A new eCommerce website can look excellent and still make buying unnecessarily difficult.
This often happens because ecommerce projects involve several specialists. Designers focus on the interface, developers on technical delivery, internal teams on business requirements, and software providers on their systems and integrations.
Customers experience all of this as one website.
For retailers developing a new ecommerce site, specialist ecommerce input can help identify gaps between design, functionality, integration and the actual buying journey.
Start With How Customers Buy
An eCommerce website should not simply expose the functionality available within the underlying platform. It needs to turn that functionality into an intuitive buying experience.
Consider how easily customers can:
- Find and compare suitable products
- Select variants, configurations or additional options
- Understand pricing, availability and delivery
- Add products to their basket without uncertainty
- Complete checkout across mobile and desktop
These journeys should be reviewed before functionality is finalised.
This is particularly important for retailers selling complex products. Furniture, flooring, homeware and B2B products can involve multiple sizes, colours, finishes, services or configurations. Technically supporting those options is only part of the requirement. Customers also need to understand them.
Product Discovery Deserves Careful Attention
Search, navigation and filtering can have a significant effect on how easily customers reach relevant products.
The website structure should reflect how customers shop, rather than simply reproducing the way product information is organised within an internal system.
Filters might need to use attributes such as dimensions, material, colour, brand, price or availability. Search may need to recognise different terminology and product attributes.
This also highlights the relationship between ecommerce UX and data.
A sophisticated filter interface will provide limited value if the underlying product attributes are incomplete or inconsistent. Data, integration and frontend functionality therefore need to be considered together.
Integrations Need an eCommercePerspective
Modern ecommerce websites often connect with ERP, retail management, CRM, warehouse and other business systems. Getting data from one system to another is important, but a technically successful integration does not automatically create a good ecommerce experience.
Teams should also consider:
- Which system owns product, price and availability data
- How frequently information needs to be updated
- How product options and configurations are handled
- What happens when information is missing or unavailable
- Where information should appear within the customer journey
Delivery is a good example. A back office system might accurately calculate delivery availability or charges, but that information has limited value if customers only see it late in checkout.
It is crucial to analyse why customers leave the purchasing funnel. It specifically identifies abandonment around delivery information as a potential sign that the process or design needs attention.
Mobile and Checkout Need More Than Basic Testing
Responsive development does not automatically produce a strong mobile eCommerceexperience.
Product filters, configuration tools and navigation that work well on desktop can become difficult to use on smaller screens. Checkout forms, delivery options and payment interactions also need to be assessed as complete customer journeys.
The objective should not simply be to reduce the number of steps. Each step should provide the information customers need while removing unnecessary friction.
Accessibility should be considered at the same stage. Navigation, forms, controls, error handling and checkout all need to work for customers with different access requirements.
When Should an eCommerce Website Be Reviewed?
Question: When is the best time for an ecommerce website audit?
Answer: An ecommerce review is most valuable while there is still scope to influence the website. It can take place during requirements planning, UX and design, development, or before launch. Wireframes, designs, specifications, prototypes and staging websites can all be reviewed.
Waiting until the website is complete can mean that otherwise straightforward recommendations require considerably more development work.
An expert review during development can instead focus on identifying gaps and prioritising them according to commercial impact.
Independent eCommerce Expertise Can Complement Your Existing Team
An ecommerce review does not have to mean changing developer, platform or technology provider.
Independent specialists can work alongside an existing project team, reviewing the website from the perspective of ecommerce UX, conversion, functionality and technical implementation.
This is particularly useful where a website needs to connect complex business systems with a straightforward customer experience.
That principle is particularly relevant to eCommerce. A successful website needs to look appropriate for the brand, but it also needs to help customers find products, understand their choices and complete purchases.
At ExtraDigital, we provide eCommerce website design and development expertise alongside independent ecommerce audits and functionality reviews. We can review requirements, designs, prototypes or websites already in development, providing prioritised recommendations that can be implemented by us or an existing development team.
For businesses investing in a new ecommerce website, getting specialist input before launch can help ensure that the finished site does more than connect the right systems. It needs to create an effective ecommerce experience around them.
