Embrace The Power Of UX To Understand eCommerce Activity
It has been well documented across the web that over 50% of eCommerce stores exclusively use Google Analytics (GA) to measure their online performance. But does using GA alone as a free analytics platform really provide enough insight to help eCommerce professionals make smart user experience (UX) decisions?
There are many variables to consider for eCommerce stores as opposed to your typical website. Whilst typical websites may only have a requirement to monitor how many visitors they receive to their site, online stores should be looking at the way their users behave, interact and engage.
The Importance Of Researching Big eCommerce Brands
You may be a small to medium sized online store in a highly competitive marketplace with well-heeled multi-category retailers such as Amazon making round-the-clock sales. Does this mean that your online store should give up the ghost, or should you work harder to understand, react and proact to the competition?
Whilst it may be unrealistic to expect to command the capital, resources and brand presence of the big brands overnight, the eCommerce world should be looking at variables that support growth. Some of the techniques below can help in gaining an initial understanding:
A) Competitor research – Look for some notable eCommerce brands. You may notice that most have both eCommerce and User Experience (UX) teams. Linkedin can help to establish this fact.
B) Install Ghostery – This tool helps you to identify what tools the big brands use (beyond GA) on their stores to support the eCommerce Manager and UX Manager functions. An alternative is the BuiltWith Chrome plugin.
C) Create a spreadsheet – Document the brands and the tools they use. Do you notice any patterns in the tools they use?
How Do These Tools Help Brands Understand User Experience?
Let’s explore this further…
- ASOS uses Decibel Insight, a heat map and session replay tool to gain more insight into how visitors navigate their site.
- River Island uses Maxymiser, an A/B and multivariate testing tool to create and run optimization tests across their online store.
- Secret Escapes uses CrazyEgg, a well-established heat mapping tool for SMEs.
Web tools such as those outlined in the table above provide additional layers of insight to eCommerce stores about how users engage with their respective online stores. Without adopting additional tools beyond Google Analytics, many eCommerce professionals are spending an increasing amount of time trying to interpret raw data which doesn’t always provide the bigger picture or accurate levels of insight around how users (visitors) behave.
User Experience for the eCommerce world is the measure of how users engage with content. Google Analytics can often pose more questions than answers, especially where eCommerce stores are concerned. Questions such as:
- Why is my bounce rate so high?
- Have particular products been clicked?
- How do I decide which products to rotate?
- Does my homepage carousel work?
- Are my pop-ups attracting clicks?
- Why are my conversions low?
The tools outlined in the table above, along with many others, serve to support answers to these questions.
How Much Do I Need To Invest To Understand UX?
With the knowledge that big eCommerce brands are using these tools comes the assumption that they can only be adopted at a cost. The good news for many is that a number of these tools are affordable, and invaluable, if considering the time being saved through gathering these insights beyond the analytics. This list from Huffington Post highlights a number of tools that can help you understand user behaviour across your eCommerce store.
By considering the power of some of the tools which are now being more widely used to gain deeper level insights, this provides a measure of just how smart the digital industry is becoming. By not embracing the technology which supports this advancement, eCommerce stores risk missing out on the customer insights being identified by competitors that are pushing further beyond traditional analytics.
The importance of user experience is now shaking up the web design industry. Design agencies are quickly realizing that web design alone as a concept is not enough. Simply making a website look effective through design alone may please users from an aesthetic perspective, but if design agencies don’t consider forming designs around users and their requirements; issues will ensue. If design agencies are not considering elements such as personas (your target audience and their behaviours) and working closely with you to understand customer (user) journeys and prospective pathways through your website then you should quite rightly be concerned. Smart web design changes can only happen if your design agency understands how your users behave.
Looking back a number of years ago before responsive websites (sites which render across all device types), UX design was not such a strong concept and many of these web insight, testing and reporting tools were not yet conceptualised. At that time, eCommerce stores may well not have had the increasing pressure from competitors or the necessity to have to adapt.
Time needs to be put aside to research the appropriate tools for your business, along with aligning the responsibility to a member within the organisation to report any findings. Alternatively, if there is a lack of resource internally, you may wish to outsource this task to a digital agency.
Can’t I Just Continue Guessing How Users Behave On My Site?
There may be many eCommerce stores who are tempted to go with the easy option and to stay within their comfort zone, by continuing to measure the user experience of their visitors against data provided by Google Analytics, coupled with best guess work and speculative interpretations. The dangers of not driving a change in direction for the digital strategy of their business poses a similar risk to traditional high street stores not adapting their proposition to the online consumer.
A number of years ago, many were discussing the “death of the high street”. With the digital industry moving at such a pace, there are many now discussing “the death of web design”. If these factors are not enough cause for concern, the risk is to continue up to a point where levels of engagement and conversions dip further.
The Overriding Advice From This Post?
What experience have you had on the high street? Do you always find the appropriate signage and labelling to support a journey to your desired destination? Many may assume that having a physical store is the only way in which you can track and monitor the customer journey from their entrance to exit points. This no longer has to be the case, providing online stores look to adopt the appropriate tools to support their users and the optimisation of their sales funnel.
Should we not all be encouraged enough from positive experiences on the high street to offer the very best user experience to our customers online? After all, the big brands are continuing to line their pockets online by taking a more holistic, intelligent approach to providing great user experiences.
