It’s not really a surprise that numerous e-commerce stores are aiming for higher conversions. After all, the more customers you acquire, the more profitable your online store will be. However, the online market has changed drastically over the past few years.

Consumers are no longer concerned solely about product quality and stocks. As a matter of fact, they are primarily focused on the experience they’ll have with an online store. What’s interesting is that the majority of consumers are willing to pay up to 25% more for a better experience.

Online stores that aren’t able to provide their customers with an exceptional experience will be abandoned, and their profitability will decline significantly. That’s why it’s of the utmost importance for e-commerce stores to focus on improving user experience (UX). 

With that in mind, here are a few of the best UX best practices for improving your online store’s conversions.

  • Enable self-service

Nowadays, a lot of online consumers prefer to browse seamlessly. Moreover, some consumers would rather solve their issues on their own than contact customer service and support. 

Some customers are introverts. They don’t like interacting with support staff unless they absolutely have to. If you leave them with no choice, they might bounce off.

The point of fact is that every customer counts and doing everything in your power to ensure they’ll convert is simply a must. 

That said, you should consider the needs and preferences of such consumers and provide them with enough convenience to encourage them to stay and explore further until they’re ready to convert.

A good example of this is implementing a knowledgebase or an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. That way, you enable self-service for those who seek it out. As a result, your consumers can get more informed and attempt to overcome obstacles they may come across.

This is considered a quality user experience as you provide multiple options to your customers. However, make sure that your FAQ page has contact information for your customer service and support department just in case.

  • Nurture every lead

User experience revolves around your website, but many online store owners fail to realize that user experience may stretch even further than that. After all, user experience is just a part of the overall customer experience.

That said, a good experience begins when you acquire a lead and it doesn’t end even after that lead has converted and made a purchase.

That’s why you must nurture every lead as soon as you acquire them. The best way to approach the matter is via digital marketing. Online stores use various strategies and tactics to promote themselves and make their presence know to online consumers.

If you’re not certain how to proceed, you can always consult with a digital marketing company to help you develop an excellent marketing strategy. Nurturing leads comes down to interacting with potential customers at every step of their buyer’s journey. Here are a few things to consider.

  • Use social media to establish meaningful relationships with your target audience.
  • Leverage email marketing to send the right messages to leads at the right time.
  • Rely on personalization to nudge leads in the right direction.
  • Use omnichannel marketing to be available to leads across multiple platforms.
  • Consider using traditional marketing methods to engage offline consumers.  

  • Optimize your store’s design and performance

Two of the most important factors that largely impact UX are your store’s design and performance. 

The store design is the first thing consumers will see when they land on your pages. In most cases, consumers will form first impressions based on the design alone, which will affect whether they’ll stay or bounce off.

If your store’s design manages to impress consumers, they will remain to explore further. 

However, as they do that, they’ll start to notice your website’s performance. If that aspect of your online store isn’t up to the task or it isn’t able to meet consumer expectations, your visitors will start to leave. That’s why design and performance and two sides of the same coin, and both are equally important.

If the design and performance are up to the task, you’ll be experiencing much more conversions at your store. That said, if you happen to work with the best design agency Chicago has to offer, for instance, and create a truly amazing design for your website, you’ll have to ensure that your website can match the design with exceptional performance. 

Here are a few of the performance factors you should keep an eye on.

  • Ensure fast page loading time and website speed.
  • Ensure seamless navigation.
  • Focus on user and mobile-friendliness.
  • Categorize and organize your products.
  • Enhance website security, especially on checkout pages.

  • Optimize your checkout page

The checkout process is where all the conversions happen. The checkout page is basically the final step where consumers convert to customers. This is also the part where a lot of consumers decide not to convert, unfortunately. But why is that?

After all, if you’ve done everything right up to that point, why do people abandon their carts at the very end? The main reason is that something is most likely wrong with your checkout page. That something encouraged consumers to leave instead of converting.

That also means you have to find out what the issue is and fix it as fast as possible. Here are a few examples of what may be wrong with your checkout page.

  • Lack of security measures, such as no HTTPS.
  • Not enough payment methods.
  • Your coupons or discount codes aren’t working.
  • High shipping fees or hidden costs consumers found out about at the checkout process.
  • Lack of convenience, such as same or next-day shipping.

That’s why it’s crucial to properly optimize your checkout page and drastically reduce cart abandonment rates. 

You can also reach out to customers and ask them why they decided to abandon their carts. This will help you improve the process, and customers will appreciate the fact that you’re trying to resolve the problem.

  • Ask consumers for feedback

In most cases, online store owners try their best to guess what their audience wants, needs and expects. You can do a lot of research to find out what your audience wants and work on that to improve UX. However, oftentimes the simplest course of action is the best one.

Asking consumers directly is one such approach. Asking for feedback is not something you should avoid. 

In fact, online consumers prefer when businesses ask them for their opinion. They appreciate this because they can see that you’re interested in making things better for them. Moreover, if you improve upon the feedback you’ve collected, your consumers will appreciate you even more.

This builds trust and loyalty among consumers and they are more willing to convert if you’re more willing to provide them with an exceptional experience. That’s why you should never hesitate to ask your customers or potential customer how to make your online store better and more appealing to them.

User experience became one of the most important factors for the success of online stores. 

You could have many great products in stock; that wouldn’t matter much if you cannot provide your customers with the experience they need and expect. 

If you want a higher conversion rate, you’ll have to ensure that the experience you provide your users is the best one possible.

Author bio:

Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. His work is focusing on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.

Digital Strategy One