Published on by Alex Cristache, Director of Design
With cart abandonment rates as high as 85% on mobile, and averaging 69% across all device types, there is a clear need to improve UX for online shopping. Surveys indicate that the top 3 reasons for cart abandonment are:
- Users are being required to create an account
- Shipping costs are too high or details are not clearly displayed
- Users are browsing and not yet ready to make a purchase
Let’s review how these can be addressed to improve User Experience for online shopping.
Understand Users' Needs and Behavior
Providing a good browsing experience to visitors can have a positive impact and increase the likelihood of them buying. While some users are only browsing, others might have a difficult time pinning down the exact product they need.
Providing users with clear purchasing options and product variations can help their decision process. Are there any in-between sizes the user might feel more comfortable purchasing? Is the model available in other colors? Are there similar products available from other manufacturers? Do you have a clear and easy return policy available? A product has to fully fit a user’s needs and expectations to convert from something that piqued their interest into a sale.
Allow Users to Save Products to Favorites
Often, users add products to carts as a means to save the product for a potential purchase later. Users tend to do so when there is no other way to save the product, or no “Favorites'' list is available. This is either due to website functionality or their own sign-in status. If a user is not signed in, or does not have an account, this is a good opportunity to suggest it in order for them to be able to save the product. This creates an improved experience for the user to be able to revisit their “Favorites”, while not keeping the cart clear for the current sale.
Functionality of “Favorite” lists, Saved for Later, Wish Lists, allow your business to reconnect with the users later. This can improve the UX for online shopping by providing stock updates or discount alerts, encouraging the user to return to the site, and increasing the likelihood of a sale.
Related Case Study
Cellular One
Design sparked digital transformation for Cellular One, the oldest and longest running wireless brand, with Crowd Favorite creating a fresh, new customer-centric design.
Be Transparent about Shipping Costs and Delivery Dates
Users have come to expect two things with shipping: fast and free. Zero shipping costs and same/next day delivery can be very powerful triggers for the purchase. If your shipping costs and delivery times are higher, make sure you display them clearly, before the user is expected to add the products to their cart. These are crucial to the user’s decision making process, and unclear information can lead to loss of sales. If you offer that, make sure it is on full display on your product pages
Displaying them only after the user has added the product to the cart will increase their frustration as they will be perceived as hidden costs and abandon the cart.
Provide Users with a Quick/Guest Checkout Option
As this gets the user further along in the buying process, and we know they are most likely to purchase the further they get. Adding a guest checkout option for visitors (unregistered users), allows them to have a quick checkout, increasing the conversion likelihood. Your guest will be happy with a shorter purchasing process, and you will have the opportunity to re-engage with them post-purchase in order to explain the benefits of creating an account, or cross sell additional products. It’s a win-win situation.
Related Case Study
ColourPop
ColourPop Cosmetics, an up-and-coming cosmetics company with a cult-like following, engaged Crowd Favorite to optimize their site in anticipation of record high Cyber Monday sales.
Streamline the Purchasing Process
Your product pages have one main purpose, to sell THAT specific product. As such, all the prime real-estate of the page should be allocated to providing the user with information that is critical to the decision making process for that particular product. As such, product images, variations (sizes, colors, multi-pack), product descriptions, user reviews, shipping costs and delivery information should all come before add-on functionality such as related products, recently viewed products. These are great to have in order to enhance the user experience, but they should not detour the user from completing a sale on the current product. The longer you drag the user through additional products, the higher the chance they’ll develop a browsing fatigue, unable to make a choice, which will lead to them abandoning the process altogether.
Once a product has been added to the cart, make sure the user has unrestricted access to editing the cart (removing items or adjusting quantities) and a clear and complete view of the total purchase cost with the ability to use discount codes if available. Here you’ll have another opportunity to cross sell products as the user has advanced through the sales process enough for it to present a lower risk of shifting the user focus from the sale.
On the checkout page, another way to improve the UX for online shopping is to make sure all information you need in order to finalize the sale is displayed clearly. Request as much information as needed and don’t make form fields mandatory if they are not truly relevant to the process. The contact/delivery, billing and payment forms should be clear and concise, presented in a linear (vertical) fashion which allows them to be easily understood and skimmable. Before submitting the data, users should be provided with a review of their order, including all costs associated with the purchase and delivery details. With that, users can happily trigger that PURCHASE button.
In the US alone retail eCommerce generated $871 billion USD in revenue in 2021 and is expected to exceed $1 trillion USD in 2022. Cart abandonment has led to losses of over $18 billion in sales revenue for eCommerce brands. Considering the market growth, this number will only continue to increase. There is a huge opportunity to do better, to prevent such staggering losses while also providing better shopping experiences to eCommerce platforms’ users.
Ready to find out more?
At Crowd Favorite we specialize in elevating the future of the digital experience our partners need. If you’d like help with getting started or need a partner to work alongside you through your digital transformation, please reach out to us.
