User experience is technically how customers feel when they use your e-commerce store. Right from when they land on your homepage to checking out the cart, every little detail adds up to make this experience. While customers are at it, if anything slows them down or confuses them even for a second, they may simply wander off. That simply means you may be losing sales. Exactly why fixing the experience matters more than most things in e-commerce business. How to fix it therefore remains a topline strategy in the business.
One other reason user experience is a top strategy is because it saves you money long term. Here’s how. Instead of spending extra on abandoned cart emails or support staff to help shoppers who may get lost, you can fix the problems even before they occur. If customer experience is good, it simply means fewer customer complaints, fewer drop-offs, and fewer returns. Trust building helps that process a great deal. A good UX helps build trust. When your website feels smooth to use and makes sense, customers never fail to remember it. The main reason they’ll keep coming back. They’ll not only be coming back, they’ll tell others too. That helps to attract more customers to the store at minimal efforts. It means you get more customers even without spending more on ads or promotions. This is because word spreads fast when a store feels good to use and more people want to go have a feel of it.
Aside selling good products, what really keeps people coming back and telling others about your store is how they felt using your website. That’s customer experience. It is why customer experience should always come tops in all your marketing strategy considerations. Following are 10 of the most important reasons why customer experience really matters more than what most e-commerce business owners think it to be.
1. It Encourages Higher Customer Spending: Consumers usually spend more when and if they feel comfortable. This happens if your product pages are clear, prices are upfront, and the cart clearly shows them what they’re getting. That way, they can easily toss into the cart a few extra items without over considering it. That means more sales.
2. You Can Sell More Even without Promos: Many e-commerce stores usually move products with sales only. But, stores that are able to provide their customers with a convenient shopping experience get to sell more. Reason is, a good shopping experience helps to motivate customers to purchase some products even at full price. Once customers feel good on your website particularly about what they are getting and how they are getting it, they tend to shop more.
3. Helps Build Customer Trust in Your Store: Trust building with your customers requires that you provide them with a great website that has an organized and simple layout. The website must be easy to navigate through and user-friendly enough to allow trading even via mobile devices. Shoppers must be able to easily find what they are looking for on the site without wasting too much time. This way, there is usually a tendency for them to shop more on the site.
4. Helps Promote Your Store: A great customer experience motives people to talk about their experiences on your website. Most people like to talk about their treatment on a website and how they felt. No amount of ads beats words of mouth on that score. So, even if you spend good money on ads, it still cannot beat word of mouth. And, word of mouth is free and extremely powerful. If shoppers have a good experience on your website, they’ll probably tell relatives, colleagues and friends or even write a nice review about it. If however they had a bad experience, they’ll also talk about it and it’ll rob off negatively against your business.
5. Lowers Cart Abandonment: If the customer journey on your website is cumbersome, you tend to lose sales. This is because when the process is clunky or takes too long, people bounce and sales are lost. If for instance, the cart doesn’t update right or the checkout process takes too long, most shoppers simply leave. But, if you make things feel quick and easy, it helps to keeps shoppers on track to buy. That engenders lower cart abandonment and more sales.
6. Builds Customer Loyalty over Time: If a nice first visit is really good, most shoppers never fail to remember. If every time they come back, things still feel good as they expect, it builds loyalty. You can garner an army of regular shoppers if they remember how fast they found what they needed on your website and how smooth returns were. That’s how regular and repeat shoppers are made over time.
7. Professionalizes Your Store: In e-commerce business, even small stuff can really add up significantly over time. For instance, a working menu cart, a good search bar, and easy checkout can all go a long way to tell your customers how professional your store is. Getting things to work perfectly help to professionalize your website. It never fails to give out the impression to customers that someone’s running a real business out there on the site.
8. Meets Customer Expectations: Most online shoppers these days always have the advantage of having been to and seen many other websites. Most have past experiences they refer to. This is why they always expect fast, clear, and easy shopping on any website. If you don’t give it to them, they’ll quickly find someone else who will. That becomes a great loss to your business.
9. Distinguishes Your Store: A great customer experience can easily set your business apart from others. Out there on the internet, there may be hundreds of other stores selling same products you are. What can really set your business apart is how it feels to use it. A better experience is what makes people to pick your store instead of some other store selling the same products. That can make the real difference between good sales or poor sales.
10. Makes Customer Support Work Easier and more Effective: If you have systems in place that enable your customers to easily find answers or get help fast, your customers are burdened less. This can be great for your customer support team as well as your customers. Onsite tools to handle live chats, simple return pages, or clear FAQs usually do wonders and can be really great to help your e-commerce business make more sales.
