Tips to improve your customers’ shopping experience
Online shopping has become a consumer habit. After all, it is no exaggeration to say that e-commerce has become online POS. However, to be able to sell and maintain loyalty, it’s not enough to open an e-commerce store and let the magic happen. It is necessary to ensure a good shopping experience.
Improving the shopping experience is key to increasing sales.
To clarify, the shopping experience is nothing more than the accumulation of perceptions acquired by the consumer during his journey. Loading speed, product descriptions, checkout process and everything that helps the consumer during the discovery, recognition, consideration and purchase decision is included in this package.
Did you like the topic and want to know more? If the answer is yes, you have come to the right place. Thinking about how to help your e-commerce store improve the shopping experience, we prepared this article. Here are some tips to ensure a good consumer perception.
Make room for e-commerce reviews
Reviews are real consumer accounts of their shopping experiences. If the customer liked, for example, the purchased product, he leaves a comment in this field. If the product arrived broken, of lower quality than expected or with some other problem, express your displeasure in the space provided for evaluation.
In any case, these authentic opinions – whether positive or negative – are useful to help other consumers in their decision-making process. That’s why the tool is essential to improve the shopping experience.
However, the benefits of the feature go much further. Reviews are still useful for improving page rankings in search engines and increasing conversion rates. Think about it: this makes it easier for other customers to find your e-commerce store, and you can use the increase in traffic to sell more.
Invest in security and trust seals
Security certificates are important because they show that an e-commerce company cares about the confidentiality of its data, you know? In this way, the consumer can pay carefree, without the risk of leaking personal data.
Trust seals prove that the company exists and has a good reputation in the market. They add credibility to e-commerce and guarantee a safer shopping experience for the customer.
Invest in quality photos
In a physical POS, the consumer can see the products up close in 360º and touch them. Online shopping does not offer such an experience. Therefore, the photos must be of high quality so that the consumer can “zoom” in and observe every detail.
In fact, there is another important aspect: the images must be true to the product. In this way, the consumer will be sure of what he buys and will not risk being frustrated with the quality of the item when he gets home.
Create a full product description
The product description also plays a key role. Since the consumer does not have a salesperson to guide him, the text must be very clear and complete to clarify any doubts about the items for sale. It is worth remembering that a good description can even reduce the number of exchanges and returns.
So make sure the content is rich in details. But look: no adding “ctrl+ci ctrl+v” in the text provided by the manufacturer, huh? It’s ideal to use creativity and go beyond the basics to grab the consumer’s attention.
Another cool tip is to use the feedback that users provide in reviews to further improve your content. In this way, it is possible to use the advantages highlighted by the customers themselves to make the text even more attractive.
Make sure your website is responsive
Responsive e-commerce is one that automatically adapts to different screen formats, such as smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop. In this context, it is important to think specifically about mobile access.
After all, the mobile phone is the main device used by Brazilians to access the Internet. According to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 98.1% of the population use a mobile device to access the world wide web.
It’s great that users don’t just use the device for browsing social networks and simple searches. The smartphone is also a shopping tool.
According to a study conducted by Mobile Time in collaboration with Opinion Box, 91% of customers have already purchased something via a website, mobile phone or app. To reach this audience, your site must be responsive. In fact, Google itself prioritizes sites like this in ranking.
Speed up your loading speed
Just as reviews and responsiveness are Google ranking factors, so is loading speed.
The reason for this is simple: about 40% of users leave a page that takes more than three seconds to load. There’s more: add another 10% for every extra 1.5 seconds you wait.
That is, if your e-commerce site takes a long time to load, the consumer will give up browsing the site. That is why it is important to speed up this process.
Simplify checkout
Did you know that complicated checkout is one of the main reasons for cart abandonment? Well, there are even surveys that show that 23% of customers abandon their purchase when they need to open an account to complete their order. So, in order not to lose those customers, it’s nice to simplify the process.
There are solutions for checkout without login, for example, that eliminate the step of registering and configuring a password – which we always forget and have to recover when we haven’t shopped in e-commerce for a long time, right?
Another interesting strategy is to place a progress bar at the top of the page. That way the consumer can track how many steps are left to complete the purchase, you know?
Finally, improving the shopping experience is key to increasing sales. In this context, the emphasis goes to reviews because they help consumers in their decisions, provide data to improve product descriptions, and even guarantee a better position in the organic rankings. Therefore, it is worth investing in the resource!
Also read: Positive physical consumer experience in e-commerce
