The future of eCommerce: Conversion Optimization and User eXperience

Customer experience has evolved into a science, continually developing. A selling trick that worked six years ago and practiced by only a few is but a standard hack used by every brand today. In reality, such as this, how do you maintain your place at the top of the selling ladder?

Innovative customer experience design addresses that question directly. Creative customer experience is about listening attentively to what consumers have to say. Their natural feedback is one of the most precious factors for improved shopping experience for your client – know how to get it.

Your clients do not owe you an explanation for why they decided to close your product page and move on, or how they feel about your services. However, these are the most valued opinions you can use to prop up steadier conversion rates by optimizing their journey on your site.

Getting to Know your eCommerce audience better

So one of the proper questions to ask here is: how to motivate your clients to share their most honest opinions about your business with you. Insights such as these are the building blocks of every working sales strategy for eCommerce.

Today, customer experience and eCommerce conversion optimization go hand in hand. Ultimately, they line up towards a common goal: meeting customer’s needs, raise sales, and put forward a plan for exceptional customer delivery based on immediate feedback.

Conversion, retention and level of user experience constitute the group of critical metrics with a strong relationship between each other, and with immense combined impact on brand value.

Innovative customer experience is a substantial influencer on eCommerce conversion.  Through consistency in seamless, insightful, and more natural flow of navigation, you can transition from an average merchant into a top-selling veteran.

An effective business strategy for online stores should include efforts spent to increase brand awareness through action provoked by honest customer feedback. In return, you can secure a higher profit margin by winning your client’s undivided attention.

Why eCommerce Conversion Optimization is Important

In eCommerce, small improvement changes always matter, even if they are not immediately apparent. For instance, timely promos or an updated FAQ section are both loaded factors for business development.

Conversion optimization allows users to get more value and, in parallel, lowers acquisition costs for merchants. You might be investing in optimization projects that fail to yield the expected effect. That’s why it’s best to continually revise promotion efforts and re-channel all promo efforts into marketing campaigns that matter.

Today, many merchants still assume they don’t need a conversion optimization, trusting that buyers would visit their shop, search for something, and checkout. That is not always the case. When was the last time you checked on your website’s load speed and navigation?

Just because you feel that something will work out might not be enough to deliver results. As an eCommerce brand, you need to constantly revise your promotional strategies in a bid to find what appeals the most to your customers. In other words, customers will buy from your eCommerce platform only when they see some value in doing so. If you are a brand that is working with an agency, you need to brainstorm with them on the right strategies in this regard. To explore and understand conversion optimization better,  please view website.

Loading speed in eCommerce

As an eCommerce merchant, you’d better grab buyers’ attention at first glance. More so, visitors should trust your website will load up quickly. If your site takes one second longer than expected to put content on display, visitors are likely to skip toward the next shop quickly. Due to the relatively lower capabilities of portable devices, mobile users, for example, will make that skip even sooner.

Your site should be able to load up content in a flash while maintaining a high level of usability through seamless navigation. The essence of optimizing your web store lies in taking full advantage of oncoming organic traffic first, and second, invest in improved customer acquisition strategies.

Know your metrics: Finding a needle in the haystack

Time for a simple math task: Let’s suppose your traffic amounts to 1000 visitors per day across all channels. Even with traffic volume like this, there is a good chance your website acquisition level remains below par. What if most of your potential buyers leave the site right before checkout?

Impatient buyers don’t fret – they will end up getting what they want, but not from you if you make them wait too long or can’t find something where they would have expected it to be. Even with moderate competition, prospects will discover an alternative quickly. What if only 100 people clicked away? You would gain 950 times higher conversion potential!

Why is conversion optimization important for your online business?

With the ongoing rivalry between retailers with similar services as you, there’s a need to outsmart their strategies, so that you can remain relevant in the game. Your approach must be innovative and unique among what else is available on the market. Customer experience benefits immensely any time you succeed in turning visitors into potential customers.

You have an excellent chance to outplay your competitors by encouraging visitors to act immediately upon reaching your site. Whether it’s signing up to a newsletter or browsing a product page - every opportunity for the engagement should be regarded as an advantage factor.

How does UI factor in for the success of eCommerce

In a nutshell, eCommerce conversion optimization is a legitimate booster of the online presence of your webshop. An impactful design and flawless interface are only the prequels to your ultimate goal: innovative customer experience. We summarized some of the main ideas behind the user interface, and the substantial role it plays in successful eCommerce customer experience:

  • Helps streamline and legitimize your online store
  • Improves your site’s efficacy
  • Facilitates revenue generation
  • Allows you to stay ahead of your competitors
  • Helps cut short the increasing cost of digital/content marketing

E-Commerce Conversion Optimization Strategies to Consider

As a merchant, transforming your online store to a top-performing retail shop should be your priority. If your ultimate goal is to improve your user interface/user experience (UI/UX) and sell more products from your site, these hacks will help you get there fast. While some optimizations may require a helping hand from a specialist, some of the below hacks can be implemented by yourself.

Optimize your eCommerce website with logical product categories

According to Measuring U Company, most buyers find their ultimate products by browsing through websites rather than using the search query. For sites with no apparent item or category structure, trying to map the path the visitor took can be close to impossible. A missing product category structure can be a massive break for conversion rates. You can increase customer experience, increase conversions, and minimize bounce rates at the same time.

Incorporate various payment methods in your website

When it comes to online shopping, building, and rebuilding trust with your potential shopper’s matters a lot. While most buyers will prefer paying via the known and trusty PayPal, some will use a credit card. One of the easiest ways to get more clients without getting into sophisticated strategies is to diversify the payment methods.
Try to include a variety of gateways and payment options that fit both the young generation and older folks. A wide array of banking options will improve the customer experience and will set you on a path of becoming a favored provider.

Do you want to shift your focus toward expanding your customer base? Let that be the least of your worries. Your customers’ testimonials and satisfaction should be the ultimate advertiser of your services. Variety can be a substantial factor – a wide range of payment methods is a paved way towards the type of consumer experience that solidifies the impact of brands.

Turn your home page into a beacon for sought-out information

When was the last time you optimized your main entry web page? A home page is like a tour guide that helps visitors reach their desired destination. Exclusive offers, discounts, and top-selling products look best when situated immediately. In plain view, for all eyes to see.

Use the home page as an interactive dome that summarizes all your main products, features, discounts, or promotions. Adding fresh and updated promos and deals will maximize the positive effect of your presentation. Such action impacts every single site visitor, not just people from direct traffic, who come knwoing what they are looking for.
Your home page should summarize the best of your sales opportunities and serve as a shortcut to the most valued inner pages. Otherwise, the precious impact that comes from first impression will be lost, and with it, some excellent opportunities.

Capture your audience with the power of video

Product videos are known to produce more attention than static product images. Videos can be the bullseye approach to conveying information if used properly. They can give an extra description and feel, remove uncertainties about product features, and prepare the customer to measure the pros and cons objectively.

You can use product videos to your advantage though descriptive tutorials and demo clips added to your promo or how-to page. When working with videos, try to focus on details that capitalize on the effect that motion pictures produce. They need to reflect on the elegance of the features of the product you are promoting. And they are perfect tools for communicating the high levels of usability that customers will expect when using them.

Shoppers must know everything about a product

E-commerce conversion optimization can clear uncertainties and move your selling prospects one step closer to the checkout phase. Ensure your buyers have all the necessary information in front of them before they move to check out their shopping cart items. Be informative about time frames and possible delays.

Indicate how long it takes to deliver a product, what are the exact prices, and when purchase items are out of stock, and when you expect a re-stock. It’s all about improving customer experience, and by matching their expectations and answering all the questions, they might have, at any point.

Ecommerce Conversion Optimization and Customer Experience: What is the connection?

Ecommerce firms that focus on creating a meaningful user interface and experience, quickly gain customers’ trust and loyalty. According to American Express, more than 58 percent prefer buying products on companies with reliable customer service. So why not become a reliable source that people will seek and value – this is a big step towards flawless customer support and increased brand value.
Enthusiastic customer service not only helps you maintaining potential shoppers but also acts as a form of social marketing. People are eager to share the good news. Every time you make extra effort to impress a client, there is a good chance they will share this positive feeling with someone else.

According to the Harvard Business Review, more than 23 percent of buyers narrate the positive feedback they encountered with stores to their friends. As a digital merchant, it takes time to create a delightful customer experience, as this is the only strategy that is considered both long-term and cost-effective.

Final Thoughts

How do you turn your customers’ journey into an unforgettable memory worth sharing? With evolving technology, arranging for pleasant times for your potential buyers should not be an expensive endeavor. Still, it does require a bit of creativity and a proper interpretation of all available insights.

Whether you run a B2B or B2C tech-savvy operations, elevating the levels of your customer experience is usually just only a click away, but one that’s revealed only after a careful analysis. Let your audience know that you care about them. Offer exceptional customer experience through a clean shopping process, and realize it through an intuitive user interface.

Working with constant improvement in mind is an innate perk to all successful businesses. With the pointers mentioned above in check, you’ll be delighted to see visitors turn into clients, and clients transform into sovereign advocates of your brand.

Author

Andreas Maier | CEO

Andreas is a result-oriented CEO who brings nearly 30 years of experience gained in the high-tech industry. His experience ranges up to leading positions in Fortune 100 companies such as rentalcars.com (PCLN) or Intrasoft International, a leading EU based R&D software vendor. He holds a Ph.D. in Neural Networks from the University of Cologne, Germany.
In the past Andreas has successfully founded and co-founded several startups among others XXL Cloud Inc., eShopLeasing Ltd, and WDS Consulting SA. His expertise is strongly focused on modern headless Commerce and the optimization of processes in IT ecosystems.