stock or does not have it in its
collection, be honest about it. Make sure to mention it in the search
results.
- Providing comparison mechanisms: Any
user who shops online would always want to make an informed decision.
Most often than not they want to be sure they are getting the best
price possible for what they bought. When you don’t have a comparison
tool on your online store, the user will need to manually jot down the
prices, features and other important details. This makes comparison
even more difficult. The other alternative is to cascade or tile the
windows of different websites to compare prices. However, as you can
imagine this process isn’t only tedious, its time consuming as well!
- Provide snapshot views comparing the major aspects between products
- Don’t have common features listed. List only the features that differentiate the products.
- Make sure users don’t have to scroll too much to see all the compared information. Use an 800x600 resolution to avoid this.
- Keep the ‘more details’ link optional. Here you could provide an in-depth analysis.
- Keep the comparison format uniform otherwise it makes the decision process even more difficult
- Broad-based categorizing: If
your online store has too many products listed, chances are your
customers might feel overwhelmed. When there are too many choices, it
makes sense to filter them down to broad categories to help your
customers make a better decision.
- Make sure you don’t have ambiguous drop down phrases. Use numerical values to characterize subsets.
- If
you ask questions to help customers narrow their choices, make sure the
questions are easy to understand. You could provide footnotes or pop up
explanations of the questions.
- Hassle free sale closing: This is the most important aspect which will determine the quantity of sales your e-commerce site receives.
- You need to have the checkout process as easy as possible.
- Do not ask for information that isn’t required.
- Thank the customer for purchasing on your site.
- Make sure send a confirmatory email to them recapping the order details.
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