2 0 1 9 - V e l v e t C o n s u l t i n g

2019E-commerceReport amp Checklist

T h i s d o c u m e n t i s m e a n t f o r i n t e r n a l u s e

V E L V E T C O N S U L T I N G

Table of Content

Persistant componentsHomepageProduct Listing PageProduct Details PageCart amp CheckoutAccounts amp ProfileOn site SearchFiltering and SortingRecommendationsMobile Optimization

VI ndash Sources

I ndash State of E-commerce

III ndash E-commerce UX Checklist

II ndash Customer Expectations

Notice This table of content has clickable anchor linksThe anchor links redirects you from the table of content to the specific sectionYou can click on the bottom of every page to be redirected to the table of content

ConvenienceSpeedAssuranceAccuracyOptionsExperience

More and more buyers are turning to the experience ofshopping online and sellers are starting new channels andmethods responding this trend This is the sphere in whichdesign of positive user experience directly moves thestakeholders to profits

A fundamental understanding of how your customersnavigate your funnel is essential to increasing conversions Toimplement such analysis effectively you need to learn howyour customers interact with your website and determinewhat you can do to make their experience more seamless andenjoyable

Staying up to date with ecommerce and online shoppingtrends is essential for any online business in 2019 With somany shoppers scouring the internet for the best deals to savethem time and money you need to make sure your websiteoffers the best user experience possible

So what trends are the most crucial for your business Mobilecontinues to be an increasingly important factor andomnichannel shopping is becoming more prevalent as wellOther areas of note are video and image search voice searchand influencer marketing which is said to be one of thefastest-growing customer acquisition methods on the internet

State of E-commerce

19 Billion

Itrsquos estimated that therewill be 192 billion globaldigital buyers in 2019

137

Ecommerce sales will account for 137 of retail sales worldwide

85

Of consumers research online before Buying

What numbers are saying

The importance of the User Experience

Introduction

Through the new research conducted by the Nielson NormanGroup there are 6 major themes were change is dramatic andthose are

Customer Expectations

The changes are dramatic

bull Accuracybull Optionsbull Experience

bull Conveniencebull Speedbull Assurance

As ecommerce retailers begin to offer flexible shoppingexperiences across a variety of channels usersrsquo expectations forconvenience in online shopping are increasing They want toshop on their terms whenever and wherever they areregardless of the device or channel Companies often considerthe digital and physical experiences as two very different anddiscreet experiences However customers do not They expectthe physical and online worlds to blend seamlessly Anotherfacet of convenience is helping customers reorder regularlypurchased items with little effort or offering capabilities toschedule recurring orders so they never have to worry aboutrunning out of a product they often use Large players likeAmazon and Walmart have identified this opportunity andbuilt it into their offerings

Convenience

In the past ordering online often meant waiting for days oreven weeks for the product to be delivered Not anymoreAmazon has offered quick 2-day shipping for several years andmore recently it started offering same-day delivery that inmany locations can be customized by shoppers down to thehour As a result todayrsquos online customers have a desire forinstant gratification and immediacy when it comes tointeracting with ecommerce retailers Speedy shipping is amajor benefit for web shoppers who are overwhelmed withoptions these days and fast-delivery options differentiateretailers from their competitors

Speed

Standards for accuracy have also increased Users have hadpositive experiences with organizations that provide incrediblyprecise information Todayrsquos shoppers expect precision ingeolocation information inventory data order-statusmessages pickup time frames pricing arrival dates and userreviews When encountered sites with only vague productinformation or broad generalizations about deliverytimeframes or additional surcharges they became frustratedThey didnrsquot understand why the company did not provide thesame specificity that they had received from other companies

Precision

In addition to increased expectations for quality informationshoppers also look for better overall customer experienceoutside of the interface itself Sites offer choices for paymentshipping and delivery setting up recurring orders and even forcustomer-support channels Many sites these days take theidea of flexibility to the extreme by offering policies that wereunheard of years earlier This level of flexibility allows customersto interact on their terms and design a shopping experiencethat suits their needs For these reasons users now expectecommerce sites to give them options for almost anythingthey can do

Options

Usersrsquo expectations for privacy and security assurance onecommerce sites have increased while their patience withissues in such matters has decreased Heightened standardsfor security stem from data breaches and broken trust withcompanies such as Facebook Equifax and Yahoo who havefaced major security incidents recently If users are unsureabout the security of their data on an ecommerce site they willbe less likely to return Shoppers want to feel safe and need toknow that sites had the proper security measures andprotections in place Invest these areas and speak to users toaddress their concerns about data safety Communicate howseriously you take your customersrsquo data throughout theexperience to assure users that they are protected

Assurance

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

Table of Content

Persistant componentsHomepageProduct Listing PageProduct Details PageCart amp CheckoutAccounts amp ProfileOn site SearchFiltering and SortingRecommendationsMobile Optimization

VI ndash Sources

I ndash State of E-commerce

III ndash E-commerce UX Checklist

II ndash Customer Expectations

Notice This table of content has clickable anchor linksThe anchor links redirects you from the table of content to the specific sectionYou can click on the bottom of every page to be redirected to the table of content

ConvenienceSpeedAssuranceAccuracyOptionsExperience

More and more buyers are turning to the experience ofshopping online and sellers are starting new channels andmethods responding this trend This is the sphere in whichdesign of positive user experience directly moves thestakeholders to profits

A fundamental understanding of how your customersnavigate your funnel is essential to increasing conversions Toimplement such analysis effectively you need to learn howyour customers interact with your website and determinewhat you can do to make their experience more seamless andenjoyable

Staying up to date with ecommerce and online shoppingtrends is essential for any online business in 2019 With somany shoppers scouring the internet for the best deals to savethem time and money you need to make sure your websiteoffers the best user experience possible

So what trends are the most crucial for your business Mobilecontinues to be an increasingly important factor andomnichannel shopping is becoming more prevalent as wellOther areas of note are video and image search voice searchand influencer marketing which is said to be one of thefastest-growing customer acquisition methods on the internet

State of E-commerce

19 Billion

Itrsquos estimated that therewill be 192 billion globaldigital buyers in 2019

137

Ecommerce sales will account for 137 of retail sales worldwide

85

Of consumers research online before Buying

What numbers are saying

The importance of the User Experience

Introduction

Through the new research conducted by the Nielson NormanGroup there are 6 major themes were change is dramatic andthose are

Customer Expectations

The changes are dramatic

bull Accuracybull Optionsbull Experience

bull Conveniencebull Speedbull Assurance

As ecommerce retailers begin to offer flexible shoppingexperiences across a variety of channels usersrsquo expectations forconvenience in online shopping are increasing They want toshop on their terms whenever and wherever they areregardless of the device or channel Companies often considerthe digital and physical experiences as two very different anddiscreet experiences However customers do not They expectthe physical and online worlds to blend seamlessly Anotherfacet of convenience is helping customers reorder regularlypurchased items with little effort or offering capabilities toschedule recurring orders so they never have to worry aboutrunning out of a product they often use Large players likeAmazon and Walmart have identified this opportunity andbuilt it into their offerings

Convenience

In the past ordering online often meant waiting for days oreven weeks for the product to be delivered Not anymoreAmazon has offered quick 2-day shipping for several years andmore recently it started offering same-day delivery that inmany locations can be customized by shoppers down to thehour As a result todayrsquos online customers have a desire forinstant gratification and immediacy when it comes tointeracting with ecommerce retailers Speedy shipping is amajor benefit for web shoppers who are overwhelmed withoptions these days and fast-delivery options differentiateretailers from their competitors

Speed

Standards for accuracy have also increased Users have hadpositive experiences with organizations that provide incrediblyprecise information Todayrsquos shoppers expect precision ingeolocation information inventory data order-statusmessages pickup time frames pricing arrival dates and userreviews When encountered sites with only vague productinformation or broad generalizations about deliverytimeframes or additional surcharges they became frustratedThey didnrsquot understand why the company did not provide thesame specificity that they had received from other companies

Precision

In addition to increased expectations for quality informationshoppers also look for better overall customer experienceoutside of the interface itself Sites offer choices for paymentshipping and delivery setting up recurring orders and even forcustomer-support channels Many sites these days take theidea of flexibility to the extreme by offering policies that wereunheard of years earlier This level of flexibility allows customersto interact on their terms and design a shopping experiencethat suits their needs For these reasons users now expectecommerce sites to give them options for almost anythingthey can do

Options

Usersrsquo expectations for privacy and security assurance onecommerce sites have increased while their patience withissues in such matters has decreased Heightened standardsfor security stem from data breaches and broken trust withcompanies such as Facebook Equifax and Yahoo who havefaced major security incidents recently If users are unsureabout the security of their data on an ecommerce site they willbe less likely to return Shoppers want to feel safe and need toknow that sites had the proper security measures andprotections in place Invest these areas and speak to users toaddress their concerns about data safety Communicate howseriously you take your customersrsquo data throughout theexperience to assure users that they are protected

Assurance

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

More and more buyers are turning to the experience ofshopping online and sellers are starting new channels andmethods responding this trend This is the sphere in whichdesign of positive user experience directly moves thestakeholders to profits

A fundamental understanding of how your customersnavigate your funnel is essential to increasing conversions Toimplement such analysis effectively you need to learn howyour customers interact with your website and determinewhat you can do to make their experience more seamless andenjoyable

Staying up to date with ecommerce and online shoppingtrends is essential for any online business in 2019 With somany shoppers scouring the internet for the best deals to savethem time and money you need to make sure your websiteoffers the best user experience possible

So what trends are the most crucial for your business Mobilecontinues to be an increasingly important factor andomnichannel shopping is becoming more prevalent as wellOther areas of note are video and image search voice searchand influencer marketing which is said to be one of thefastest-growing customer acquisition methods on the internet

State of E-commerce

19 Billion

Itrsquos estimated that therewill be 192 billion globaldigital buyers in 2019

137

Ecommerce sales will account for 137 of retail sales worldwide

85

Of consumers research online before Buying

What numbers are saying

The importance of the User Experience

Introduction

Through the new research conducted by the Nielson NormanGroup there are 6 major themes were change is dramatic andthose are

Customer Expectations

The changes are dramatic

bull Accuracybull Optionsbull Experience

bull Conveniencebull Speedbull Assurance

As ecommerce retailers begin to offer flexible shoppingexperiences across a variety of channels usersrsquo expectations forconvenience in online shopping are increasing They want toshop on their terms whenever and wherever they areregardless of the device or channel Companies often considerthe digital and physical experiences as two very different anddiscreet experiences However customers do not They expectthe physical and online worlds to blend seamlessly Anotherfacet of convenience is helping customers reorder regularlypurchased items with little effort or offering capabilities toschedule recurring orders so they never have to worry aboutrunning out of a product they often use Large players likeAmazon and Walmart have identified this opportunity andbuilt it into their offerings

Convenience

In the past ordering online often meant waiting for days oreven weeks for the product to be delivered Not anymoreAmazon has offered quick 2-day shipping for several years andmore recently it started offering same-day delivery that inmany locations can be customized by shoppers down to thehour As a result todayrsquos online customers have a desire forinstant gratification and immediacy when it comes tointeracting with ecommerce retailers Speedy shipping is amajor benefit for web shoppers who are overwhelmed withoptions these days and fast-delivery options differentiateretailers from their competitors

Speed

Standards for accuracy have also increased Users have hadpositive experiences with organizations that provide incrediblyprecise information Todayrsquos shoppers expect precision ingeolocation information inventory data order-statusmessages pickup time frames pricing arrival dates and userreviews When encountered sites with only vague productinformation or broad generalizations about deliverytimeframes or additional surcharges they became frustratedThey didnrsquot understand why the company did not provide thesame specificity that they had received from other companies

Precision

In addition to increased expectations for quality informationshoppers also look for better overall customer experienceoutside of the interface itself Sites offer choices for paymentshipping and delivery setting up recurring orders and even forcustomer-support channels Many sites these days take theidea of flexibility to the extreme by offering policies that wereunheard of years earlier This level of flexibility allows customersto interact on their terms and design a shopping experiencethat suits their needs For these reasons users now expectecommerce sites to give them options for almost anythingthey can do

Options

Usersrsquo expectations for privacy and security assurance onecommerce sites have increased while their patience withissues in such matters has decreased Heightened standardsfor security stem from data breaches and broken trust withcompanies such as Facebook Equifax and Yahoo who havefaced major security incidents recently If users are unsureabout the security of their data on an ecommerce site they willbe less likely to return Shoppers want to feel safe and need toknow that sites had the proper security measures andprotections in place Invest these areas and speak to users toaddress their concerns about data safety Communicate howseriously you take your customersrsquo data throughout theexperience to assure users that they are protected

Assurance

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

Through the new research conducted by the Nielson NormanGroup there are 6 major themes were change is dramatic andthose are

Customer Expectations

The changes are dramatic

bull Accuracybull Optionsbull Experience

bull Conveniencebull Speedbull Assurance

As ecommerce retailers begin to offer flexible shoppingexperiences across a variety of channels usersrsquo expectations forconvenience in online shopping are increasing They want toshop on their terms whenever and wherever they areregardless of the device or channel Companies often considerthe digital and physical experiences as two very different anddiscreet experiences However customers do not They expectthe physical and online worlds to blend seamlessly Anotherfacet of convenience is helping customers reorder regularlypurchased items with little effort or offering capabilities toschedule recurring orders so they never have to worry aboutrunning out of a product they often use Large players likeAmazon and Walmart have identified this opportunity andbuilt it into their offerings

Convenience

In the past ordering online often meant waiting for days oreven weeks for the product to be delivered Not anymoreAmazon has offered quick 2-day shipping for several years andmore recently it started offering same-day delivery that inmany locations can be customized by shoppers down to thehour As a result todayrsquos online customers have a desire forinstant gratification and immediacy when it comes tointeracting with ecommerce retailers Speedy shipping is amajor benefit for web shoppers who are overwhelmed withoptions these days and fast-delivery options differentiateretailers from their competitors

Speed

Standards for accuracy have also increased Users have hadpositive experiences with organizations that provide incrediblyprecise information Todayrsquos shoppers expect precision ingeolocation information inventory data order-statusmessages pickup time frames pricing arrival dates and userreviews When encountered sites with only vague productinformation or broad generalizations about deliverytimeframes or additional surcharges they became frustratedThey didnrsquot understand why the company did not provide thesame specificity that they had received from other companies

Precision

In addition to increased expectations for quality informationshoppers also look for better overall customer experienceoutside of the interface itself Sites offer choices for paymentshipping and delivery setting up recurring orders and even forcustomer-support channels Many sites these days take theidea of flexibility to the extreme by offering policies that wereunheard of years earlier This level of flexibility allows customersto interact on their terms and design a shopping experiencethat suits their needs For these reasons users now expectecommerce sites to give them options for almost anythingthey can do

Options

Usersrsquo expectations for privacy and security assurance onecommerce sites have increased while their patience withissues in such matters has decreased Heightened standardsfor security stem from data breaches and broken trust withcompanies such as Facebook Equifax and Yahoo who havefaced major security incidents recently If users are unsureabout the security of their data on an ecommerce site they willbe less likely to return Shoppers want to feel safe and need toknow that sites had the proper security measures andprotections in place Invest these areas and speak to users toaddress their concerns about data safety Communicate howseriously you take your customersrsquo data throughout theexperience to assure users that they are protected

Assurance

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

Standards for accuracy have also increased Users have hadpositive experiences with organizations that provide incrediblyprecise information Todayrsquos shoppers expect precision ingeolocation information inventory data order-statusmessages pickup time frames pricing arrival dates and userreviews When encountered sites with only vague productinformation or broad generalizations about deliverytimeframes or additional surcharges they became frustratedThey didnrsquot understand why the company did not provide thesame specificity that they had received from other companies

Precision

In addition to increased expectations for quality informationshoppers also look for better overall customer experienceoutside of the interface itself Sites offer choices for paymentshipping and delivery setting up recurring orders and even forcustomer-support channels Many sites these days take theidea of flexibility to the extreme by offering policies that wereunheard of years earlier This level of flexibility allows customersto interact on their terms and design a shopping experiencethat suits their needs For these reasons users now expectecommerce sites to give them options for almost anythingthey can do

Options

Usersrsquo expectations for privacy and security assurance onecommerce sites have increased while their patience withissues in such matters has decreased Heightened standardsfor security stem from data breaches and broken trust withcompanies such as Facebook Equifax and Yahoo who havefaced major security incidents recently If users are unsureabout the security of their data on an ecommerce site they willbe less likely to return Shoppers want to feel safe and need toknow that sites had the proper security measures andprotections in place Invest these areas and speak to users toaddress their concerns about data safety Communicate howseriously you take your customersrsquo data throughout theexperience to assure users that they are protected

Assurance

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

Yesterdayrsquos amazing experience is todayrsquos okay experience Asusersrsquo comfort level with ecommerce grows they expect addedelements of surprise and delight Details such as impressiveand unique packaging inspirational content and even digitalexperiences that are extensions of physical ones are all ways inwhich ecommerce retailers can set themselves apart

Experience

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

When it comes to eCommerce websites its all about functionality features and design

The success of many websites is determined by not only theproducts offered and how well the website is marketed butalso by the features the website offer both the customer andthe website owner As a business owner it is important thatyou have the tools to manage your website and that theadministrative features fit with your business processes Forexample if you offer payment terms to your customer youllneed to be sure the platform youre using gives you the abilityto set a credit limit for a customer Before diving into aneCommerce project think carefully about the features needed

Usability is about people and how they understand and use things

It is not about technologySteve krugh

The importance of the User Experience

Here are the focus pages and areas of an E-commerce experience

bull Persistent Componentsbull Homepagebull Product List Pagebull Product Details Pagebull Cart amp Checkout

bull Accountsbull On site Searchbull Filtering and Sortingbull Recommendationsbull Mobile Optimization

Throughout this article we are going to take a look at eachcomponent and give the most important guidelines to keep inmind while designing your E-commerce experience

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

To provide your customer with a greater user experience youneed to know and understand his main pain points and needsand provide him with the right tools at his fingertips and theright information at a glance In order to do this someelements need to be persistent and present across all websitepages

PersistentComponents

Search-Box

What are persistent components

Quiksilver

Home page

Make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite else they will leave in less than 15 seconds Place thenavigation bar at the standard positions where visitors expectto find them horizontally on top and vertically on the leftYou could also make your navigation bar sticky(Related Mega Menu)

Navigation Bar

Part of the sitewide layout the primary tip for an eCommercehomepage best practices is making the search boxomnipresent A great example is the quicksilver E-commercewebsite where the search box is an unabashed tag Onlineshoppers do not need to scroll the page to find the necessaryproducts If the instant search box does not work for youronline shop design (More on the search component here)

No matter how strong your credentials a first-time visitor willalways eye your website with a hint of suspicion andapprehension Prominently display your board line number orphysical location of the company if you donrsquot want them tothink you are a crook a thug or will misuse their credit cardinformation

Location and Phone Number

Louis Vuitton

Website

Sometimes a customer may be interested in a product but decide to buy it later Or a customer may find a product interesting and want to check that later for more details A Wishlist allows them to store a list of these products so that they can easily find them next time they visit your site

Add to wishlist Icon

Place your business logo at a prominent position of the headerPreferably near the left and link it to the E-commercehomepage

Brand Logo

As a modern ecommerce site you should have a newslettersignup form that collects your customersrsquo email addresses Youcan send them special offers and inform new product arrivalsbut try not to make the Newsletter sign up too offensive

Newsletter signup

Make it easier to your customers to check what they are having in their cart just by hovering over a persistent cart icon This will prevent them from leaving the actual product listing page or homepage they are browsing(More on cart and mini carts here)

Shopping cart icon on hover

A persistent shopping cart sitewide keeps track ofunpurchased items which are left in the cart and saves theinformation for the customerrsquos next visit Customers who areldquorememberedrdquo can have the contents of their shopping cartsrestored the next time they visit your store

Using a persistent shopping cart can help reduce the numberof abandoned shopping carts and increase sales It isimportant to understand that the persistent shopping cartdoes not expose sensitive account information at any timeWhile the persistent shopping cart is use both registeredcustomers and guest shoppers are required to either log in toan existing account or create a new account before goingthrough checkout For guest shoppers a persistent shoppingcart is the only way to retrieve information from a previoussession

The shopping cart icon could also be a notifier for when aproduct is added to the bag

Shopping Cart icon

ONEPLUS

Mini Cart

High shipping charges are a leading cause of cartabandonment and no shipping charge is what beautifulshopping dreams are made of

E-commerce businesses that offer free shipping have anumber of advantages over those who donrsquot adding freeshipping message sitewide increased Average order value(AOV) by more than 7 for some brands in instance NUFACE

Free Shipping Declaration

Investing in a live chat software help address user confusionsand doubts instantly and handhold them down the salesfunnel Also calling customer support over and over again isthe last thing a user trying to make an online purchase wouldwant If you are thinking efficiency in customer service thinklive chat Guide that reluctant visitor who has been confusedlyhovering over various elements by initiating a chat session

Prove live chat support

You donrsquot need to wait for a full site redesign before improving the experience you offer you can

leverage good UX with small and low budget improvements

HUMAANS BLOG

Itrsquos customary to include payment system icons at the bottom of the page This lets your customers quickly know which payment systems you accept

Merchants should ensure that they always offer at least the top three payment methods in a given market or country Most shoppers will use at least one of them and it has been shown that providing the top three methods rather than only the most popular can increase conversions by up to 30

Payment System Icons

Lacoste

Website

Dior

Footer

No matter how simple your website is or how awesome yournavigation bar is there are always some takers for FAQs Donrsquotoverestimate the customerrsquos understanding spell everythingout the way you would to a 5-year-old You can includeinformation on return policy warranty and shipping durationunder this section

Frequently asked questions section

If your ecommerce site has multiple versions for differentregions then you can include language options to let usersswitch between different languagesregions

Language options and region selectors

Give your customer the possibility to search for your brandstores by distance area or tag so they can feel more confidentabout the brand presence

Store locator

Providing links to your social media accounts at the bottom of the page lets your customers stay connected with your brand

Social Media Links

Your site should definitely let the customers register and login Itrsquos best to place this on the top bar for easy access

Customer login

Last but not least Security concerns in fact Security is alwaysone of the most important aspects of any ecommercebusiness Apart from SSL certificates and PCI compliance yoursite should have a strong firewall and layers of security on loginand contact forms

An ecommerce site must have a top level domain with asecured connection If your site exclusively serves a certaincountry then use a country code domain

Https SSL certifications and domains

Last but not least Including some description on every page asa description of the page or information about your businessis important from an SEO perspective Also a potential newcustomer will be able to quickly know about you from this

Text content slot

Last Site loading speed has become a major factor in customerretention One study showed that 79 of the respondentswould be less likely to give return business to a site they foundlacking in performance

Faster load time can be assured through things like imageoptimization or content delivery networks (CDNs) which cachecontent enhance speed performance and delivery of internetcontent for users

Also itrsquos important to alleviate as much friction as possible fromthe buying process ndash remove steps and form fields that willbog down a customer Todayrsquos consumers donrsquot have thepatience for inefficient processes

Site speed

Homepageamp Landings

Billabong

Landing Page

Defining the structure of the menu is directly linked tobusiness specifications and its one of the most importantmilestones that will benefit the user experience a quick tips isto make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite as they do for a your physical store

Mega menu

The homepage of an eCommerce website is a lot like prime-time television slot Every product is vying to be there but onlythe very best gets the slot It can be thought of as thestorefront for your website This is where you allure mesmerizeconvince coax or seduce the visitor down the funnel Here aresome tips on how you can make your eCommerce homepagea conversion magnet and an enjoyable browsing experience

Role of the Homepage

You can customize your home page depending on definedcriteria like region or the customer gender to do that you canredirect first time users to a landing page where they canchoose their preferences and access the homepage tailoredfor their needs Use cookies to redirect directly the user to theirappropriate homepage

Eventually a Landing page

Homepageamp Landings

Billabong

Landing Page

Defining the structure of the menu is directly linked tobusiness specifications and its one of the most importantmilestones that will benefit the user experience a quick tips isto make sure your visitors easily find their way around yourwebsite as they do for a your physical store

Mega menu

The homepage of an eCommerce website is a lot like prime-time television slot Every product is vying to be there but onlythe very best gets the slot It can be thought of as thestorefront for your website This is where you allure mesmerizeconvince coax or seduce the visitor down the funnel Here aresome tips on how you can make your eCommerce homepagea conversion magnet and an enjoyable browsing experience

Role of the Homepage

You can customize your home page depending on definedcriteria like region or the customer gender to do that you canredirect first time users to a landing page where they canchoose their preferences and access the homepage tailoredfor their needs Use cookies to redirect directly the user to theirappropriate homepage

Eventually a Landing page

What a visitor sees in the first few seconds on your homepageis very crucial Itrsquos important that you establish your logo andcommunicate your value proposition instantly and donrsquot comeacross as just another mom amp pop store In the examplepresented here Oakstreet establishes its competitive edge bysaying ldquoDesigned for Longevityrdquo and ldquoHandcrafted in Americardquondash both statements signifying premium quality Check out thisarticle to find out how a good UVP can boost conversions

UVP ndash highlighting your unique value proposition

Statista lists the findings of a survey in the US according towhich 64 of online shoppers wait to buy a product till it goeson sale Do these discount seekers a favor Fish all thediscounted products on your homepage and line those up in aseparate section thatrsquos dedicated to them See how neatlyDorothy Perkins displays discounts on its homepage

Sales section

You may manually add featured products or automate theprocess to show a list of best selling products you may also ada collection of items or any other set of products this willincrease users browsing session duration

Featured best selling amp collection sections

Oakstreet

Website

Link every product details page or product list page to arelevant CTA you may also provide links to sales and specialoffers pages

CTA ndash Call to action

Amazon

Recommendations

A very effective way to increase sales and daylight your customers is to show potential them items based on their unique preferences search and purchasing history

Recommendation section

As you can see in the screenshot above I checked out DanArielyrsquos book on behavioral economics and Amazon is makingno bones about remembering my search and makingrecommendations based on the same That being said morepowerful tools are being developed thanks to AI to makepersonalization even more pertinent Infact User data such asuser-location traffic sources what customers bought and whatpages they viewed is greatly helping E-commerce businessespersonalize their user experience leading to higher LTV(More on Recommendations here)

One of the most important pages of an E-commerce the PDPthat lists multiple products within a category a catalog or aselection of products with each product represented by aphoto a price and product name These pages are usuallylinked to from the category navigation bar and include filteroptions

Product Listing Pages

Role of product listing page

Every product listing page should have a title at the top to giveusers sense of where they are on the website

Category page title

Breadcrumb navigation helps the visitors to easily browsethrough product categories You can include it right below themain navigation bar

Breadcrumb navigation

It depends on your business specifications and the experienceyou are aiming to provide While list view is better suited forproducts that requires extensive information and detailsspecifications grid view is mostly used for products that rely onpictures and can be compared quickly

Grid or List view of product slots

One of the most important pages of an E-commerce the PDPthat lists multiple products within a category a catalog or aselection of products with each product represented by aphoto a price and product name These pages are usuallylinked to from the category navigation bar and include filteroptions

Product Listing Pages

Role of product listing page

Every product listing page should have a title at the top to giveusers sense of where they are on the website

Category page title

Breadcrumb navigation helps the visitors to easily browsethrough product categories You can include it right below themain navigation bar

Breadcrumb navigation

It depends on your business specifications and the experienceyou are aiming to provide While list view is better suited forproducts that requires extensive information and detailsspecifications grid view is mostly used for products that rely onpictures and can be compared quickly

Grid or List view of product slots

Product thumbnails are important especially for visually-driven industries such as beauty apparel or travel As a matterof fact your product thumbnails should include equallyattractive images and create a sense of harmony

Regarding their size it all depends on your brand image andyour industry All product thumbnails on Asoscom aredisplayed on a grey background meant to increase thecontrast and highlight the products

Product thumbnail

Let users add products to their Wishlist without having toenter to the product details page

Add to Wishlist button

Every product slots should contain the name of the productand a small description to help the user now what they arelooking at this also helps with SEO concerns

Product Name and description

Product Information

Product List Items

ASOS

Product

Slots

bull Discount and discounted pricebull Color optionsbull Stock availabilitybull Best sellers sign

At first glance Quick Views would seem like a great idea Thefeature does as the name hints provide the user with a ldquoquickviewrdquo of the product by opening a lightbox overlay whichdisplays a preview of the selected item

The immediate and seeming appeal of Quick Views do helpexplain why 48 of top e-commerce sites have the featureEspecially given that some sites will likely see a small increasein conversion rate when implementing a symptom treatmentUnfortunately this disguises the underpinning issue of poor listitem design which is causing a much larger hit to overallconversions

When users are presented to a Quick View which contains adecent amount of product information some users mistakethe Quick View for the sitersquos product page They willconsequently treat and interact with the page as if it is theproduct page Therefore if these users canrsquot find the productinformation they are looking for in the Quick View they arelikely to conclude that itrsquos because the site does not have thisinformation

Quick view modal

If therersquos an option for customizing an item there should be abutton or a clickable icon that will inform users about thecustomization possibility and lead them to the customizationinterface

Customize button

Thanks to Baymard usability tests and benchmarks we knowthat 46 of top US e-commerce sites display too little productinformation in their product lists for users to accuratelyevaluate if a product page is worth exploring or not

Few sites actively mitigate these issues with a simpletechnique utilizing the mouse hover state to display additionalinformation or images ndash right within the list item when theuser moves their cursor over it During our usability study of 19leading e-commerce sites this extra layer of hover-enabledtextual or visual information was observed to drastically reducewasteful ldquopogo-stickingrdquo where the user heads back and forthbetween the product list and product pages only to discardirrelevant products

Displaying additional list item information on mousehover therefore leads to less time spent on irrelevant productsand more time spent comparing relevant ones ndash resulting inan overall higher rate of success at the tested e-commercesites adopting this design Clearly this benefits both users andbusiness Yet our usability benchmarks reveal that just 6 of e-commerce sites display additional textual information onhover and only 18 show additional images on hover In otherwords 76 of e-commerce sites donrsquot utilize this powerfulhover state

Product list items hovering

Product filtering allows customers to filter products based ondifferent attributes For example a clothing store may usegender size colors etc as its filtering options The sortingallows viewing products on ascending or descending order ofprice and arrival (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Product filtering and sorting

Product Details Page

At the product pages there should be high-quality imagesthat can be zoomed in by hovering to view particular parts ofthe product If you design for a mono-brand store considerthat context real-life dynamics and emotion create a strongerrelationship between the customer the brand and the wholecommunity Note how Urban Outfitters complement theirformal footage with a real-life outfit photo featuring theselected product

Product Images

This is simply the name of the product The name of eachproduct should definitely be unique but maybe with differentcolors and sizes if applicable For more technical productsthere should be a product reference next to the title

Product name and description

Breadcrumb navigation helps the visitors to easily browsethrough product categories You can include it right below themain navigation bar

Breadcrumb navigation

Product Details Page

At the product pages there should be high-quality imagesthat can be zoomed in by hovering to view particular parts ofthe product If you design for a mono-brand store considerthat context real-life dynamics and emotion create a strongerrelationship between the customer the brand and the wholecommunity Note how Urban Outfitters complement theirformal footage with a real-life outfit photo featuring theselected product

Product Images

This is simply the name of the product The name of eachproduct should definitely be unique but maybe with differentcolors and sizes if applicable For more technical productsthere should be a product reference next to the title

Product name and description

Breadcrumb navigation helps the visitors to easily browsethrough product categories You can include it right below themain navigation bar

Breadcrumb navigation

Product thumbnails are important especially for visually-driven industries such as beauty apparel or travel As a matterof fact your product thumbnails should include equally

Baymard studies show that 50ndash80 of users donrsquot see the photo at all if its thumb is truncated in the thumbnails section due to space saving reasons

Design a layout where all photo thumbs are initially visible and they will not only help the user quickly see the desired angle or close-up but also provide quick and intuitive navigation to the desired photo

Make navigating between thumbnails easy by optimizing the number of clicks to select the different images and replacing it with hovering or scrolling

Product images thumbnails

Product Information

bull Pricebull Discount and discounted pricebull Color optionsbull Stock availabilitybull Best sellers signbull Customization icon (if available)bull Stars Rating

Just below the Product variations field there should be anoption to change the product quantity That way thecustomers can easily select the number of items they want tobuy

Quantity field

Under the information box there should be place the differentfields for product variations such as size and colors

Product variations fields

Next to the product images there should The Add to Cart button The button should be prominently displayed beside the product image as a sticky elements so its here ready to be clicked wherever the customer is across the product details page

Add to cart button

This section of the website will let the customers read rate and give reviews to products As we have shown the average rating and number of reviews should also be shown right below the product name above

Product reviews section

In every Product detail page should be a section with productrecommendations whether it is recently visited items relateditems cross up sells or other recommendation methods(more on product recommendations here)

Product recommendations section

Your business may occasionally provide promo codes tocustomers This field is where customers may apply the promocodes to get discounts or other privileges

Promo code

For some products there should be a section to inform theusers about whatrsquos in the box of the product their about topurchase

Whatrsquos on the box section

Cartamp Checkout

Having a mini shopping cart is definitely not an alternative tothe full page cart as decision making will be tedious with just amini cart It will help shoppers keep track of how much theyare spend and what they buy Provide a link in the mini cart toview the full page cart instead of taking the user directly tocheckout

The mini cart can also be displayed to confirm that an I temwas added to the cart

Mini cart

Users can visit the cart page on the ecommerce website theyare shopping from and see all the items they chose to buy Thispage shows the individual prices of each of the products a useris buying the quantity in which it is being bought as well asthe total amount of all the items being purchased By clickingon the checkout CTA Customers can directly proceed tocheckout and receive a receipt of their payment via email

Full cart page

HAUTELOOK

Mini Cart

The final purchase decision is made on the full cart page so itsimportant that this page clearly summarizes the items Thecart should include product image and details (size colorprice) enabling the user to differentiate an item from othersimilar items that they may be considering

List product image and details

Cartamp Checkout

Having a mini shopping cart is definitely not an alternative tothe full page cart as decision making will be tedious with just amini cart It will help shoppers keep track of how much theyare spend and what they buy Provide a link in the mini cart toview the full page cart instead of taking the user directly tocheckout

The mini cart can also be displayed to confirm that an I temwas added to the cart

Mini cart

Users can visit the cart page on the ecommerce website theyare shopping from and see all the items they chose to buy Thispage shows the individual prices of each of the products a useris buying the quantity in which it is being bought as well asthe total amount of all the items being purchased By clickingon the checkout CTA Customers can directly proceed tocheckout and receive a receipt of their payment via email

Full cart page

HAUTELOOK

Mini Cart

The final purchase decision is made on the full cart page so itsimportant that this page clearly summarizes the items Thecart should include product image and details (size colorprice) enabling the user to differentiate an item from othersimilar items that they may be considering

List product image and details

The final purchase decision is made on the full cart page so itsimportant that this page clearly summarizes the items Thecart should include product image and details (size colorprice) enabling the user to differentiate an item from othersimilar items that they may be considering

Link back to product details page

Many e-commerce sites lose users at the cart page becausethey canrsquot preview their final charges before initiatingcheckout In a recent study by UPS and ComScore 37reported they abandon carts when this information ispresented too late in the checkout process To solve for thiscart abandonment offer a pre-checkout shipping feature thatslocated in the users eye path

TAX estimation and shipping costs

A great tip here is to Allow your users to easily edit removeproducts on the cart page itself without having to navigate tothe product page There are variety of ways this can beachieved the two most common are inline editing and a pop-up screen With either option make sure that the productimage and details are updated once the user edits the item

Fields Modification

Product

Editing

This is the most important button on the full cart page Yourbutton should be highlighted and placed in the users path thebutton should be sticky

Keep relevant text on the checkout button The label shouldindicate the function of the button with a clear message ofwhat happens after the user clicks on the button Avoidcontextual labels like ldquocontinuerdquo for the checkout buttoninstead use ldquopay nowrdquo or ldquoproceed to checkoutrdquo

Checkout button

Back to shopping button

When users are on the cart page you can persuade them toadd more products to the cart by offering something Themost common is offering free shipping on orders of a certainamount Making this additional offer visually stand out will helpcustomize notice it

Additional offers

Add a gift wrapping option to purchases that allows users toadd a personal note to their gifts This very simple add-onservice which is easy to implement has shown to increaseaverage order value and makes users lives painless and easierduring the holiday season Studies show that users buy moreitems when you offer a gift option service and retailers makemoney by the margins that gift-wrapping allows On averagegift-wrapping has a 50 profit margin per item

Gift option

Last but not least make sure to have a back to shoppingbutton in the cart page this will prevent to leave the websiteeven though they are abounding the cart

Cart amp Checkout

Baymardrsquos checkout research found that on average about26 of users have abandoned purchases during the checkoutflow solely because the checkout flow was too long or toocomplex

To prevent fleeing potential customer it is necessary to reviewnot only your designs but also how usable those designs areThe question is what at are the break points that needs to befixed in order to prevent customers from abandoning theirshopping cart so often and what are the main guidelines thatdesigners should consider

In the next few pages we will address checkout process andthe best practices

Designing a better checkout experience

Linear Checkout Process

Interrupting the checkout process and leading the user create an account is one of the worst usability violations in fact a non-linear checkout process left several of the test subjects confused and intimidated

Actually having a non-linear checkout process confuses and intimidates customers as it breaks with their expectations based on real physical world checkouts

Provide users with a linear checkout process

Once a guest checkout option is in place for users thequestion then becomes when during the checkout flow itrsquosbest to then expose users to the optional account creationData clearly shows that the confirmation step as being thebest-performing place to ask users to create an account

After entering all the information for the checkout process theusers only need to fill up two more fields for the passwordtherefore sites can use a design and wording that morestrongly encourages users to take the final step and create anaccount

Delayed account creation

According to a study by Baymard institute 37 of consumerswould abandon a checkout if they thought the site requiredaccount creation This is further evidenced by salesforceCommerce Cloud customer data which shows that 85 ofcheckouts are made by guests

It bears repeating ndash Do not require account creation forcheckout Once you overcome the hurdle of getting customersto start a checkout converting the sale becomes moreimportant than collecting data Customers prefer guestcheckout so make it easy for them to find and place it first onthe page

When the sign-in fields are at the top of the page the otheroptions such as guest checkout can get pushed down thescreen on mobile until they are no longer visible This cancreate the illusion that an account is required to continue withcheckout Mobile shoppers tend to be in a hurry and are evenmore averse to creating an account than web shoppers

Guest Checkout

Registered accounts give customers a more interactive andinteresting experience with the merchant More meaningfulrelationships can be built with the customer this wayRegistered accounts allow customers to leave reviews and bemore involved with the brand community This relationship isessential to present products adjusted deals and rewardsredirected to the customer For example Amazon neverpresents the same homepage to 2 different signed-in visitors

Account creation

Data Input

Latest checkout usability stud found that the averagecheckout contains 1488 form fields Yet our checkout usabilitytesting also reveals that most sites can achieve a 20-60reduction in the number of form fields displayed by default

In short the average checkout display twice as many formfields as needed As example amazon uses only one field forthe users name lsquoFull namersquo while other E-commerce shopsseparates them for other needs as First name and familyname

Short forms

People shop online primarily because itrsquos convenient That saidevery step in the checkout process must not only be conciseand clear but absolutely necessary Here are the maintakeaways

Address assistance and autofill not only save time but alsoreduce errors Use zip code lookup to autofill country state andcity AB tests have shown that autofill options can have a485 lift in conversion Browsers like Chrome and Firefox alsohave autofill functionality enabling shoppers to fill outstandard forms in one click For this to work however thebrowser looks for contextual label names so make sure yourfields are properly tagged with labels that a browser willrecognize

A great tip is to automatically move the cursor from thecompleted field to the next one this will prevent the user fromother unusefull clicks and the struggle to select the field hersquosgoing to complete

Use autofill fields

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easier and faster to scan Labels above the input fields also make localization easier because there is more space for longer translations

Fields labels

When fields are stacked and layed out in a single column as below shoppers tend to make fewer mistakes when entering information and they move through the form quicker

One signe column layout

Simply putting a red border around a form field (indicating anerror) can be easily overlooked by shoppers Keep in mind thatsome consumers are colorblind Make errors standout withthick borders around form fields iconography italics and boldtext If the shopper skips a required field display a messageright away and take them to the exact spot where the problemis They should not discover therersquos a problem after they clickthe call to action

Error Messaging

Automatically detect credit card type as the customer typestheir credit card number This will eliminate a step so thecustomer doesnrsquot have to specify card type

Detect Credit Card Type

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easierand faster to scan Labels above the input fields also makelocalization easier because there is more space for longertranslations

Fields Labels

Allow the customer to use the same address for shipping and billing without additional typing In the billing step summarize shipping address as static editable content

Shipping and Billing Address

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Cart amp Checkout

Baymardrsquos checkout research found that on average about26 of users have abandoned purchases during the checkoutflow solely because the checkout flow was too long or toocomplex

To prevent fleeing potential customer it is necessary to reviewnot only your designs but also how usable those designs areThe question is what at are the break points that needs to befixed in order to prevent customers from abandoning theirshopping cart so often and what are the main guidelines thatdesigners should consider

In the next few pages we will address checkout process andthe best practices

Designing a better checkout experience

Linear Checkout Process

Interrupting the checkout process and leading the user create an account is one of the worst usability violations in fact a non-linear checkout process left several of the test subjects confused and intimidated

Actually having a non-linear checkout process confuses and intimidates customers as it breaks with their expectations based on real physical world checkouts

Provide users with a linear checkout process

Once a guest checkout option is in place for users thequestion then becomes when during the checkout flow itrsquosbest to then expose users to the optional account creationData clearly shows that the confirmation step as being thebest-performing place to ask users to create an account

After entering all the information for the checkout process theusers only need to fill up two more fields for the passwordtherefore sites can use a design and wording that morestrongly encourages users to take the final step and create anaccount

Delayed account creation

According to a study by Baymard institute 37 of consumerswould abandon a checkout if they thought the site requiredaccount creation This is further evidenced by salesforceCommerce Cloud customer data which shows that 85 ofcheckouts are made by guests

It bears repeating ndash Do not require account creation forcheckout Once you overcome the hurdle of getting customersto start a checkout converting the sale becomes moreimportant than collecting data Customers prefer guestcheckout so make it easy for them to find and place it first onthe page

When the sign-in fields are at the top of the page the otheroptions such as guest checkout can get pushed down thescreen on mobile until they are no longer visible This cancreate the illusion that an account is required to continue withcheckout Mobile shoppers tend to be in a hurry and are evenmore averse to creating an account than web shoppers

Guest Checkout

Registered accounts give customers a more interactive andinteresting experience with the merchant More meaningfulrelationships can be built with the customer this wayRegistered accounts allow customers to leave reviews and bemore involved with the brand community This relationship isessential to present products adjusted deals and rewardsredirected to the customer For example Amazon neverpresents the same homepage to 2 different signed-in visitors

Account creation

Data Input

Latest checkout usability stud found that the averagecheckout contains 1488 form fields Yet our checkout usabilitytesting also reveals that most sites can achieve a 20-60reduction in the number of form fields displayed by default

In short the average checkout display twice as many formfields as needed As example amazon uses only one field forthe users name lsquoFull namersquo while other E-commerce shopsseparates them for other needs as First name and familyname

Short forms

People shop online primarily because itrsquos convenient That saidevery step in the checkout process must not only be conciseand clear but absolutely necessary Here are the maintakeaways

Address assistance and autofill not only save time but alsoreduce errors Use zip code lookup to autofill country state andcity AB tests have shown that autofill options can have a485 lift in conversion Browsers like Chrome and Firefox alsohave autofill functionality enabling shoppers to fill outstandard forms in one click For this to work however thebrowser looks for contextual label names so make sure yourfields are properly tagged with labels that a browser willrecognize

A great tip is to automatically move the cursor from thecompleted field to the next one this will prevent the user fromother unusefull clicks and the struggle to select the field hersquosgoing to complete

Use autofill fields

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easier and faster to scan Labels above the input fields also make localization easier because there is more space for longer translations

Fields labels

When fields are stacked and layed out in a single column as below shoppers tend to make fewer mistakes when entering information and they move through the form quicker

One signe column layout

Simply putting a red border around a form field (indicating anerror) can be easily overlooked by shoppers Keep in mind thatsome consumers are colorblind Make errors standout withthick borders around form fields iconography italics and boldtext If the shopper skips a required field display a messageright away and take them to the exact spot where the problemis They should not discover therersquos a problem after they clickthe call to action

Error Messaging

Automatically detect credit card type as the customer typestheir credit card number This will eliminate a step so thecustomer doesnrsquot have to specify card type

Detect Credit Card Type

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easierand faster to scan Labels above the input fields also makelocalization easier because there is more space for longertranslations

Fields Labels

Allow the customer to use the same address for shipping and billing without additional typing In the billing step summarize shipping address as static editable content

Shipping and Billing Address

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Once a guest checkout option is in place for users thequestion then becomes when during the checkout flow itrsquosbest to then expose users to the optional account creationData clearly shows that the confirmation step as being thebest-performing place to ask users to create an account

After entering all the information for the checkout process theusers only need to fill up two more fields for the passwordtherefore sites can use a design and wording that morestrongly encourages users to take the final step and create anaccount

Delayed account creation

According to a study by Baymard institute 37 of consumerswould abandon a checkout if they thought the site requiredaccount creation This is further evidenced by salesforceCommerce Cloud customer data which shows that 85 ofcheckouts are made by guests

It bears repeating ndash Do not require account creation forcheckout Once you overcome the hurdle of getting customersto start a checkout converting the sale becomes moreimportant than collecting data Customers prefer guestcheckout so make it easy for them to find and place it first onthe page

When the sign-in fields are at the top of the page the otheroptions such as guest checkout can get pushed down thescreen on mobile until they are no longer visible This cancreate the illusion that an account is required to continue withcheckout Mobile shoppers tend to be in a hurry and are evenmore averse to creating an account than web shoppers

Guest Checkout

Registered accounts give customers a more interactive andinteresting experience with the merchant More meaningfulrelationships can be built with the customer this wayRegistered accounts allow customers to leave reviews and bemore involved with the brand community This relationship isessential to present products adjusted deals and rewardsredirected to the customer For example Amazon neverpresents the same homepage to 2 different signed-in visitors

Account creation

Data Input

Latest checkout usability stud found that the averagecheckout contains 1488 form fields Yet our checkout usabilitytesting also reveals that most sites can achieve a 20-60reduction in the number of form fields displayed by default

In short the average checkout display twice as many formfields as needed As example amazon uses only one field forthe users name lsquoFull namersquo while other E-commerce shopsseparates them for other needs as First name and familyname

Short forms

People shop online primarily because itrsquos convenient That saidevery step in the checkout process must not only be conciseand clear but absolutely necessary Here are the maintakeaways

Address assistance and autofill not only save time but alsoreduce errors Use zip code lookup to autofill country state andcity AB tests have shown that autofill options can have a485 lift in conversion Browsers like Chrome and Firefox alsohave autofill functionality enabling shoppers to fill outstandard forms in one click For this to work however thebrowser looks for contextual label names so make sure yourfields are properly tagged with labels that a browser willrecognize

A great tip is to automatically move the cursor from thecompleted field to the next one this will prevent the user fromother unusefull clicks and the struggle to select the field hersquosgoing to complete

Use autofill fields

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easier and faster to scan Labels above the input fields also make localization easier because there is more space for longer translations

Fields labels

When fields are stacked and layed out in a single column as below shoppers tend to make fewer mistakes when entering information and they move through the form quicker

One signe column layout

Simply putting a red border around a form field (indicating anerror) can be easily overlooked by shoppers Keep in mind thatsome consumers are colorblind Make errors standout withthick borders around form fields iconography italics and boldtext If the shopper skips a required field display a messageright away and take them to the exact spot where the problemis They should not discover therersquos a problem after they clickthe call to action

Error Messaging

Automatically detect credit card type as the customer typestheir credit card number This will eliminate a step so thecustomer doesnrsquot have to specify card type

Detect Credit Card Type

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easierand faster to scan Labels above the input fields also makelocalization easier because there is more space for longertranslations

Fields Labels

Allow the customer to use the same address for shipping and billing without additional typing In the billing step summarize shipping address as static editable content

Shipping and Billing Address

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Data Input

Latest checkout usability stud found that the averagecheckout contains 1488 form fields Yet our checkout usabilitytesting also reveals that most sites can achieve a 20-60reduction in the number of form fields displayed by default

In short the average checkout display twice as many formfields as needed As example amazon uses only one field forthe users name lsquoFull namersquo while other E-commerce shopsseparates them for other needs as First name and familyname

Short forms

People shop online primarily because itrsquos convenient That saidevery step in the checkout process must not only be conciseand clear but absolutely necessary Here are the maintakeaways

Address assistance and autofill not only save time but alsoreduce errors Use zip code lookup to autofill country state andcity AB tests have shown that autofill options can have a485 lift in conversion Browsers like Chrome and Firefox alsohave autofill functionality enabling shoppers to fill outstandard forms in one click For this to work however thebrowser looks for contextual label names so make sure yourfields are properly tagged with labels that a browser willrecognize

A great tip is to automatically move the cursor from thecompleted field to the next one this will prevent the user fromother unusefull clicks and the struggle to select the field hersquosgoing to complete

Use autofill fields

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easier and faster to scan Labels above the input fields also make localization easier because there is more space for longer translations

Fields labels

When fields are stacked and layed out in a single column as below shoppers tend to make fewer mistakes when entering information and they move through the form quicker

One signe column layout

Simply putting a red border around a form field (indicating anerror) can be easily overlooked by shoppers Keep in mind thatsome consumers are colorblind Make errors standout withthick borders around form fields iconography italics and boldtext If the shopper skips a required field display a messageright away and take them to the exact spot where the problemis They should not discover therersquos a problem after they clickthe call to action

Error Messaging

Automatically detect credit card type as the customer typestheir credit card number This will eliminate a step so thecustomer doesnrsquot have to specify card type

Detect Credit Card Type

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easierand faster to scan Labels above the input fields also makelocalization easier because there is more space for longertranslations

Fields Labels

Allow the customer to use the same address for shipping and billing without additional typing In the billing step summarize shipping address as static editable content

Shipping and Billing Address

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Simply putting a red border around a form field (indicating anerror) can be easily overlooked by shoppers Keep in mind thatsome consumers are colorblind Make errors standout withthick borders around form fields iconography italics and boldtext If the shopper skips a required field display a messageright away and take them to the exact spot where the problemis They should not discover therersquos a problem after they clickthe call to action

Error Messaging

Automatically detect credit card type as the customer typestheir credit card number This will eliminate a step so thecustomer doesnrsquot have to specify card type

Detect Credit Card Type

Usability studies show that labels placed above fields are easierand faster to scan Labels above the input fields also makelocalization easier because there is more space for longertranslations

Fields Labels

Allow the customer to use the same address for shipping and billing without additional typing In the billing step summarize shipping address as static editable content

Shipping and Billing Address

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Order confirmation page

Turning visitors into customers is one of the primary goals ofany e-commerce site but what happens after theyrsquovesuccessfully placed an order This person has just filled outnumerous form fields and spent their hard-earned money onyour site ndash what a shame it would be to waste this greatopportunity for customer engagement by simply re-displayingthe order information on the order confirmation page ldquoThankyou for your money - off you gordquo Herersquos some ideas to get moreof your order confirmation page

As seen in the checkout process delayed account creation canbe a great way to motivate customers to create an accountLike newsletter sign-up we once again also reap the benefitsof additional space for promoting the benefits of creating anaccount If you use the customerrsquos e-mail address as theirusername the implementation can be very simple too just asingle password field

Delayed account creation

Therersquos really no need to distract the customer with newslettersign-up as theyrsquore working their way through your checkoutform in a heroic effort to give you their cash Instead ask thecustomer on the order confirmation page after theyrsquovecompleted the purchase

Newsletter signup

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

The appeal of cross selling is obvious but throwing a bunch ofdeals in your customerrsquos face just after she added a product toher cart can also scare customers away and get in the way ofpeople actually buying the product By moving cross sell dealsto the order confirmation pageyou get the best of both worldsyou get a chance to offer additional products but withoutinterrupting or scaring away people who want to buy from you

Cross selling

Tapping into the customerrsquos excitement about his purchaseand asking him to share it with his friends and acquaintancesis an easy way to get free exposure and can establish socialproof as well Nowadays itrsquos used extensively and is probablythe most utilized of the six ideas in this article

Social Media

Security Badging amp Guarantee

Boost customer confidence with messaging and trust icons Aspervasive as online shopping is 20 of shoppers donrsquotpurchase because they are concerned about security Even thelargest most trusted brands can benefit from displaying a lockicon on buttons and labeling buttons with the words ldquosecurecheckoutrdquo

Additionally remind customers of your value proposition andservices like risk-free shopping your satisfaction guarantee andfree returns if you offer them

Optimizing checkout and reducing abandonment is a processof continual improvement and testing Making user-friendlychanges in the checkout process can have a big payoff withincreases in conversion and revenue

The order confirmation page is the perfect place to have videosand other resources related to the ordered products that thecustomer can enjoy while waiting for the product to arrive Egfor an espresso machine purchase it could be a video guide onldquoBrewing the perfect cup of espressordquo for a road racing bike itcould be a 2-page guide on proper care and adjustment of thegears for software it could be video tutorials and so onAnything that will get the customer in a mood where she feelsmore confident in her purchase is good and can lowercancelled orders ndash not to mention create a delightfulpurchasing experience and make sure the customer can hitthe ground running as soon as the order is delivered

Resources for instant gratification

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

For shoppers who create logins on eCommerce sites itrsquos fareasier to provide a unified shopping experience and whileforced account registration is still a major purchase barrier theconvenience of multi-touchpoint access to personal shoppinginformation can be a major selling point By tying together alltheir activities with a voluntary login shoppers make it easy todeliver seamless transactions and personalized experiences

ldquoVoluntaryrdquo remains the key word however While thepercentage of shoppers who object to forced account creationhas dropped it still hovers around 22 according to a surveyfrom optimization specialist VWOndashmeaning that more thanone in five potential customers may abandon their cart ifrequired to create a username and password before buying

Accountsamp Profiles

Account Experience

Give your users a seamless experience by providing a smoothsign-on integration with omnichannel services an eCommercesolutions that not only caters to mobile and desktop shoppersbut unifies back-end systems so that order management andfulfillment capabilities can draw from the same profile

Flexible E-commerce solution

Use logins to save personalization settings

Merchants can not only save location-based preferences inshoppersrsquo accounts but they can connect logins to othersettings as well from results of interactive profile builders thathelp shoppers narrow their options to preferred sizes andbrands to favorite site categories and value-addedcontent Access to how-to information for purchased productsand quick re-ordering processes can also be accessed viaaccount registration as can customization options such asengraving personal designs and even preferred gifting-relatedservices

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

The ability to earn track and redeem loyalty points should be amajor incentive for account creation Connecting loyaltyprograms to online sign in seems like a no-brainer butdelivering on the expectation of seamless mobile-firstintegration is an extensive undertaking for many merchantswhose points systems predate mobile

Loyalty programs

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

If your customer canrsquot find exactly what theyrsquore searching forthey can quickly become frustrated Even if you have exactlywhat they want if they canrsquot easily find it theyrsquore simply goingleave the website

Search made by Search Node for a client shows that theyusually generate between 20-60 of all their e-commercerevenue from users who utilize the site search Of course thesenumbers vary greatly depending on the industry and otherfactors but it proves just how crucial site search is as part of anoverall e-commerce strategy

If you canrsquot deliver great search experiences yoursquoll losecustomers to your competitors who can Technology comeswith a price but more often than not itrsquos worth theinvestment The better the Site Search experience you offerthe more time and money shoppers will spend on your site Itrsquosas simple as this

And although itrsquos relatively simple to get a site search engineup and running on an e-commerce site the real test is in itsoperation How well does the search engine understand yourvisitorsrsquo input How quickly does it retrieve results Howaccurate are the results it displays

On siteSearch

The Importance of on site search

An eCommerce site search solution is a search engine that iseither built-in or integrated into your online store and its job isto find the products the user is looking for by matching theuserrsquos search keywords with the products in your store Sitesearch encompasses more than just the search box it alsorefers to faceted search product ranking and synonymmanagement

In fact shoppers are never going to make the perfectsearches their queries will be more like educated guesses asmost times they arenrsquot sure exactly what theyrsquore looking forOftentimes they will only know a few parameters and executea query in order to get a list of products to look through Yoursearch and ranking algorithm must be good enough to helpthem

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Breadcrumb negationAllows a customer to remove previous selections from thequery without going back to the start For example a usersearches for Plasma TV then selects Sony then selects pricerange $400-$600 At this point they realize they canrsquot get aSony TV within this price range So if they negate the Sonyselection (which is midway in this query) then it will keep theprice range filter ($400-$600) but open up to brands like LGToshiba Panasonic etc

Category facetsFaceted classification gives the users the ability to find itemsbased on more than one dimension such as product facetsspecial feature facets etc

Category snapping Allows the search engine to understand the querybetter resulting in a more satisfying user journey For exampleNike Sneaker red 12 probably means

bull Brand Nike bull ShoeType Sneaker bull Color Red bull Size 12

ldquoDid you meanrdquoPovides relevant alternative suggestions when the user may have misspelled a search term

Facet negationWhen a user clicks on the ldquonegationrdquo icon next to an optionthe option will be removed from search results

Intelligent query parsingTranslates a search string into specific instructions for thesearch engine Intelligent query parsing can take the contextof the search query into account and produce more relevantsearch results

PersonalizationUses data and log analytics to provide relevant product recommendations based on online usersrsquo search queries and click activities

Search Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Phrase searchAllows users to search for content containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order

Query completion Predicts the rest of a word or phrase that the user is typing into the search box based on popular search queries or queries selected by the retailer

Query fall backsAllows a search engine to step back when it knows some combination of terms wonrsquot find good results For example little black summer dress may produce good results but falling back to black summer dress will

Query redirectionRedirects a users search query to relevant results when that specific query produces no results

Relevancy rankingUses predictive analytics to predict and place the items theuser will most likely to buy at the top of the search results page

Results paginationSplits search results into multiple pages

Social navigationA users navigation through the website is guided and structured by the behavior of other users

Spell correctionUses dictionary documents to find possible misspellings for words entered by a user and suggests the correct spellings

No results pageDepending on your recommendation methods and your business specifications use the lsquono result pagersquo as a where people can find similar items and personalized recommendations

Sorting and filtering resultsIn every results listing page should be product filtering optionsthat allows customers to filter resutls based on other differentattributes (More on product filtering and sorting here)

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

Without the right filtering and sorting techniques finding theproduct theyrsquore looking for can be an impossible task for theuser E-commerce product lists search results and theirfiltering and sorting tools determine how easy or difficult it isfor the user to browse the sitersquos product catalog

Baymardrsquos product Filtering study shows that sites withmediocre product list usability saw abandonment rates of 67-90 whereas sites with just a slightly optimized toolset sawonly 17-33 abandonments for users trying to find the exactsame types of product

Filteringamp Sorting

If they cant find it they canrsquot buy it

Give found 69 of consumers spend most of their timefocusing on the left hand side of the page There is no shortageof examples of well-known retailers placing their filters on theleft hand side of the page

For the most used filters the provided options should be visibleto the users at a glance for other filters they options can behidden with a show more button for displaying and selectingthe filter options last but not least Selected filters should bevisually differentiated from the rest of the list

Filter Placement amp presentation

Filtering amp Sorting Guidelines

A significant issue for users is the inability to select multiplefilters of the same kind In fact you should provide the userswith the option to select more than one option for the samefilter As an example you can provide users looking for shirtswith the option to select S and M for size filters

Allowing multiple filters at the same time means that users fillthe page with everything they want The more items displayedthe more your website is offering Your website look relevant toyou user more than before not lacking and worthy of theirtime

Selection of multiple categories at once

When displaying filters inform users about how any productseach filter contains The number of items should be clearlydisplayed next to each filter and update each time a filter isapplied or removed The number should be clearly marked sothe number looks related to the filter

Show number of items in each filter

It can be difficult to remember which filters have been appliedHaving to go through each filter and find all applied filters istime consuming The more mental energy your websitedemands the quicker your users are going to become tired orbored

For every category or filter a user applies they need to be ableto remove it In order to do that users need to be able todifferentiate between filters which have and have not beenapplied

Also Provide a lsquoclear all filtersrsquo option so users donrsquot have toworry seek out the filters they have applied

Displaying applied filters amp removing applied filters

Filters should reflect the context of the selected categoryWhen a user is looking at shirts they should be able to filter bysleeve length or shirt fit Update filters each time a user selectsa category and the context changes

Provide contextual filtering

Categories are a great way of providing a breakdown of yourwebsite into broad sections For clothes websites theircategories may include sections like coats and shoes

Categories removes the assumption that users are experienced with your website and know what to search for an search for exactly what they want

By contrast Filters may be pre-defined like categories butfilters are more personal They allow users to dive in categoriesand cut out aspects about the relevant items Aspects likecolor price and size

Since filters and categories behave differently they need to be designed differently Categories should be the online metaphor for walking to an aisle inside a store

Differentiate between categories and filters

Ikea does a great job at making categories more prominentwith applicable filters underneath Whereas Debenhams treatcategories the same as filters This means users have to starttheir search all over again and select a category when clearingall filters

Recommendations

Retailers collect a wealth of data about their known customersas well as their anonymous shoppers All of that data can cometogether to indicate customer interests and preferences whichcan be used to inform recommendations E-commerce leadersshould analyze the story behind the collected data toidentify why shoppers find these products valuable orinteresting For example knowing how long a consumerspends browsing particular products brands styles orcategories can help you uncover true interest and buyingintent

About leveraging data

This Itrsquos no secret that consumers are interested inpersonalized shopping experiences And the effects ofpersonalized experiences are well documented A report fromBusiness Insider found that 49 of consumers surveyed saidthey have purchased a product they werent planning to buyafter receiving a personalized recommendation and 40 ofshoppers have spent more on a purchase than plannedbecause of a personalized shopping experience

The impact of product recommendations

Not all product recommendations are created equally Youneed to start with good in-depth data but you also need theright algorithm to select products that will resonate moststrongly with your customer base

A good recommendation engine will allow you to exercisecontrol over how the algorithms make their selections Whenyou create your own algorithmic ldquorecipersquo you start by picking abase algorithm that tells the machine where to beginCommon base algorithms include trending products recentlyadded products items that are bought or browsed togetherand several machine-learning algorithms Then you canincorporate filters that include or exclude certain criteria (suchas certain categories or price points) based on your businessgoals and boosters to highlight certain individual preferencesfor colors brands price points etc

Define your recommendation strategies

You have many different marketing channels and manytouchpoints within those channels where you can presentrecommendations For example you can present productrecommendations across your homepage product detailpages category pages 404 pages shopping cart etc not tomention your website mobile app email campaigns paid adsor even in person Each of these areas should containconsistent recommendations that demonstrate an deepunderstanding of each individual

For example retailer Carhartt displays recommendationsacross many different areas of its site and across channelssuch as its shopping cart

Leverage recommendations across the full experience

Previously viewedItrsquos pretty rare that people buy something when they firstcome to your site In fact a study conducted by retailtouchpoint shows that only 17 of consumers browse withintent to purchase on a first visit It means therersquos a lot ofbrowsing comparing and checking out competitors beforeshoppers make a final decision

With all this back and forth it can be tricky to find what theysaw before lsquoRecently viewed itemsrsquo takes the hassle out of thewhole process This feature surfaces the products that theperson clicked and browsed before and makes it easy to pickup where they left off

Similar productsSometimes itrsquos tricky to narrow down your search and hone inon the products you really want to seeSimilar product recommendations are an effective way toguide the shopper through their research It matches theproducts which are similar and displays them next to eachother Itrsquos a useful tool that lets shoppers compare productseasily without having to start their search from scratch eachtime

Recommended for youNow this is one that the big guns use Think Amazon and eBayAnd therersquos good reason for them pulling out these personalrecommendations a study conducted by A staggering 35 ofAmazoncomrsquos revenue is generated by its recommendationengine Itrsquos all because theyrsquore highly relevant to you based onprevious purchases and personal preferences

Upsell recommendationsSuggesting higher priced products to high-intent browsers isgood technique to increase your revenue per transactionUpsells can easily be displayed next to similar products totempt customers to spend more

The browser can be invited to lsquoupgrade their purchasersquo for justa few pounds and get a whole host of additional features Itrsquostempting stuff for a consumer and an easy way to driverevenue for the retailer

Recommendation Types amp Practices

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Categories are a great way of providing a breakdown of yourwebsite into broad sections For clothes websites theircategories may include sections like coats and shoes

Categories removes the assumption that users are experienced with your website and know what to search for an search for exactly what they want

By contrast Filters may be pre-defined like categories butfilters are more personal They allow users to dive in categoriesand cut out aspects about the relevant items Aspects likecolor price and size

Since filters and categories behave differently they need to be designed differently Categories should be the online metaphor for walking to an aisle inside a store

Differentiate between categories and filters

Ikea does a great job at making categories more prominentwith applicable filters underneath Whereas Debenhams treatcategories the same as filters This means users have to starttheir search all over again and select a category when clearingall filters

Recommendations

Retailers collect a wealth of data about their known customersas well as their anonymous shoppers All of that data can cometogether to indicate customer interests and preferences whichcan be used to inform recommendations E-commerce leadersshould analyze the story behind the collected data toidentify why shoppers find these products valuable orinteresting For example knowing how long a consumerspends browsing particular products brands styles orcategories can help you uncover true interest and buyingintent

About leveraging data

This Itrsquos no secret that consumers are interested inpersonalized shopping experiences And the effects ofpersonalized experiences are well documented A report fromBusiness Insider found that 49 of consumers surveyed saidthey have purchased a product they werent planning to buyafter receiving a personalized recommendation and 40 ofshoppers have spent more on a purchase than plannedbecause of a personalized shopping experience

The impact of product recommendations

Not all product recommendations are created equally Youneed to start with good in-depth data but you also need theright algorithm to select products that will resonate moststrongly with your customer base

A good recommendation engine will allow you to exercisecontrol over how the algorithms make their selections Whenyou create your own algorithmic ldquorecipersquo you start by picking abase algorithm that tells the machine where to beginCommon base algorithms include trending products recentlyadded products items that are bought or browsed togetherand several machine-learning algorithms Then you canincorporate filters that include or exclude certain criteria (suchas certain categories or price points) based on your businessgoals and boosters to highlight certain individual preferencesfor colors brands price points etc

Define your recommendation strategies

You have many different marketing channels and manytouchpoints within those channels where you can presentrecommendations For example you can present productrecommendations across your homepage product detailpages category pages 404 pages shopping cart etc not tomention your website mobile app email campaigns paid adsor even in person Each of these areas should containconsistent recommendations that demonstrate an deepunderstanding of each individual

For example retailer Carhartt displays recommendationsacross many different areas of its site and across channelssuch as its shopping cart

Leverage recommendations across the full experience

Previously viewedItrsquos pretty rare that people buy something when they firstcome to your site In fact a study conducted by retailtouchpoint shows that only 17 of consumers browse withintent to purchase on a first visit It means therersquos a lot ofbrowsing comparing and checking out competitors beforeshoppers make a final decision

With all this back and forth it can be tricky to find what theysaw before lsquoRecently viewed itemsrsquo takes the hassle out of thewhole process This feature surfaces the products that theperson clicked and browsed before and makes it easy to pickup where they left off

Similar productsSometimes itrsquos tricky to narrow down your search and hone inon the products you really want to seeSimilar product recommendations are an effective way toguide the shopper through their research It matches theproducts which are similar and displays them next to eachother Itrsquos a useful tool that lets shoppers compare productseasily without having to start their search from scratch eachtime

Recommended for youNow this is one that the big guns use Think Amazon and eBayAnd therersquos good reason for them pulling out these personalrecommendations a study conducted by A staggering 35 ofAmazoncomrsquos revenue is generated by its recommendationengine Itrsquos all because theyrsquore highly relevant to you based onprevious purchases and personal preferences

Upsell recommendationsSuggesting higher priced products to high-intent browsers isgood technique to increase your revenue per transactionUpsells can easily be displayed next to similar products totempt customers to spend more

The browser can be invited to lsquoupgrade their purchasersquo for justa few pounds and get a whole host of additional features Itrsquostempting stuff for a consumer and an easy way to driverevenue for the retailer

Recommendation Types amp Practices

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Recommendations

Retailers collect a wealth of data about their known customersas well as their anonymous shoppers All of that data can cometogether to indicate customer interests and preferences whichcan be used to inform recommendations E-commerce leadersshould analyze the story behind the collected data toidentify why shoppers find these products valuable orinteresting For example knowing how long a consumerspends browsing particular products brands styles orcategories can help you uncover true interest and buyingintent

About leveraging data

This Itrsquos no secret that consumers are interested inpersonalized shopping experiences And the effects ofpersonalized experiences are well documented A report fromBusiness Insider found that 49 of consumers surveyed saidthey have purchased a product they werent planning to buyafter receiving a personalized recommendation and 40 ofshoppers have spent more on a purchase than plannedbecause of a personalized shopping experience

The impact of product recommendations

Not all product recommendations are created equally Youneed to start with good in-depth data but you also need theright algorithm to select products that will resonate moststrongly with your customer base

A good recommendation engine will allow you to exercisecontrol over how the algorithms make their selections Whenyou create your own algorithmic ldquorecipersquo you start by picking abase algorithm that tells the machine where to beginCommon base algorithms include trending products recentlyadded products items that are bought or browsed togetherand several machine-learning algorithms Then you canincorporate filters that include or exclude certain criteria (suchas certain categories or price points) based on your businessgoals and boosters to highlight certain individual preferencesfor colors brands price points etc

Define your recommendation strategies

You have many different marketing channels and manytouchpoints within those channels where you can presentrecommendations For example you can present productrecommendations across your homepage product detailpages category pages 404 pages shopping cart etc not tomention your website mobile app email campaigns paid adsor even in person Each of these areas should containconsistent recommendations that demonstrate an deepunderstanding of each individual

For example retailer Carhartt displays recommendationsacross many different areas of its site and across channelssuch as its shopping cart

Leverage recommendations across the full experience

Previously viewedItrsquos pretty rare that people buy something when they firstcome to your site In fact a study conducted by retailtouchpoint shows that only 17 of consumers browse withintent to purchase on a first visit It means therersquos a lot ofbrowsing comparing and checking out competitors beforeshoppers make a final decision

With all this back and forth it can be tricky to find what theysaw before lsquoRecently viewed itemsrsquo takes the hassle out of thewhole process This feature surfaces the products that theperson clicked and browsed before and makes it easy to pickup where they left off

Similar productsSometimes itrsquos tricky to narrow down your search and hone inon the products you really want to seeSimilar product recommendations are an effective way toguide the shopper through their research It matches theproducts which are similar and displays them next to eachother Itrsquos a useful tool that lets shoppers compare productseasily without having to start their search from scratch eachtime

Recommended for youNow this is one that the big guns use Think Amazon and eBayAnd therersquos good reason for them pulling out these personalrecommendations a study conducted by A staggering 35 ofAmazoncomrsquos revenue is generated by its recommendationengine Itrsquos all because theyrsquore highly relevant to you based onprevious purchases and personal preferences

Upsell recommendationsSuggesting higher priced products to high-intent browsers isgood technique to increase your revenue per transactionUpsells can easily be displayed next to similar products totempt customers to spend more

The browser can be invited to lsquoupgrade their purchasersquo for justa few pounds and get a whole host of additional features Itrsquostempting stuff for a consumer and an easy way to driverevenue for the retailer

Recommendation Types amp Practices

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Not all product recommendations are created equally Youneed to start with good in-depth data but you also need theright algorithm to select products that will resonate moststrongly with your customer base

A good recommendation engine will allow you to exercisecontrol over how the algorithms make their selections Whenyou create your own algorithmic ldquorecipersquo you start by picking abase algorithm that tells the machine where to beginCommon base algorithms include trending products recentlyadded products items that are bought or browsed togetherand several machine-learning algorithms Then you canincorporate filters that include or exclude certain criteria (suchas certain categories or price points) based on your businessgoals and boosters to highlight certain individual preferencesfor colors brands price points etc

Define your recommendation strategies

You have many different marketing channels and manytouchpoints within those channels where you can presentrecommendations For example you can present productrecommendations across your homepage product detailpages category pages 404 pages shopping cart etc not tomention your website mobile app email campaigns paid adsor even in person Each of these areas should containconsistent recommendations that demonstrate an deepunderstanding of each individual

For example retailer Carhartt displays recommendationsacross many different areas of its site and across channelssuch as its shopping cart

Leverage recommendations across the full experience

Previously viewedItrsquos pretty rare that people buy something when they firstcome to your site In fact a study conducted by retailtouchpoint shows that only 17 of consumers browse withintent to purchase on a first visit It means therersquos a lot ofbrowsing comparing and checking out competitors beforeshoppers make a final decision

With all this back and forth it can be tricky to find what theysaw before lsquoRecently viewed itemsrsquo takes the hassle out of thewhole process This feature surfaces the products that theperson clicked and browsed before and makes it easy to pickup where they left off

Similar productsSometimes itrsquos tricky to narrow down your search and hone inon the products you really want to seeSimilar product recommendations are an effective way toguide the shopper through their research It matches theproducts which are similar and displays them next to eachother Itrsquos a useful tool that lets shoppers compare productseasily without having to start their search from scratch eachtime

Recommended for youNow this is one that the big guns use Think Amazon and eBayAnd therersquos good reason for them pulling out these personalrecommendations a study conducted by A staggering 35 ofAmazoncomrsquos revenue is generated by its recommendationengine Itrsquos all because theyrsquore highly relevant to you based onprevious purchases and personal preferences

Upsell recommendationsSuggesting higher priced products to high-intent browsers isgood technique to increase your revenue per transactionUpsells can easily be displayed next to similar products totempt customers to spend more

The browser can be invited to lsquoupgrade their purchasersquo for justa few pounds and get a whole host of additional features Itrsquostempting stuff for a consumer and an easy way to driverevenue for the retailer

Recommendation Types amp Practices

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Previously viewedItrsquos pretty rare that people buy something when they firstcome to your site In fact a study conducted by retailtouchpoint shows that only 17 of consumers browse withintent to purchase on a first visit It means therersquos a lot ofbrowsing comparing and checking out competitors beforeshoppers make a final decision

With all this back and forth it can be tricky to find what theysaw before lsquoRecently viewed itemsrsquo takes the hassle out of thewhole process This feature surfaces the products that theperson clicked and browsed before and makes it easy to pickup where they left off

Similar productsSometimes itrsquos tricky to narrow down your search and hone inon the products you really want to seeSimilar product recommendations are an effective way toguide the shopper through their research It matches theproducts which are similar and displays them next to eachother Itrsquos a useful tool that lets shoppers compare productseasily without having to start their search from scratch eachtime

Recommended for youNow this is one that the big guns use Think Amazon and eBayAnd therersquos good reason for them pulling out these personalrecommendations a study conducted by A staggering 35 ofAmazoncomrsquos revenue is generated by its recommendationengine Itrsquos all because theyrsquore highly relevant to you based onprevious purchases and personal preferences

Upsell recommendationsSuggesting higher priced products to high-intent browsers isgood technique to increase your revenue per transactionUpsells can easily be displayed next to similar products totempt customers to spend more

The browser can be invited to lsquoupgrade their purchasersquo for justa few pounds and get a whole host of additional features Itrsquostempting stuff for a consumer and an easy way to driverevenue for the retailer

Recommendation Types amp Practices

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Frequently bought togetherRecommending items that are frequently bought together willhelp you build basket values Once someone clicks on an itemor puts something in their basket itrsquos easy to come up withcomplementary suggestionsIf theyrsquore purchasing a camera suggest a compatible tripodand carry case If theyrsquove bought clothes then invite them tolsquocomplete the lookrsquo with matching accessories

Higher margin recommendationsRecommending products that have a higher margin is anadvanced technique that few businesses have cottoned ontoYour customerrsquos donrsquot know what your margins are on eachproduct so their experience isnrsquot impacted by recommendingproducts that give you a higher profitCase study Learn how Fitness Superstore use higher marginproduct recommendations to deliver 11X ROI frompersonalization

Post-purchase cross-sellYou donrsquot need to make all of your product recommendationsat onceIn fact sometimes itrsquos better to wait and show them somepost-purchase recommendations later It gives the buyer timeto enjoy their first purchase and decide they want to add to itFor example recommending a clutch to go with a recentlybought handbag

Itrsquos easy to send an email after with a few handy cross-sells Andwhen they visit your site next donrsquot forget to base some of yourrecommendations on what they bought before

Add-on recommendationsThese are the type of recommendations that appear becausetheyrsquore linked to a product yoursquore currently looking at Thingslike hotels at destinations yoursquore searching for flights to Thelikes of Expedia and Easyjet are masters of this They simplylook at your actions and make a logical jump towards whatyoursquore likely to want next

What people like you boughtItrsquos nice to know what other people decided on It takes thepressure off and means we can rely on the fact they did theresearch Itrsquos especially the case when those people are similarto us we tend to think it must be the right decision Today itrsquosmuch easier to profile your customers and match theirbehaviors interests and demographics to those of others Itmeans you can then make suggestions based on what similarpeople to them did

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

What other customers are doing nowAgain this one really capitalizes on our natural curiosity aboutwhat others do and adds a sense of urgency It uses real-timeupdates to show how many people have purchased theproduct yoursquore looking at It shows how popular your productsare and gets people to act fast before they miss out

People also viewedThis type of product recommendation simply shows whatother browsers looked at It helps lead people around the siteby following the actions of others It might throw up similaritems or completely different categories but because wersquoreintrigued to know what others did next it often leads shoppersto stumble across items they might not have consideredbefore

Product bundlesIf you sell products that often require (or inspire) purchases ofcomplementary items then make it easy for people to buybundles And better yet offer a discount when they do

Bestsellers and top-rated recommendationsItrsquos always great marketing to show others what customerslove to buy from you Thatrsquos why featuring your bestsellersreinforces whatrsquos brilliant about your brandBrowsing bestsellers is a nice starting point for new customerstoo It provides inspiration and lets customers get to grips withpopular products theyrsquore likely to love If you want to mix it up abit then donrsquot forget to add in your customer ratings andreviews to the list too

Trending productsFeaturing a list of trending products is a nice way to displayreal-time recommendationsmdashthey show you whatrsquos popularthis instantYou can show products that are trending on social and evensurface social media feeds by featuring hashtags linked to yourbrand

new arrivalsThese are product recommendations based on new productreleases you think people will be interested in For a clothingretailer it might be a new seasonal collection For a phoneretailer it might be the latest Samsung Galaxy mobileBy displaying these latest products you can encourage peopleto purchase before anyone else Itrsquos a great way of making thecustomer feel as if theyrsquove got their hands on an exclusive treat

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Mobile Optimization

In a world which is going increasingly mobile yoursquod haveto pay special attention to users whorsquore shopping fromtheir smartphones and other mobile devices Accordingto recent statistics from Statista mobile e-commercesales accounted for 635 percent of the total e-commercesales worldwide This number is set to increase to asmuch as 729 percent in 2021

M-Commerce perspective

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Must of the guidelines seen above are applicable for mobile E-commerce but to provide the best possible Mobile experiencethere are other focus areas to consider

Mobile first E-commerce

bull Performance amp Speedbull Navigation amp Screen Sizebull Content Optimizationbull Checkout Processbull Test amp Learn

If your webdsite is fast enough your customer is less likely tobe frustrated and less likely to leave Spead loading times willalso make your site easier to find in Google mobile searches Infact Google wants your site to load in under one second and ifthatrsquos not possible getting some of your content to load firstwhile everything else loads in the background can help

Images can also pose a problem when it comes to speed Iftheyrsquore too big or theyrsquore in the wrong format this can slowdown your loading time Mobile customers expect a page toload in under three seconds and the wrong image size canmake or break a potential sale a great tip is to use CDNs

Performance amp Speed

No need for beautiful yet unuseful animations while designingyour webstite for mobile you have to keep in mind that not allusers are having the latest and greatest smartphones capableof smoothly running animations

Smoothness

Speed

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

Mobile devices and UX trends change a lot but as long asthere are touchscreens the thumb zone will remain a criticalpart of design

Steven Hoober researched and wrote about the thumb zonein Designing Mobile Interfaces This is where I first encounteredthe notion that it might be important to consider thumbswhile developing Some zones are more reachable then otherstherefor important links should be thumb-friendly whileothers may be on the stretch or hard to reach zones

The trick is to design for the flow of the thumb zone Thisprovides a framework for making better design decisionscreating human-friendly experiences and getting fewerheadaches

Other than the thumb friendly zone your UX should considerthe size of the thumb thumbs arenrsquot as small as we probablythink When designing a button for mobile whether it is aprimary a secondary or a cancel button you should define areasonable size for them to be easily tapped

Navigation amp Screen Size

Navigation

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

When it comes to mobile screen real estate is a limitedresource therefore you have to make great use of everypossible pixel

Trying to replicate the same desktop interface on mobile isonly going to harm the user experience A good strategy is toreview and rethink all the priorities and to come up with a newinformation architecture fitted for the mobile users taking intoconsideration not only the device form factor but also thecontext in wich mobile users are browsing your site For this toyoursquoll have to conduct AB and usability tests to figure stats andconclusions that will help you move into the right direction

Screen Size

Components like the main navigation and product filtering arecommonly take the full screen size to make it easier for theuser to choose between the different available options

Full Screen Elements

Data input on phone is a whole more complexe process in amobile form factor than it is with desktop It represents one ofthe biggest frictions for the user and a major cartabandonment cause

We will never point it enough there should be a limitednumber of fields in your forms Adding to the data Inputguidelines seen above therersquos some specification for mobiledata input

Choose the right keyboard for the right type of Data use thenative calendar to choose dates numeric keyboard for CVCand other credit cart informations

Data input

A lot of graphics and media files that can be easily viewed onthe desktop are not that easy to view on your mobile Thiscould be attributed to a mismatch of format and the likesInstead of assuming that media files work on all devices it isbest to check the content before going ahead with it Themost recommended method to test your sitersquos content formobile-friendliness is to make use of tools like GooglePageSpeed Insights and Google mobile friendliness test

Content Optimization

Other than the Offering consumers the choice to pay for theirpurchase with a digital wallet is another way to speed up thecheckout process Look at Amazonrsquos 1-Click it lets customersbuy things with just one click without having to enter and re-enter billing payment or shipping information

Digital wallets such as Apple Pay Visa Checkout and PaypalOne-Touch hold your customerrsquos preferred credit cardssecurely can be used quickly and safely whenever they want topay for something and can triple conversion rates

Checkout process

Whether they are adopting responsive design approaches or afully mobile first approach there I seemingly a tendency onneglecting to test how they actually look and perform on anactual mobile device Testing the website on mobile anddesktop is as important as designing developing andlaunching it

Test amp Learn

Sources

StatistaMagentoBaymard InstituteE-commerce NationForbescomMckinseyNN GroupAbtastyOutbrainRepricerToptalBusiness InsiderEvergagePure360EchestersE-consultancySearchtechnologiescomPrefixboxSearch nodeEcommerceplatformsPracticalecommerceKibo commerceEcommerceuxdesigncomUxdesignccOberlocomGrowcodecomAciworldwidecomEcommercWebalivecomLinkedin learningVwmcomMuzli on MediumEmarketing blog on Medium

Sources

StatistaMagentoBaymard InstituteE-commerce NationForbescomMckinseyNN GroupAbtastyOutbrainRepricerToptalBusiness InsiderEvergagePure360EchestersE-consultancySearchtechnologiescomPrefixboxSearch nodeEcommerceplatformsPracticalecommerceKibo commerceEcommerceuxdesigncomUxdesignccOberlocomGrowcodecomAciworldwidecomEcommercWebalivecomLinkedin learningVwmcomMuzli on MediumEmarketing blog on Medium