In a competitive ecommerce market, a good user experience (UX) is no longer a nice-to-have. Customers expect websites to be fast, intuitive and easy to use, and even small points of friction can make the difference between a completed purchase and an abandoned basket.
For ecommerce retailers, UX goes beyond how a website looks. It encompasses everything from navigation and mobile usability to accessibility, performance and checkout.
Here are five practical ways to improve the user experience on your ecommerce website.
Make navigation simple and intuitive
A well-organised website makes it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for and move through the purchase journey.
Clear product categories, intuitive menus and effective site search all help customers find products without unnecessary effort. For retailers with large or complex product catalogues, filtering is equally important, allowing shoppers to narrow down their options based on relevant attributes.
The goal is simple: customers shouldn't have to work out how your website works before they can use it.
Review your navigation regularly and consider how a first-time visitor would move through your site. If finding a particular product takes too many clicks or requires too much searching, there may be an opportunity to simplify the experience.
Optimise the mobile experience
Mobile shopping is now a fundamental part of ecommerce, making mobile optimisation essential rather than optional.
A mobile-friendly website needs to do more than simply fit a desktop design onto a smaller screen. Product imagery, navigation, forms, buttons and other interactive elements all need to work naturally with touch interactions and smaller displays.
Consider the entire mobile customer journey, from discovering a product through to completing checkout. If any part of the experience is difficult to use on a smartphone, customers may simply move on to another retailer.
A consistent experience across mobile, tablet and desktop ensures customers can shop with your brand wherever and whenever they choose.
Prioritise website speed
In ecommerce, performance matters.
Customers expect pages to load quickly, and delays can create frustration before they've even had the opportunity to explore your products. Slow websites can also affect the wider customer journey, particularly when shoppers are navigating between product pages, adding items to their basket or completing checkout.
There are various ways to improve website performance, including optimising images, reducing unnecessary requests and reviewing third-party integrations.
However, retailers should also consider the ecommerce platform underneath their website. A platform with a lean, efficient core can provide a stronger foundation for delivering a fast experience as your store grows.
Build an accessible ecommerce experience
Good UX should work for as many customers as possible.
Accessibility means considering how people with different needs interact with your website and ensuring they can navigate, understand and use it effectively.
Practical considerations include:
Providing meaningful alt text for images
Making sure content can be navigated using a keyboard
Using clear and readable text
Providing sufficient contrast
Ensuring forms and interactive elements are clearly labelled
Supporting screen readers and other assistive technologies
Accessibility shouldn't be treated as an afterthought. Building it into the design and development process from the beginning can create a better experience for everyone.
Streamline the checkout experience
The checkout is one of the most important stages of the ecommerce journey. After successfully getting a customer to your checkout, the last thing you want is to make completing the purchase unnecessarily difficult.
Keep the process straightforward and remove anything that isn't essential.
Offering guest checkout can help customers who don't want to create an account, while providing a range of relevant payment options gives shoppers greater flexibility.
It's also important to make key information clear before customers reach the final step. Delivery costs, payment options, returns information and any other important conditions should be easy to understand.
The fewer unanswered questions customers have at checkout, the more confident they can feel about completing their purchase.
UX is an ongoing process
Improving UX isn't something you do once and then forget about. Customer expectations, technology and shopping behaviours continue to change, so ecommerce retailers need to continually evaluate how their websites perform.
Look at where customers are dropping out, which pages receive the most engagement and where shoppers encounter friction. Combining this insight with regular usability testing can help identify opportunities to improve the experience over time.
The right ecommerce platform can also give retailers greater control over how that experience evolves, allowing them to adapt their store as their customers and business change.
Build a better ecommerce experience with Aero
Aero provides the performance, flexibility and functionality retailers need to create ecommerce experiences around their customers.
With a lean core and an extensible architecture, Aero gives agencies and retailers the freedom to build an experience that works for their specific audience, without being restricted by unnecessary platform limitations.
Want to see what you could build with Aero?
Book a demo with our team to see how Aero can support a faster, more flexible and customer-focused ecommerce experience.
