User-Friendly Essentials for Your eCommerce Website

Before you launch that brand new eCommerce website, double check these user-friendly essentials so you don’t have to trouble-shoot why your site isn’t effective.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Online shopping is currently booming and showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, online shopping is more popular than ever before among consumers especially after the COVID19 pandemic, which saw essential stores closed down and consumers turning to online shopping to get the items that they wanted that were now unavailable elsewhere. As a result, more and more people have begun to realize the convenience of online shopping – and the fact that it’s often easier to find a wider range of options to choose from online compared to shopping in the stores. 

If you want to start your own business, eCommerce is a popular model. However, with competition this high, getting it right straight off the bat has never been more important. Your eCommerce website does not only need to be functional and aesthetically pleasing, but it also needs to be highly modern and user-friendly to make an impact and stand out in a very crowded market. Usability needs to be at the forefront of your mind throughout the web development process.

Here are some of the key factors to be considered. 

Responsiveness:

A website will not go very far today if it cannot be easily accessed and viewed from any device. Today’s users are accessing the internet using a wide range of devices and it’s become completely irresponsible for any business owner to focus only on desktop design when creating their website. Similarly, mobile websites are also no longer as effective as they once were due to the wide range of devices available. While it might look good on a standard smartphone, it may not be the case on a tablet, smart TV, or other internet-enabled device. Because of this, a responsive website that snaps to size and automatically adjusts so that it is viewed perfectly regardless of the device that the user is accessing it on is the first step to creating a user-friendly website. 

Mobile App:

When it comes to eCommerce today, a responsive website might not always be enough. As there’s an app for pretty much anything you might want to do these days, it’s no surprise that users have come to expect them, and there are many benefits of developing an app for your eCommerce business. Not only does it make the shopping experience easier for customers by giving them a separate place to shop from their browser, but it can also offer a more customized experience by allowing users to stay signed in on their devices, save products to wish lists, keep items in their basket for later and sign up to receive push notifications so that they’re always kept up to date with the latest deals and offers. These experts can help you get started with designing a user-friendly mobile app for your eCommerce business. 

Easy Navigation:

On your website and your mobile shopping app, one of the biggest contributing factors to user-friendliness is easy navigation. Your users want to be able to find what they need quickly and get the items that they are looking for without any hassle. To achieve this, a simple and effective navigation system is required. There are several ways to do this; however, the most effective is with a comprehensive drop-down menu that can be sorted into different categories so that customers know where they need to look based on the item that they are trying to find. There should also be easy and accessible links to other points of information that your customers might be looking for such as your contact details, returns policy, privacy policy and more. A search bar will ensure the quickest access to anything that your users are searching for. 

Personalization:

Personalization takes user-friendliness one step further and allows the website to work even harder to provide a tailored experience to the specific visitor at the time. Today, a huge percentage of online shoppers have now come to prefer and even expect some degree of personalization at the eCommerce stores that they shop at. For example, showing suggested products based on the items that they have purchased or browsed in the past, and tracking user activity to suggest deals that might be relevant to them based on past behavior. Personalization is done by analyzing data to get insights into your users that can then be used to make informed decisions regarding the type of experience they would prefer to have on your website. It also has several benefits for an eCommerce company including boosting sales as the biggest advantage, since users are more likely to see products that they are interested in when you directly show them. 

Integration:

It’s necessary today for the majority of businesses to have a strong online presence, which means taking advantage of a wide range of different online channels to promote your products, create content, and engage with your target audience. As part of the user-friendliness of your website, it’s important to ensure that all of these channels are integrated together. This could be as simple as your social media profiles link to your website, and your website links back to your social media profiles easily. However, there are further options for integration that allow you to take advantage of the booming popularity in social media use today, including live chat on your website powered by Facebook messenger, for example, that will allow you to receive any queries from customers on your website directly to the messenger app on your device, thus improving customer service and communication. 

Security:

Finally, one of the main points to consider when creating a user-friendly website is the security of your users. Small businesses in particular are often big targets for hackers, especially companies like eCommerce stores where customer data is collected with each purchase. Along with only collecting the personal data that you need to complete the purchase, make sure that steps are taken to improve the security of your site with an SSL certificate and regular scans and backups. 

eCommerce is a hot business model right now, but if you want to be successful in this booming industry, getting the user-friendliness right is crucial.