Everyone likes shopping online, but not all the time and not everywhere. Some online stores offer a frustrating experience with crappy catalogs, unzoomable pictures, and navigational nightmares.
While proper design is important for any website, for online stores it’s a matter of survival. We all want our customers to enjoy the experience from the moment they open the page and until they finish the order. Unfortunately, not all the sellers think about it – this is why we have to surf online stores with poor shopping experience.
How to solve this problem and help others enjoy online shopping to the fullest? Start a customer-centered online store. How so? Let’s explore how a UX designer, Kate Choi made a top-tier website. Spoiler: now you can get your own online store with expertly crafted design FOR FREE!
Online shopping: a pleasure or a nightmare?
How often do you shop online? Is it always a success? The point is, online shopping is incredibly popular, but the user experience often becomes a problem.
Issues like difficult navigation, poor image quality, and unclear product details can turn a pleasant shopping trip into a frustrating crusade filled with anger and f-words.
According to a study by the Baymard Institute, 69.57% of online shopping carts are abandoned, with 25% of users citing navigation issues as the main reason. Scary, right? That’s why website design is the matter of an online store’s survival and success.
Now let’s check some of the most common problems online shoppers encounter so you can be armed and prepared.
Common pain points in online shopping
- It’s difficult to navigate the store: Users struggle to find what they are looking for due to poorly organized websites. They want to find things immediately and not spend extra time trying to figure out where to click.
- Product images are not informative: Insufficient or low-quality images that don’t offer a detailed view of the product. They make websites look cheap and diminish the stores’ credibility and trustworthiness.
- You can’t get the product details: Missing or unclear product details, including size and fit information. No one wants to buy a mystery product.
- It’s not clear how to finish the order: Long, confusing, and cumbersome checkout processes leading to cart abandonment.
A smooth, comfortable, simple, and intuitive website design ensures that customers are not just happy, but are willing to come back for more. Where to find such an online store? You can start it right away!
How to ensure a pleasant shopping experience [Case study]
Meet Kate who was frustrated with the poor user experiences of many online stores. She imagined a website that was not only aesthetically pleasing but also functional and user-friendly. That’s why she decided to create a perfect ecommerce site that meets the following criteria.
- Simplified navigation: Users could easily find what they were looking for with intuitive categories and filters.
- Better product display: High-quality images and detailed descriptions helped users make informed decisions.
- Streamlined checkout: A hassle-free checkout process encourages users to complete their purchases.
User-centered design
User-centered design is the way to put the user at the center of the whole process. This involves understanding the needs, behaviors, and goals of the users and designing products that meet those needs.
For online stores, it can lead to higher user satisfaction, increased engagement, and ultimately, higher sales. How to create a user-centered store? You need to:
- Understand the user’s needs, desires, and frustrations.
- Ensure the store is easy to use and navigate.
- Make the website accessible to all users (including those with disabilities).
- Create an appealing visual design.
Okay, so what did Kate do exactly to achieve success?
The design process
Step 1: Research
User interviews and surveys
Kate began her project with thorough research, conducting user interviews and surveys to gather insights into shopping behaviors and preferences. She discovered that users valued:
- Easy navigation: The ability to filter based on needs and use a search box to bypass unnecessary steps.
- Multiple product images: Accurate product details and colors.
- Customer reviews: Reviews from customers with similar body types and photos.
- Brand information: An about page to know about the brand and how the material is sourced.
Competitive analysis
In addition to user research, Kate conducted a competitive analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing ecommerce websites.
For example, major retailers like Amazon and Zappos excel in providing multiple product images, detailed descriptions, and user reviews. These things are just a part of a big system that makes mentioned retailers as big as they are.
By analyzing these successful models, Kate could incorporate best practices into her own designing process.
Step 2: Planning
With the research data in hand, Kate organized the insights and identified key themes.
She then created user flows to map out the ideal paths users would take to complete tasks on the website. User flows are visual representations of the steps users follow to do something like finding a product or completing a purchase.
Design
Kate moved on to the design phase, starting with sketches to visualize the layout of the website.
She also created a mood board to establish the visual style, aiming for a simple yet modern look. Mood boards are collections of images, colors, and typography that convey the desired aesthetic and tone of a design.
Step 3: Prototyping
Building a prototype
Then, Kate developed a clickable prototype of the website. Prototypes are interactive models that simulate the user experience, allowing designers to test functionality.
Usability testing
Usability testing was a crucial step in Kate’s process. She conducted remote usability tests with five participants, asking them to complete tasks like finding a specific product and completing the checkout process. The feedback showed areas for improvement, such as:
- Simplifying navigation by removing unnecessary options.
- Adding a size chart for clearer size and fit information.
- Including icons to make quantity adjustments easier.
Step 4: Improvement
Based on the feedback from usability testing, Kate made several revisions to her design. She removed confusing navigation options, added detailed size charts, and improved the overall usability of the website.
As a result, she had a more user-friendly and effective ecommerce store.
Step 5: Final result
The final product was a user-friendly ecommerce website that addressed the pain points identified during research.
- Easy navigation: Intuitive categories and filters made it easy for users to find what they were looking for.
- High-quality images: Multiple product shots and detailed descriptions helped users make informed decisions.
- Easy checkout: A simplified checkout process reduces cart abandonment.
- Customer reviews: Reviews and photos from other customers provided valuable insights.
- Brand transparency: An about page offered information on the brand and product sourcing.
Kate has done a really hard job to finally own a great online store. Can I tell you the secret? You don’t have to go through these steps to get an online store ensuring a perfect shopping experience – you can get it for $0 right now!
Get an expertly-crafted online store FOR FREE
Don’t spend your time or money – Get a turnkey ecommerce store made by professionals from Sellvia.
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What's Sellvia?We’ve done the best job for you – our approach removes all typical ecommerce hurdles, making it an excellent choice for those looking to start a business without significant financial investment and lack of experience or free time.
Your online store will have all the necessary features that make you able to compete with the sharks of the industry:
- Quick loading speed – so that your customers get what they need as quickly as possible.
- Intuitive design – everything is easy to navigate and explore. No headaches or unnecessary stress.
- Videos of the products – let your customers see the products in their full glory.
- Premium look – your website won’t just have a user-friendly design, but also vibrant visuals that make the shopping experience extra pleasant.
- High-quality, zoomable product images – allow your customers to see everything they need before they make a purchase.
- Informative descriptions – they make purchasing decisions much easier and show product features in the best way possible.
- Smooth checkout process – your customers will be able to make a purchase with ease. No annoying, long checkouts that steal thousands of dollars in profits.
- Mobile optimization – your website will look great on any device. Literally.
- Customer reviews of the products – let your customers know what they’re really buying, thanks to the authentic reviews of the products.
Also, when you get an online store from Sellvia, it’ll be pre-filled with hundreds of best-sellers from the niche of your choice. And what’s better is that Sellvia will take care of shipping them out for you! That’s called dropshipping.
Online store without product inventory? How come?
Watch this video and learn what dropshipping is!Dropshipping is an awesome way to dive into the online business world without having to stock up on a bunch of products.
When someone places an order, the supplier ships it straight to your customer. You never touch the product – it goes directly from the supplier to the buyer.
The best part about dropshipping is how easy and budget-friendly it is to get started. You don’t need a lot of money to buy inventory upfront. All you need is a computer and an internet connection.
Dropshipping gives you the freedom to work from anywhere. Whether you’re at home, traveling, or working from a cozy café, as long as you have the internet, you’re all set.
You don’t have to worry about storing products or packing and shipping orders–that’s all handled by Sellvia. This means you can easily switch up your store’s product selection and always offer the latest and greatest items, without having to deal with unsold stock.
So, if you’re looking for a stress-free way to start a business, dropshipping is perfect for you.
With 14 years of ecommerce experience, Sellvia knows how to make entering the industry as easy as possible.
Get a turnkey ecommerce store with premium design for free and start your business journey without any hassle!