With the big online shopping offensive now firmly underway, usability is in website owners’ minds even more than usual. But what are the top site horrors that make users click out and take their custom elsewhere?
Fundamentally, the online shopper wants a smooth transaction that is clear, logical and secure. On many sites, though, this is not what they find, their dissatisfaction evidenced by a high rate of trolley abandonment.
Before getting to the checkout, customers first must find what they are looking for. Make it easy to shop. Navigation should be intuitive and consistent. And don’t forget that users like to compare items and refine their searches to find exactly what they are looking for.
Ensure, then, that your online catalogue is well designed and offers lots of options to help the user narrow their options. Over choice is just as detrimental as having too few choices. Important here is the need to properly categorise your goods and allow them to be viewed as sub categories. For instance, an online bakery store could categorise their birthday cakes as boy birthday cakes/girl birthday cakes/adults and so on.
Another design issue is with the shopping trolley/checkout. Make sure both the trolley and the checkout are readily accessible from every page. There’s little more frustrating for visitors than wishing to make a purchase and not being able to find their trolley or the checkout.
Similarly, it should be obvious how users add or subtract items from their shopping basket and how to continue shopping should they not wish to proceed to the checkout immediately . Another source of frustration that isn’t flagged up enough at most websites is the way in which the contents of a shopping trolley aren’t ‘saved’ when the user navigates out of the site.
How many sales are lost when users return from another site after going off to compare prices?
The flip side of this coin is registering. Many sites insist on users registering and this can often act as a disincentive. However, if registration means shoppers can save their shopping trolleys then this should be made clear and presented as one of the benefits.
In streamlining the shopping process, always bear in mind the customer wants to get in and out quickly with the minimum of fuss and obstacles. Don’t ask unnecessary marketing-type questions, focus the shopping experience on the job at hand and limit questions to those that are vital to the transaction such as delivery details, card details etc. Take the long term view and work on cultivating repeat business through a positive shopping experience.
Other top online shopping hates are difficult-to-find details about shipping, delivery times, returns policy and customer contacts. Links to these pages should be accessible from product pages and the shopping trolley.
Thankfully, fewer and fewer e-commerce enabled sites are guilty of what is a particularly hair-pulling experience… having buyers get to the checkout only to discover one or more of their items are out of stock.
If your site comes up short on any of the problems highlighted here there’s still time to put them right.
