A BLOG FOR E-COMMERCE LEADERS

SLI Blog

Posts with User Experience Tag

6 Ways to Optimize the Mobile Shopping Experience

Posted by Jason MillereCommerce, Mobile, Mobile/Tablets, Site Search Tips

The stats are in and the message is clear: people are shopping on their smartphones and tablets more and more every day. Mobile commerce in the U.S. is:

Mobile shopping is outpacing desktop shopping; billions of dollars are on the line; and yet smartphone conversion rates remain at an embarrassingly low 1% or less for many retailers. Why? 80% of shoppers say they typically abandon a mobile site if they have a bad user experience (Limelight). To take advantage of this massive opportunity, online retailers need to provide shoppers with an excellent customer experience.

While there are many different ways to address all these different device formats, such as dedicated mobile or tablet sites or even a complete overhaul like Responsive design, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Whichever approach you choose, here are six tips to help you optimize your mobile customer experience:

1. Speed Matters

Nearly half of consumers expect a web page to load in less than two seconds (KISSmetrics). Remember that there is a distinct difference between what a computer calculates as page weight/load time and what a user will consider the page speed. Optimizing web pages for “visually complete” – or the user’s perception of when a page is complete – and optimizing actual page load times will create a better user experience. Tip: Use Google Page Speed Insights for overall comparison and WebPageTest to compare visually.

Image size also matters. Make sure to serve appropriately sized images and remember that even images hidden via CSS for a mobile view will still be downloaded.

  • If using a mobile site, make sure images are sized for that form factor; don’t simply reuse desktop images as they will force users to download excessively large images.
  • If the site is Responsive, make use of client side conditional loading (imager.js) or dynamic image compression (e.g. Akamai’s ION product line) to ensure users aren’t downloading unneeded bytes. Tim Kadlec found that by using a responsive image technique, sites could save up to 72.2% of image weight.

2. Reduce Customer Friction

Conversion rates on average are four to five times higher for people who use on-site search. Additionally, the type of visitors who utilize the search box are showing explicit intent and are more likely to purchase (PFSweb). Mobile users specifically are more likely to use search so make sure your search box is in an obvious place near the top of the page. Tools to ease the on-site searcher’s path-to-purchase include:

  • Rich Auto Complete ­­­­– Ease the pain of typing in search terms on small mobile devices by adding Rich Auto Complete to your search box. Through predictive analysis, this will offer suggested keywords and products as the user is typing the search term. This saves the user time and frustration and is a great way to reduce a customer friction point.
  • Spelling Suggestions – One of the difficulties that come with shopping from a mobile device is that the keyboard may be small or difficult to use, and customers may not be able to type in search words correctly. Account for misspellings or similar words by employing autocorrect or synonym rules. These rules create linkages between words to show the correct products when a word is misspelled or a different term or slang is used. 
  • Reviews & Social Media – Show ratings and reviews with your product results. Provide this social currency on site so users don’t need to leave your site to research products. Also, more shoppers are using social media to get ideas for gifts or find new items they’d like to purchase. Make sure you are catering to your mobile visitors by allowing them to share their favorite products easily among their social networks.

3.  Touch-Enabled Devices

When designing for touch-enabled devices, it’s important to remember the size of the human finger and thumb. The touch target for an index finger is 57 pixels and a thumb is 72 pixels. Making touch targets smaller than these targets can lead to user frustration and incorrect clicks. Moreover, don’t require users to pinch and zoom in order to navigate pages as these actions also lead to a negative user experience.

A very common mistake in mobile development is attempting to port desktop features directly to a mobile device. With a touch-enabled device, the user is not navigating the page with a mouse cursor so keep in mind that functions like hover don’t translate into a positive customer experience. At best, the user will attempt to click the item multiple times to activate the link; at worst, the user will be unable to click through at all. According to Thomas Fuchs, “The easiest way to deal with this is simple: don’t use hover on touch-enabled devices.”

4. Make Checkout Easy

Smart e-commerce companies create as few steps as possible at mobile checkout. When you allow visitors to checkout quickly and easily, they’re more likely to complete the purchase. To speed customers through checkout:

  • Reduce form length (fewer than 6 fields); if multiple steps, show progress
  • Top Align form labels for easy readability while typing
  • Allow guest checkout (to again, “reduce friction”)
  • PayPal/Google Wallet payment options get customers through the process quickly

5. It’s Time to Revolt Against Sliders (on Desktop and Mobile)

There have been numerous studies showing that sliders are useless. Site visitors are highly unlikely to take the time to read each slide or interact with the slider. Notre Dame performed a test with a slider on their homepage, only to find that the first image was the only image to receive interest from visitors (and only 1% of visitors). Take a serious look at your analytics and evaluate whether or not the extra download time and screen real estate is actually providing your customer value or simply satisfying everyone on the committee. Instead of sliders:

  • Show relevant sales items, or personalized offers based on season or geography
  • Show returning customers something based on their shopping affinity or past purchases
  • Avoid banner blindness and focus on what you really want the customer to do

6. Without Testing, You’re Just Guessing

Mobile customer expectations are evolving at a rapid rate so adapting to these ever-changing requirements is critical for success in an extremely competitive e-commerce environment. Performing tests, whether A/B or multivariate, can identify whether a feature can help or hurt your bottom line and is the best means of identifying which tips will best improve your conversion rates.  Looking at what your competitors do and industry best practices are only starting points; you also need to know what your audience responds well to.

To learn more about how to improve conversion rates and increase revenue from your mobile sites and apps, visit https://blog.sli-systems.com/solutions/mobile-site-search.

2014 Could Be the Year that Online Retailers Outsmart Amazon

Posted by Shaun RyaneCommerce, Site Search

As I look through articles on trends and business strategies for 2014, it’s clear that Amazon is driving many online retailers’ business decisions this year. With Amazon’s advantages in fulfillment speed, pricing, inventory, and the sophistication of its e-commerce engine, I imagine the question of how to effectively compete with the behemoth keeps many online retailers up at night.

However, there is a category of savvy online business owners – many of whom we have the pleasure of working with – who are keeping the Amazons, eBays and Walmart.com’s of the world at bay by finding their own niches.

These retailers are discovering that they can maintain dominance on their home turf and draw new shoppers to their sites by showcasing their domain expertise and augmenting their unique assets with services from third-party providers. For example, a merchant can use videos and social media marketing to effectively emphasize its unique specialty.

Additionally, retailers are looking to service providers to handle critical areas of their website like search, shopping cart and check-out, mobile design, personalization, and more. When a service provider has a single best-of-breed offering and leverages it across hundreds of retailers, it’s possible for that service provider to surpass Amazon’s own offered capabilities in these areas.

The key for retailers of any size is to maintain a solid focus on delivering the best overall shopping experience possible – through both technology and easy access to great customer service. In other words, don’t worry so much about what Amazon is doing, just worry about making sure you’re doing the best you can at what you do well, and look to your technology service partners to optimize performance for your website, which is what we do well.

Kidrobot_MUNNY_21Jan14As an example, look at Kidrobot, whose pop art and designer toys are constantly shared over Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites. SLI incorporated social media content into Kidrobot’s on-site search. Now, when you search for MUNNY (see screen shot below), not only can you easily find a MUNNY product, but you can click on the Instagram tab to view photos of MUNNY toys, click on the Video tab to view videos of MUNNYs, and so on. Even though you can buy MUNNY toys and other Kidrobot products on Amazon, many shoppers still want to buy directly from Kidrobot’s site because they enjoy the delightful user experience that Kidrobot has created for shoppers.

So if you’re looking to beat Amazon at its own game, leverage the assets you have that they don’t. It may be your physical stores, unique access to products, a deep knowledge of your niche, or something else. Also ensure they know that your service and responsiveness is the best around. I wrote more about how we do this in the recent blog, A Unique Approach to Customer Service.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what retailers should focus on in the coming year to compete effectively with the online giants. Please comment below to start a conversation.

Is your Site Mobile & Tablet Ready for the Holidays?

Posted by Jeff HolteCommerce, Mobile/Tablets, User Experience

With the holiday shopping season upon us, eTailers everywhere are spending time to make sure site visitors have the best experience possible when browsing their sites. Positive shopping experiences result in more conversions, higher AOV (average order values) and return customers. With much of the focus still placed on desktop sites, many online retailers are missing the opportunity to concentrate on tablet and mobile optimized web sites – especially when more than 55% of all U.S. consumers have a smartphone and at least 35% own a tablet, according to Pew Research. As shopping on these devices increases in popularity, eTailers should consider investing more time and effort to improve their site usability, search and navigation to accommodate this shift.

Sales are Soaring

According to eMarketer, retail sales are expected to increase 68 percent from 2013 – 2017, with mobile commerce sales increasing a whopping 125 percent. Combine both smartphone and tablet, and mCommerce sales are expected to rise 38 percent next year. Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that mobile and tablet sites should be regularly looked at and updated along with the desktop version of your site.

Spontaneity leads to more than 80 percent of mobile purchases, and according to Brad Frost, mobile users will do anything and everything desktop users will do, considering ease of use and convenience. More than a quarter of all mobile users will abandon a transaction if a site is not optimized for mobile, with users believing that mobile transactions should be easier than online or in store transactions. Frost also reports that time spent on a mobile device is expected to overtake time spent on desktop this year, and Internet Retailer agrees that mobile devices now surpass desktops in eCommerce.

Tablets are Making Their Presence Known

Here’s some more interesting data from a recent study by Adobe:  tablet users are three times more likely to make a purchase over mobile phone users. They also spend 50 percent more than PC/MAC users, which makes this group worth targeting. Initially, smartphones had the lead over tablets in eCommerce sales, but tablets are estimated to account for more sales this year and will continue to rise at a rapid rate.

Make it Easy for your Customers

Mobile sites should be optimized in a way that puts what the user is looking for right in their hands as quickly and painlessly as possible. Mobile site design should not be too busy or crowded; the layout should be simple and products should be merchandised in a way so that they are quick and easy to find.  Similarly, checkout should be secure and require minimal effort as users do not want to spend time filling out information on such small screens. Overall, mobile should cater to your target audience. For examples and best practices, see our previous blog post on giving your mobile shoppers what they want.

Tablet approach should be different than mobile. Tablet users are known to spend more time on sites interacting and engaging with content and media. In addition to design and layout changes, online retailers should consider including product videos and any other features that users can interact with, as studies show that tablet users will spend more time playing with these features before making a purchase.

eTailers have just a small window of opportunity to compel the user to make a purchase. Because of this, site search becomes even more important.  Your site search bar should always be prominently displayed (no matter which interface the user is viewing your site from) and should contain an auto-complete feature for faster searching.

Once your site is all set up, consider letting your users do the merchandising for you with SLI’s patented advanced search technology, Learning Search for Mobile. Learning Search watches your website’s user behavior, and automatically re-ranks your products based on user click-through rates. The faster a user can find what they are looking for, the more likely they’ll be checking out with gifts for loved ones this holiday season.

Jeff Holt is a Customer Success Manager for SLI Systems. For further product insight contact him at jeff.holt@sli-systems.com.

 

Usability Features for the 65+ Online Shopper

Posted by Erika StasieCommerce, Site Search, Site Search Tips1 comment

Many of us know someone over 65 who is hesitant to shop online, or even use a computer or smartphone. This leads to the common perception that users 65 and over are resistant to adapt to changing technology. However, some studies show that more than half of the senior market has integrated itself in the eCommerce experience and is continually embracing this “new” way to shop.

As of 2012, 19 million American seniors are avid Internet users, and this number has been growing 16 percent per year for the last decade. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, that’s more than half of the senior population, approximately 55 percent!

As shopping online becomes as routine and easy as checking one’s email, it’s no wonder why the majority of the senior market has really embraced this shift toward online browsing and purchasing. And for some seniors with limited mobility or fixed incomes – or those just looking for a convenient way to quickly browse a number of stores – the benefits of online shopping are becoming even more apparent. The conveniences of shopping at home, combined with the opportunity to compare prices online, are driving this market to push the boundaries of their normal shopping habits.

Online retailers have recognized this shift toward online shopping for the over 65 demographic, and are making a stronger effort to cater to this market that was initially slower to adopt. Sites such as Hoveround.com, Jaystrongwater.com and AARP demonstrate the implementation of certain necessary and important design features for seniors.

Jakob Nielsen, in his article “Seniors as Web Users” observed that companies who redesign their website to give seniors a similar user experience quality as younger users can obtain 35% more business from them. Site usability is the most important aspect of any retailer’s site, as recognized by Nielsen in his research. According to the study, there are five main components that lead to successful site usability:

  1. Learnability: How easy it is for users to complete basic tasks on a first-time site visit.
  2. Efficiency: How quickly users can perform tasks on the site such as searching, ordering and checkout.
  3. Memorability: How quickly users can re-establish proficiency with search and navigation after a period of not using the site.
  4. Errors: How many errors users make, how severe those errors are and if the user can recover from these errors (such as content errors, spelling mistakes and the like).
  5. Satisfaction: What users get out of the site design aesthetically, which is imperative for effective site usability.
    .

For the senior market, the most important usability features are the ease of accomplishing basic tasks on a first time encounter, how much they remember about the site’s design after not accessing the site for a long period of time and whether they can recover after making search errors.  Users aged 65 and older are 43% slower at using websites than users aged 21–55. And when they had site search problems, seniors blamed themselves 90% of the time, compared to 58% of younger users. This is where a carefully planned user interface and site design is paramount in successfully capturing the senior market to shop on their sites and increase loyalty and retention among eCustomers.

Some design features necessary in developing senior-friendly websites include a large, distinct search bar, clear and bold navigation buttons, easily-readable text and prominence of the most important information above the fold. Other very helpful features are a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and multiple areas for contact information.

Research by MarketingSherpa suggests that visitors spend about 8 seconds before deciding whether to remain on a site or to search elsewhere. Having a clearly marked search box that returns highly-relevant results is a key component in lowering abandonment rates and increasing conversions to any age demographic – but even more so with this particular market. Online retailers who want to keep seniors coming back to their sites should consider working with search and navigation experts that can help them implement these key design features and ensure than search results are always relevant.

Looking toward the future, we can expect that the 65 and over market will be savvier when it comes to online shopping. Eventually, shopping online will be the norm and the senior market will have completely immersed itself into the experience.

Contact SLI Systems for a free site critique to learn how you can optimize your eCommerce site for 65+ buyers and other key market segments.

 

A/B Testing and Why You Should Do It

Posted by Kemberly GongeCommerce2 comments

A/B testing is one of the most important things you should be doing for your eCommerce site. In eCommerce, your site’s layout, design and feature set are a crucial part of the product – not just the physical products you sell. Yet many businesses don’t place high importance on testing. Without it, you’re essentially displaying products without ever knowing how your customers respond to your layouts.

A/B tests compare a variable against a control to determine which one is more popular. For eCommerce sites, elements of control page “A” are compared to the new version “B” to find which one increases interest in the page. This could be in the form of click-through rates, conversions, pages viewed per visit, or whatever goal is specified.

Say you want to encourage more people to click a button on your page to sign up for a service. To test the effectiveness of the button, you’d use the current page/ button design as your control and a test it against a new design. Both designs would be released simultaneously to a customer sample, and their clicks during the test period would be tallied to see which button drove more clicks. You’ll usually see a pretty clear indication of one particular design that users prefer. A/B testing is a simple, yet effective way to determine which version “wins”.

With the results of individual tests and the collective results over time, testers will get actionable data about what design, layout and features users prefer.

But repeat after me: “one design does not fit all”. User demographics and preference play heavily into what works for one site but not for another. Even though your site may sell something similar to another, your audience may be different and users may behave in very dissimilar, contradictory ways. It’s important to test your site specifically, and not necessarily follow others in your industry.

Instead of grasping at straws when deciding on design or feature changes on your eCommerce site pages, consider A/B testing to help give clearer, data-driven insights that can provide concrete recommendations to improve your site’s performance. The only thing you should not A/B test is the decision to A/B test.

Have you been shocked by results from A/B tests? We’d love to hear what you learned.

Black Friday Roundup – eCommerce Sales Exceed $1 Billion

Posted by Kemberly GongeCommerce, Mobile/Tablets, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Web Search

Black Friday spending was up from last year

The numbers are in – and there were two major takeaways from this year’s Black Friday sales.

First: eCommerce made a huge leap this year. Revenues for online sales exceeded one billion dollars for the first time on Friday alone.

The second takeaway: mobile is red hot – 24 percent of all black Friday shoppers visited a mobile site on their phone, an increase of more than 10 percent from just last year.

Sales on mobile devices accounted for more than 16 percent of all online sales, up from 9.8 percent last year, which points to customers’ increasing comfort with mobile shopping. Of all mobile devices, 14.2 percent of sales came from iPhone and Android smartphones, while 9.8 percent of all mobile purchases came from an iPad. Of purchases only from tablets, 88 percent were completed from an iPad.

So while lines were still wrapped around buildings for doorbuster deals and parking lots were still crowded, there was an increase in sales from those of us who prefer to do our shopping couchside as we recover from our Thanksgiving food coma.

Holiday promotions are starting earlier with some sales beginning Thanksgiving night, and customers are definitely getting into the spirit of online shopping. You could be losing them if your eCommerce site’s search isn’t optimized for a variety of web and mobile devices. Whether your customers are surfing from their laptop, on the couch browsing from a tablet or in a store comparing products on their smartphone, they’re looking for a shop and purchase experience that meets their expectations. If you can exceed those expectations, that’s even better.

There are a number of ways to do that by optimizing your site’s search features with highly-relevant search, refinements and features like Rich Auto Complete, which visually display relevant products.

Space is at a premium on mobile sites, which is why features like expandable navigation that stays hidden until users need to refine their searches, or auto complete, which matches a partial search term with possible suggestions, have such great impact. The fewer words your customers need to type or clicks they need to make to get to their product, the more likely they’ll be to revisit your site because of a good user experience.

Bad usability not only turns off customers from a purchase, it also erodes their perception of your brand. During the holidays, you’ll have thousands, possibly millions of customers navigating to your site – don’t be caught with a poorly-navigable site. Instead, invest in the rapidly-growing eCommerce space by optimizing the site search and merchandising features on your eCommerce and mobile platforms to take advantage of a steadily growing channel.

If your eCommerce site could use an update, you can learn more about the best features to improve your site by downloading our Big Book of Site Search Tips.

Plus, check out other interesting Black Friday results in this infographic.

Load More