Why User Experience is important in e-commerce website design?

According to research, customers prefer to shop in a store that offers transparent, informative, user-friendly navigation from entry to checkout, thus offering a user experience that makes them return. When designing an online store, UX (User Experience) design should not be " neglected ", as there is no point in offering an attractive price and high quality if the customer does not get to the point of buying. Tips and advice for creating a user-friendly e-commerce website.

Most of you have probably already met the terms User Experience Design or Service Design, and although some people still consider it to be a "trendy" trend, the practice shows quite a different thing.

Here's an example. A potential customer sees your product advertisement on Facebook, likes it and visits your website with the desire to buy. Your page loads slowly, which makes the customer impatient. When he finally opens the page, he cannot find accurate information on what to do if the purchased product is not good, or what the return policy is. Moreover, the customer is faced with the requirement to register when purchasing goods. They prefer not to buy under these conditions and move on. What happened? The visitor came to your online store to buy something, but after a negative user experience, decided not to do it.

Get a competitive advantage with user experience design

What is User Experience (UX)? If you want to put it simply, you could say: how the customer feels while navigating your website and e-commerce platform. This covers quite a wide range, as it includes how the website works as well as design aspects. Moreover, it is not just wider issues such as "How do you move the customer from one product to another?" or "How to keep the user in the purchasing flow?", but also specific ones such as "How can the user behave when clicking on that button and finding himself on that page?"

These are not those questions where the e-commerce store owner's word is the final decision, because customers think differently and react differently to a particular button than the merchant. And if customers become frustrated, and discouraged, the negative customer experience will cause them to leave.

A subset of UX Design is UI Design (User Interface Design), which covers the design of the user interface. This includes graphics, icons, animations, font selection, design of interactive elements and colour schemes. 

SD (Service Design) is the creation of an optimal service experience. It takes a broader view of the service, exploring online and offline processes, taking into account all the actors and interactions in the flow.

Why not avoid UX consultancy when developing your online store?

Here are 3 reasons why you can't avoid UX consulting, and why e-commerce user experience design should be integrated into your strategy.

1. A website that is not user-friendly will turn customers away

Your website is not the only one on the online market. As quickly as a potential customer can find your online store via the web, they can click the "back" button if they are faced with a negative customer experience. Whether it's a slow page load, an intransparent shopping cart, or poor navigation, the customer is already looking for a new online store. The statistics are depressing: 89% of shoppers will switch to a competitor if they have a bad experience.

2. Good UX differentiates you from the competitors

A positive customer experience can make you stand out from the competition. Surveys show that only 55 per cent of companies conduct a UX analysis, and smaller companies in particular do it. While a retailer may not feel any particular impact in the short term, it can be costly in the long term. The customer is first confronted with the UX design of the e-commerce store, and the impression they get here is the key to deciding whether to buy the product they are looking at. If the first impression is negative, then no matter how attractive the price or the quality, the purchase will be abandoned. Surprising as it may seem, statistics show that 86% of shoppers are willing to pay more to shop in a user-friendly online store.

3. Making your online store customer-friendly in time can save you money

If you catch UX problems early, you'll save money. It's much more cost-effective to change anything, whether it's page load speed or an unnoticeable "CTA" button before a website is launched.

However, UX Design consultancy does not end with the launch of a website, as technologies and customer behaviour are constantly evolving, so it is a good idea to make it part of your business strategy to check the effectiveness of the website regularly.

UX design is effective even if you only want to improve the results and conversion of one part of your e-commerce site, whether it's the search engine, navigation or the UX of your product pages.