With growing numbers of businesses taking their products and services to the web, offering greater reach and accessibility of their wares to their existing and potential clients, we as web designers need to be ready to deliver on their e-commerce web wants and needs.
Across the Web we see numerous examples of both ends of this spectrum, e-commerce websites done extremely well and, unfortunately, some extremely poorly.
Here we’ll shine a light on what makes an e-commerce website really work. We discuss the basics that are required for success and highlight them with some sites that exemplify the points in focus. Overall, much of the weight of a successful e-commerce site falls under the UX umbrella, with functionality being key.
And while it is true that could be argued for every site on the Web, given the very nature of them, e-commerce sites’ success rely so heavily on usability and function, that any choice which would strain either of these aspects of the site should not ever be considered.
Searchability
Not only do you need at least one very prominant search box on the site, it also needs to work impecibly. Visitors are going to be searching for the items they wish to purchase from the site and if the search function is below par, and they have any kinds of issues whatsoever finding exactly what they’re looking for, it could cost users and potential buyers. In fact, chances are, with the high number of both local and national chains operating in the same markets the users will end up going to a competitor where they don’t have as many issues.
So be clear not only with how they can search the products and services on offer, but also be sure that you give them a trail of breadcrumbs that highlight where in the shop the item they were searching for hides. This way they can easily browse related items in the same category. It is all about giving them as much flexibility to access the store items as possible, while doing it subtly enough as to not overwhelm them. It is a fine balance to strike indeed.
Like the search box, visitors not only need an easy and apparent way to get to their shopping cart from any page on the site, the cart itself needs to be highly user friendly and functional. Users have expectations that need to be looked after if they are expected to stick around and spend their money at any particular site, and the shopping cart is one area where dropping the ball on meeting those expectations can be unneccessarily costly.
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