I am a girl that always looks for a dress. A perfect dress to fit a mood, an occasion, a trip. And I am an impulse buyer (according to Gitnux research 84% of American shoppers are impulse buyers). AI algorithms figured this out about me a long time ago. And I don’t mind. It is quite helpful when I’m looking for a last-minute wardrobe addition – yes, yes, show me the pretty pictures of pretty women in pretty dresses for me to fall in love with! I wholeheartedly sign up for this.
Hats off to social media managers and other creatives for producing great ads. They work! They get me to the seller’s Instagram account, and they get me excitedly browsing and looking… And right then, when I have met the one and ready to commit, I can’t seem to complete a transaction! Sometimes, I don’t even see a link to the actual store. Or when I do – I struggle to see available sizes, add an item to my cart, view my cart, or even pay. Sigh.
At that point my impulse is kind of over. I realize that I can live without the dress. Or I feel like it’s the universe telling me that I don’t need another pretty dress and I take my inability to purchase right there and then as a sign (thanks, Universe). Or I just get frustrated with such poor user experience and deliberately close the page – I really don’t want to incentivize careless website design. Anyway – a company selling a pretty dress loses my business.
I have this experience too often – not only with stores that sell clothes, but across various e-commerce websites. Not just small or niche ones, but also with massive retailers. Which is incredible because they have the budget to fix the user journey and experience.
So, this got me wondering: is this bad user experience intentional? Maybe the research says that impulse buyers are bad for business? Are remorseful buyers more likely to return purchased items, causing sellers to lose revenue as they deal with reduced profit margins, higher costs, and increased customer service workloads? Perhaps then, the bad UI experience is meant to slow a shopper down and cause them to consider their purchase carefully, all while trying to navigate a poorly designed website.
But no. Research says that even with increased return rates, impulse buyers are godsend to sellers. They make up 40% of all e-commerce sales.
So. Fix your website. Improve your user experience. Impress your customers. Reclaim your revenue.
Pro tip
Please don’t neglect mobile optimization for your website. If you are not ensuring your website is just as functional and user friendly on a mobile phone or a tablet compared to a desktop version, you may be losing as many as 75% of your website visitors.