Artem Zmitrovich
Did you know that 39% of people will stop engaging with content when images don’t load or the loading time is too long? This is just one of the common issues users face when browsing e-stores. Luckily, it can be avoided by doing eCommerce usability testing.
A usability statistic like this shows how important it is for businesses to stay on top of common issues so that their e-commerce business thrives.
With that being said, below, we are going to take a look at e-Commerce usability testing in further detail, revealing the many benefits associated with it.
What Is Usability Testing?
Before we take a look at the benefits of usability testing for eCommerce, we first need to explain what it is.
e-Commerce usability testing involves testing how easy your e-store is to use with a group of representative users.
It typically involves observing people as they try to complete tasks on your dropshipping store, and it can be done for different designs or parts of your website.
Not only is usability testing important when launching your e-store but also throughout its existence. After all, you need to make sure you jump on problems quickly so that you don’t end up losing customers.
You can read Maze’s guide about usability testing for more information about this.
What Are The Benefits of eCommerce Usability Testing?
There are a number of different reasons why usability testing is important for e-commerce businesses, so let’s take a look:
1. Boost The Omnichannel Experience For Your Consumers
Whenever someone logs onto your online store and gets a poor experience, it has a negative impact on brand loyalty. After all, why would you want to continue to shop with a store if you have such a bad experience?
By embracing usability testing, you can ensure you deliver an impressive user experience. This will keep the user’s interest in your brand. Even if they don’t find any products they want to purchase at that particular moment, they’ll have enjoyed the experience so much that they continue coming back for more.
2. Understand How Effectively People Use Your e-Store
Usability testing doesn’t only help you to meet user expectations in terms of the experience you provide. It also makes certain that you’re meeting your own expectations as a business.
You may assume that you have an impressive e-store, which is easy to use and delights with a great range of features. However, what if you were to discover that some features on your website aren’t even being utilized? This means your e-store is not being used to its full potential, and you need to get to the bottom of *why*.
For instance, if you have forms on your e-store for people to fill in when they land on your website, you need to ensure forms are filled in properly and your visitors are following the correct steps.
Nevertheless, unless you carry out usability testing, you’re not going to know if your users are doing this properly.
With usability testing, you can get to the bottom of whether or not your users are using your e-store how you intended it to be used. If they aren’t, you know that some changes need to be made to address this.
3. Build An e-Store That Gives You A Competitive Edge
The best way of positioning yourself as a leading player in your industry is to have functional, high-quality products that stand out from the crowd. This doesn’t only relate to your products, but your e-store as well.
The chances are that quite a lot of your competitors aren’t leveraging usability testing right now. So, simply by doing eCommerce usability testing, you’re going to be able to create an e-store that stands out from the rest.
While your competition may have a website that’s littered with bugs or frustrating in terms of navigation, you can create something that will wow your users and provides an enjoyable and convenient experience.
Additionally, the development of your product is strongly determined by how your website is designed. You can look for the best UI design tips and analyze what could make your website better and more appealing to your customers.
This enables you to establish yourself as a major player. People will keep coming back to your e-store because they know that they’re going to get a high-quality experience.
4. It’s The Only Way To Experience Your Website As A Customer
An eCommerce usability testing works by observing what people do when they are in your e-store. This means you aren’t simply reading third-party opinions or hypotheses. Rather, you get accurate, real information. You see first-hand how people use your e-store.
The accuracy and authenticity of usability testing drive you to make the best decisions about your e-store. As you get to see your e-store from the user’s eyes, you’re best placed to move your e-commerce store forward.
5. Validate Any Assumptions You Have
When working on user interfaces, designers tend to make a lot of assumptions about what will work and what doesn’t. Assumptions include the likes of text overlays, the shape of your CTA, colors used in your design, and app workflows.
While freedom is important when designing, it’s very good to validate your thoughts before investing a lot of time and resources.
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6. Encourage Sales And Increase Your Revenue
Ultimately, all businesses want to increase their profits and make more sales, right? If you have a product with unnecessary features, you will be wasting money. Equally, you can suffer high abandonment rates if you have too much information on your e-store or if the design is difficult to use.
Not only can this make it difficult for you in terms of boosting your revenue, but it can hurt your brand’s reputation. After all, if people have a negative experience with your e-store, they may then leave a negative review about your brand online. This can then prevent others from visiting your store.
Ultimately, if you continuously carry out usability tests, you will be able to improve your website and ensure it delivers the best experience. When this happens, people will be more inclined to make sales from you. They’ll enjoy the experience, and leave positive reviews, and this will encourage others to purchase from you as well.
7. Reduce Your Development Expenses
Last but not least, you may think that eCommerce usability testing is going to cost too much money and it’s a waste of time. However, it’s better to see it from the other perspective. After all, when done correctly, usability testing can save your business a considerable amount of money.
No matter what sort of products you sell, money and time are always going to be critical factors in developing your e-store. Programmers spend approximately half of their time fixing errors that could have been avoided.
These mistakes tend to surface after the launch, i.e. when real users have already experienced your online store. This is worrying because it may mean that they have a negative experience or that they leave bad comments about your business.
As your business has already launched by this point, rectifying errors can also cost a lot of money. This is especially the case when you need to rework fundamental elements of your e-store.
If you need to redesign your online store from scratch, that’s a lot of money that needs to be spent! After all, developing an e-store costs a lot of money. With a lot of different and intricate details that must be planned, the objective is to have a store that is efficient, effective, and gives consumer satisfaction.
At the end of it all, users want to complete their purchases with ease. It shouldn’t be time-consuming, and people shouldn’t run into issues along the way. It all needs to function seamlessly. If this is not the case, changes are going to need to be made.
Ensure Your Business Is Firing With eCommerce Usability Testing
As you can see, usability testing for e-Commerce is critical, as it makes sure your company is running its online store effectively.
If you don’t carry out usability tests, you won’t be able to get to the bottom of any issues in an effective manner, which could mean you’re losing customers without even realizing it.
Plus, if mistakes are allowed to continue, they’re only going to get more expensive and difficult to rectify. This is why you need to continually perform eCommerce usability testing.
About the author:
Kerry Leigh Harrison has over 11+ years of experience as a content writer. She graduated from university with a First Class Hons Degree in Multimedia Journalism. In her spare time, she enjoys attending sports and music events.
