Can you think back to the last time you went to a restaurant and were asked to give customer feedback, perhaps through a short written survey? If you notice, the questions they asked you likely weren’t limited to the flavor of the food—the restaurant probably also asked about the quality of their service, the ambience, parking availability, and the like.
Frankly, the same philosophy applies to user experience, or UX. It isn’t just individual product purchases that companies are paying attention to, but the journey that got customers there: how easy it was to place an order, how trouble-free checkout was, and what it will take to turn a one-time purchaser into a loyal, repeat customer.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking to start your own ecommerce business effectively, you may be wondering what aspects of the business you should prioritize. This feature should prove that UX is a top priority, and that investing in great UX will make a big difference to your ecommerce business.
What Is UX, and What Does It Encompass? 
For those who aren’t familiar with what UX entails, it can be defined as such: the process of designing the usage of a product—for example, a computer, a gadget, a mobile app, or an ecommerce website—in order to impart the target users with memorable, relevant, and pleasurable experiences.
The term was first coined in the 1990s by a psychologist and designer named Don Norman. Norman also expanded the idea of UX to include not only human interface and usability, but other related aspects like graphic design, a user’s physical interactions with a product, and the product manual.
Given that Norman was the very first UX architect for tech giant Apple—which is rightfully beloved for its UX—it’s no wonder that this concept has lived on for so long, and that it’s been widely adopted by businesses in the age of the Internet.
How Great UX Works to the Advantage of an Ecommerce Business
For ecommerce businesses, UX can be leveraged to improve two things: customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Here are just a few examples of how great UX is crucial to an ecommerce business’s workings.
– UX can help the ecommerce business build its brand. Through UX-related elements like graphics, colors, shapes, and the like, the ecommerce website can achieve a consistent look and feel that distinguishes it from its competitors. Thus, you can use UX to create a unique “atmosphere” that your customers will remember when they’re on your ecommerce site.
– UX can enhance the searchability and organization of products. The last thing a customer will want is to have a hard time searching for what they’re looking for. Great UX will do the opposite and make the search for desired products both easy and pleasurable. This can be done, for example, through the particular placement of a search bar, through the organization of products that seems natural to the customers, or through curating products according to a customer’s tastes.
– UX can highlight the usefulness of the ecommerce’s products and services. UX can also lead customers to informative material on the ecommerce site, such as product photos, FAQs, video demonstrations, blog articles, reviews, and the like. If these are easy to for a customer to access, and a pleasure for the customer to cycle back and forth from, there’s a higher likelihood that the said customer will see the appeal—and therefore, spend their money on the ecommerce website.
– UX can help make purchasing a breeze. Shopping cart abandonment happens just as often on an ecommerce website as it does in a brick-and-mortar store. The proper way to combat this is to utilize UX for breezy, uncomplicated checkouts. Some examples of how to do this are by enabling quick payment via the most common payment gateways, lessening the number of form fields required for checkout, or by allowing repeat customers to auto-fill fields they’ve already answered during previous checkouts.
– UX can reward a customer for spending time on the site. Lastly, UX can be responsible for getting a customer to spend an extended period of time on the site—and reward them for doing so, such as with a rewards points system or refer-a-friend incentives. Not only will this retain revenue from loyal customers; it could also lead to higher conversions from new ones.
Conclusion
Though the term “UX” was only formally introduced in the 1990s, the philosophy of keeping customers happy and engaged outside of their main purchases has been in place for a long time. Just like how your favorite restaurant keeps you coming back for another experience, or how your go-to lifestyle app keeps you using it as months pass, you can achieve the same thing with new and old customers on your ecommerce site.
Want to learn more about setting up your own ecommerce website? Click here to read an article from Red Stag Fulfillment with some helpful tips about the topic.
