Poorly implemented Shopify store UX design is a major cause of abandoned checkouts. Thus, a better UX can enhance the $40 billion in sales already made by Shopify merchants.
Shopify in 175 countries powers over half a million eCommerce enterprises. As a consequence of Shopify being one of the most well-known and easiest-to-use eCommerce systems today, the number of businesses using it has increased by 74% yearly on average since 2012. These businesses have generated over $55 billion in sales.
A lot of time, money, and resources can be focused on user experience design since Shopify handles all of the technical aspects of the website, including domains, hosting, and certain front-end functionality. With eCommerce sales estimated to surpass $4.9 trillion by 2021, it's evident that implementing eCommerce UX best practices will continue to be very successful. Poor Shopify store UX design is one of the greatest contributors to abandoned checkouts.
We'll look at some of the best Shopify design tips in this post.
What are Shopify's Features for store design?
Everything you'd expect from a leading eCommerce platform is included with Shopify.
- Integration with third-party payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe.
- Using Shopify Payments at zero costs compared to other solutions.
- Possibility of payment by gift card or credit from a retailer
- The ability to personalize the checkout page (only for Shopify Plus customers)
- User accounts or guest checkout are available.
- Pages that remain the same throughout time (e.g., Privacy Policy or Terms and Conditions)
- Promotional material on landing pages
- Customizable product variations with password-protected access for shops still under construction
- Automated product classification via the use of smart collections.
- Search and tagging functionalities to enhance product discovery
- The ability to include product links in blog posts.
- API to aid easier development of dynamic websites and mobile applications
Boosting eCommerce Product Discovery on your Shopify Website
The aim of having a Shopify website is to sell a large volume of products. Achieving this goal in most instances begins with a great Shopify design. The user experience on your Shopify website must make navigation on your website easy for users to locate products.
Exploring, filtering, and searching is crucial for online shoppers, just as it is for customers in brick-and-mortar stores, where buyers can easily locate certain items by asking a store clerk.
eCommerce buyers abandon websites that take more than three seconds to load, demonstrating impatience with product discovery. Shopify has many features for customizing the navigation, organizing products into categories, and adding search functionality.
Here are some Shopify design tips and UX best practices.
Customized Navigation
Providing a customer with a plethora of alternatives may result in decision paralysis (when there are too many available options, making a decision results in frustration and abandonment). Distinct navigation enables us to highlight items and "collections" that convert the best—for example, making the "Desk" collection prominent if desk products are the most popular. The Shopify CMS enables straightforward A/B testing of these custom navigations.
In terms of design, the best-converting Shopify themes simplify buyers to identify the collection they're looking for by prominently displaying the collection's title and providing lots of space surrounding it.
Collections
An ordered collection is a gathering of objects that are connected. Products may be manually grouped into collections or automatically sorted based on the same or comparable criteria (for example, if the product title contains a certain keyword, has been assigned a certain tag, or falls within a particular price range). Collections may also be transitory to guarantee that Shopify website designs are always current, contemporary, and highly converting (i.e., seasonal or for a limited-time sale).
Even though these collections are defined behind the scenes, this functionality may be useful for eCommerce designers when building for Shopify.
Product Labels/Tags
Customers may use visible tags to find similar goods, and as previously said, product tags internally to classify items into distinct collections. Using tags to construct a faceted search, on the other hand, enables consumers to choose things based on tagged defining criteria such as "Yellow." This is the most significant benefit of tags.
Take a look at the following Shopify design ideas:
- Display which product filters were used to make things clearer.
- Allowing customers to erase the criteria they've used may broaden the search results.
- Reduce the number of filter choices to show just the most popular ones.
Search
Customers who know what they're looking for may benefit from search features, which are especially important for mobile customers who find browsing and filtering onerous due to the inherent discomfort of interacting on a mobile device.
The following are Shopify's suggested guidelines for creating search experiences:
- Never make it difficult to discover the search box; instead, keep it accessible.
- Find a location where consumers anticipate it (i.e., top right or centralized).
- The search sign should not be the only item visible in the input box.
- Implement auto-complete tools to improve search results for users.
- You may adjust for human error by using autocorrect and suggested results.
- Save the user's searches and send follow-up emails if a sale is not made.
Shopify Product Pages Best Practices
Shopify has all the functionality required to entice eCommerce customers and lead them to the checkout. By combining these elements with eCommerce best practices, we can reduce the number of abandoned checkouts.
Use Eye-Catching Product Images
An excellent eCommerce website has emotionally engaging images. Shopify enables you to upload numerous photos and product variations. To create expectations, show at least one of these product photographs in scale (i.e., surrounded by other things to show how big the product is).
Before purchasing a product, customers want to see it in bright, high-quality photographs that can be zoomed in.
Show Clear Product Info
A staggering (but not unexpected) number of online shoppers leave shopping carts due to a lack of pricing information. Sixty percent of buyers leave carts due to unforeseen expenditures (shipping, tax, fees), and 23% cannot determine the whole cost upfront. Lack of transparency kills eCommerce conversions. Therefore, keep these Shopify recommendations in mind:
- Organize information using progressive disclosure approaches.
- Give a detailed cost breakdown beforehand.
- Explicitly state the value proposition.
- Make the purchase now/add to cart button pop out.
Build Trust and Reassurance
According to the Baymard Institute, 19% of consumers leave at checkout due to a lack of confidence. In addition to SSL (secure checkout), Shopify shops enable consumers to write reviews as social proof.
Social proof is effective in building confidence on eCommerce websites. According to BrightLocal, 88% of buyers trust online reviews. Encouraging customers to submit evaluations is critical. Shopify themes use Schema markup to display these ratings in search results.
Consider using a live chat service like Intercom, Zendesk, Drift, or Kayako to create customer trust. Shopify's app store and manual installation enable third-party service integration.
Shopping Experience Personalization
Optimizely's Web Personalizations, combined with Shopify collections and tags, allow businesses to segment audiences based on their interests and past purchases, modifying page content accordingly.
Customers are more likely to purchase from Shopify stores that use anticipatory design principles because they see more relevant content. Personalization is essential for increasing a company's bottom line.
Conclusion
User Experience is a core part of a great and promising Shopify store. With the Shopify store UX best practices discussed in this piece, Shopify stores that integrate these designs can retain more users. Moreover, abandoned checkouts are dealt with, and users can easily find products and product alternatives.
