USER EXPERIENCE MISTAKES GUARANTEED TO COST YOUR E-COMMERCE SITE CONVERSIONS

What mistakes are you making on your site that make it unintuitive and just plain difficult to buy from?

1. Bad Mobile Experience

As I’ve said, time and time again, not being mobile is a big mistake and it will cost you. At the very least you need to have a site that is responsive.

But just “being mobile” is not enough. You need to think about the experience design specifically for mobile, as you would on your desktop site. Make sure to hide elements that are distracting on mobile and ensure that the purchase path is clear and easy for a mobile user.

2. Site Bloating

What is that exactly? Well, I could have said “slow site speed.” But in fact, that is just a symptom of a bigger problem…namely “site bloating.”

Review your site to make sure that you haven’t over-designed, adding too many design elements and unnecessary JS/CSS animations or scrips. This is not the place for your developer to show off cool hover effects or parallax.

Clean and simple is the name of the game. Simplicity in design equals excellence in performance.

Think through it this way: how many clicks away is your customer from accomplishing your intended goal (likely a purchase)?

No seriously. Count them! This is very important to map out. The shorter the purchase process, the higher your sales will be.

3. Insufficient Social Proof

Or worse, zero social proof.

Social proof sells like nothing else, so if you don’t have this on your site, you are seriously shooting yourself in the foot. People buy your product because other people tell them to, not because you tell them to.

Gaining social proof isn’t easy, but there’s only one way to start…and that is to ask for it. Shopify has some great apps that make requesting verified reviews a breeze. Check out Yotpo or Stamped.io (the latter is significantly more affordable and a great way to get started).

4. Limited Trust Building Elements

On top of reviews, there are several other trust-building elements that you should include on your site. For example, you should include information on warranties, guarantees, returns, and security.

These may all seem like little things, and they are. But together they can greatly increase the credibility of your site and the confidence visitors have in you when making their first purchase.

So don’t bury all of this in the footer. If the information is relevant, call it out at the right time. For example, if you offer satisfaction guaranteed or easy returns, make sure to call this out on your product detail pages so that your site visitors know they have nothing to worry about.

5. Poor Product Organization and Site Hierarchy

Back to this question: “How many clicks does it take for a visitor to find what they are looking for?”

The answer is probably too many…especially if you have a complex product line.

Rethink your product categorization and what the right paths are to provide to users in order to find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible.

This likely means that some products live in several different categories. It also means you will need advanced filtering and intelligent search to help your customers along the way.

I hope you’ve learned something new and that your imagination is now running wild with all the possibilities for your business. If you’d like to share your ideas or need help, I’m always open to new conversations on LinkedIn. You may also contact me or schedule a video consultation.