We’ll be the first to admit it...As eCommerce strategists, we can sometimes be a bit picky when we purchase online. After all, we know what brands should be doing to maximize their potential, and it kills us a little bit inside when we don’t see that happening.
That said, have you ever shopped online for a particular brand and were horrified by what you experienced? Was the page cluttered or hard to get around? Did the checkout process take forever? Or was the customer service poor, and you didn’t receive your item until weeks after it was promised?
The truth is that the store owner probably doesn’t realize what’s going on or hasn’t taken the time to evaluate what shoppers actually see when they make a purchase. This means that they have…Drumroll, please…
An eCommerce user experience (UX) failure.
If you’re getting plenty of traffic and not nearly enough sales, this could be the issue with your store or brand. But how do you narrow down the problem? Here are a few tips on how to measure UX with eCommerce metrics.
Check Your eCommerce Conversion Rate
The first metric you’ll want to check is your overall conversion rate. This is the super important ratio of how many people visited your website versus how many actually made a purchase. Even if you have an excellent UX, this is something you’ll always need to track to see if your digital marketing efforts are working.
Industry-standard is somewhere right around 3%. However, this figure can vary depending on the niche you’re in and the price point of what you’re selling. If there’s a huge discrepancy between this number and where you’re at, you likely have a user experience issue.
Monitor Your Repeat Customer Rate (RCR)
Customers that continually show brand loyalty by coming back and ordering more products are key to an eCommerce brand’s growth. To see whether or not you have a problem with UX after a shopper places an order, look at your repeat customer rate.
If this number is super slow, it is time to drill down and figure out what is happening after a customer places an order. Is shipping taking a long time? Are they not getting the product value for their money? These are both examples of questions you need to be asking.
Use a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey
Another way to get the data you need to determine if you have an eCommerce UX issue is to just ask the customers themselves with a survey. You can even automate this process so that once an order is placed or a few days after it is received in the mail, the customer gets an email message.
Use a rating system instead of asking for generic answers. Cover topics like the price value of an item, ease of navigation around the website, customer service, and more. Offer a coupon code or discount incentive for completing the survey. You’ll likely be surprised at the answers you receive.
Keep Your Average Handling Time Low
Another way to make your customers’ overall user experience positive is to keep your average handling time low. Online shoppers these days are spoiled by the speedy delivery times of the big guys. Ensure you’re meeting their expectations by reducing the time it takes from when they buy until the item arrives at their door.
If you have a custom item or one that generally has a higher handling time, that’s okay. However, you need to set that expectation with the customer and have a process for automated updates that keep them in the know as to where their order is.
Track Overall Page Views and Time on Page
You also need to track overall page views and time on page for your store. Often, this is a key indicator of a technical problem or one that has to do with what your customers see when they land on the site.
Often, a short time on page can mean that there’s something wrong with viewing products or the site’s actual coding itself. Or maybe your store isn’t as mobile-friendly as you thought. Either way, by knowing how long someone is staying on the website, you can make adjustments accordingly.
Need to Improve Your eCommerce UX? We Can Help
Once you realize where the eCommerce UX issue might be, it is time to start making improvements. Usually, this is done incrementally so that you can look back at the data and see if what you changed actually worked.
The good news? You don’t have to do this alone. As omnichannel marketing experts, we’re here to help you iron out the wrinkles in your eCommerce UX strategy. Please contact our CAKE team today to discuss how you can improve your store for a better overall user experience.
