Huge website traffic can only mean something to your business if you are able to effectively convert them to actually buying and paying customers. Ecommerce business thrives on online sales and your success depends on how “usable” you make your website for those website visitors so that they can conveniently shop and purchase from your website. Usability could be the only difference between the success or the downfall of your ecommerce website.
There are various pages of your website like the home page, category pages, product pages and shopping cart pages etc. Making the browsing from one to another and back is one basic principle of making your site usable. The other aspect is the number of steps required to complete the shopping process. As users add products to the cart, they want to complete the transaction within a few clicks. Streamlining the process for them could be beneficial for your site. Well there are many such best practices for ecommerce website development.
Here, let’s discuss a few.
Using email address for user names
This is the entry point to your store. Users generally have one or two email addresses to remember. Creating too many user names and passwords on each shopping site they visit will be a daunting task. Setting your user name as one of the email addresses is a smart way to create “convenience” for customers.
Breadcrumbs for navigation
Breadcrumb navigation lets the user know exactly where they are on the website and saves them from accidently losing selections or making a mistake. It’s a good way to let the customers know where exactly they are on the website.
Site Search
Some customers are looking for very specific products. They know exactly what they want. Browsing through the entire catalog to find one product could be tedious. Other than categorizing products accurately, making site search visible and distinct could be a great way to help customers find what exactly they want on the site.
Recommended Products
Showing customers similar products and providing them with the ability to compare them is a great way to provide customers with a great shopping experience at your store. This will also urge shoppers to shop for more or more importantly select the right products.
Call to Action
This is by far the most important usability aspect. Shoppers should not be left clueless about “what next”. Create clear call to actions for all your website pages. Especially the product pages. “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” are the most common.
Checkout process
As mentioned earlier, do not leave the shoppers clueless. After they add products to cart outline a clear checkout process for them. Show them the steps that will be required. Also, reduce the steps required to checkout – as far as possible.
Ecommerce solutions require proper planning during design and development phases too. These were a few usability guidelines for ecommerce sites.
