eCommerce Blog

I think most of us would agree that a clean and intuitive user experience goes a long way in maintaining healthy conversion rates for an eCommerce business. Although most online retailers want to build a clean user experience – a lot of times they get influenced by the “complexities” of their business and begin designing the experience for exceptions that only apply to 5-10% of visitors. I think it is extremely important to continue to invest some dollars in the usability testing of the site and keep the experience as simple as possible.

I recently came across a great post that showcases 35 online retailers who have done an outstanding job of keeping the user experience simple and fresh. In the past, I have seen a lot of retailers focusing on adding more and more content to the pages so that they can make use of the very last pixel of white space on their page. Looking at these designs, perhaps the focus should be quite opposite – how to remove all the unnecessary content out of a page and increase the amount of that white space so that the users are presented with crisp and quality content that truly matters.

Here’s the list for your design inspiration: http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/ecommerce-ui/

If you have read my previous posts, I am a huge fan of leveraging web analytics to gain insights about your customers, campaigns and site usability. However, one of the challenges most online retailers face is how to gain actionable  insights from the analytics tool without getting lost in the sea of data that is being collected by the tool.

Google analytics recently rolled out a new “Intelligence” feature which is a great attempt to solve this very problem. Google analytics now keeps track of “expected” data patterns on your site and can notify you via email or online reporting if there are any significant changes on your site activity. For example, intelligence feature could alert you if there was a 200% surge in visits from Twitter referrals during last 24 hours or let you know that bounce rates of visitors from India jumped by 40% last week. Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through all the data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insights that could affect your online business.

Take a look at the video below to learn more about this awesome new feature:

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Editor’s Note: We welcome this guest post from Michelle Strassburg who is head of Sales and Marketing at UK based online seller Wood and Beyond.

Having been an e-commerce manager for a while, it didn’t take me long to understand the name of the game. When it comes to running a successful e-commerce business, the name of the game isn’t so much about generating traffic, as getting whatever levels of traffic you have to convert. Online conversion can come in many forms. If you’re selling a product online conversion happens when a visitor makes a purchase and becomes an active customer, and if you’re offering a service your conversion might be getting visitors to phone-in. In order to increase your online conversion rates on a budget try my tips below.

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Dear Online Retailer,

You can make a safe assumption that the reason I am visiting your online store is because I have an intention to buy something from you. All I need from you is to help me find what I am looking for and then take me from point A (Product Page) to point B (checkout). I am ready to fork over my money if you show me a clear path! So it is up to you to decide how easy or difficult you want my journey to be. Need a few tips? Here are few ideas to consider:

1. Do not force me to register during the checkout process. If I click on checkout, that is usually a safe assumption that I have made a decision to purchase. Please get out of my way so you can take my money as quickly as possible before I change my mind. Don’t present me with unnecessary registration steps or other information that would slow me down. If you want to give me an option to register after the checkout is complete, sure I will consider it.
   
2. Remember that Google is not your target customer – I am. Don’t write your product descriptions or other content containing tons of SEO keywords with a sole purpose to please Google. Read the rest of this entry »