What users expect from online shops in 2023 – E-commerce Survey Results

I will be joined by Ariane Rahn and Ruben De Boer. Unfortunately, our other 2 panelists couldn’t make it in the end, but you will be in very good hands with them. They will be sharing with us the results of our recent ecommerce survey, and what users expect from online shops in 2023. So, I will pass the mic onto Ariane if you wanna introduce you so.

Ariane Rahn:

Thank you so much, Lea, for jumping in today. Yeah. My name is Ariane Rahn. I’m working as a UAC Research Consultant in Germany for EyeSquare, and I was part of the team that conducted the study.

I’m happy to present our findings to you.

Lea:

And Ruben?

Ruben de Boer:

Yeah. Perfect. So, yeah, thanks for having me. I’m Ruben. I’m the Lead, a CRO Manager, and a Consultant at Online Dialogue.

Online Dialogue is a CRO and experimentation agency based in the Netherlands.

Ariane:

Perfect. So thanks so much. If I’m not mistaken, I will check over now, Lea. Yes. Perfect.

Perfect. Thank you so much. So first of all, we will start off with a bit of background of our study here. So again, I’m representing EyeSquare here. We are a market research agency based in Berlin, but we also conduct studies globally.

We’re focusing on the brand and media experience, shopper experience, and user experience, and what makes us special is that we are always continuously developing innovative technology to support our research. So if you are interested just have a look at our home page or reach out to me, personally, and I connect you to the right people. Leah, would you like to say a few words about VWO? 

Lea:

Yes. I would. So VWO is a market-leading A/B testing and conversion rate optimization platform. And we basically cover all and any experimentation needs for fast-growing companies. And if you’re interested, check us out. You have all the information there.

Ariane:

Perfect. So what happened is that EyeSquare and VWO teamed up to conduct the study to really get to the bottom of what users expect from online shops in 2023. And we’re super happy to have Ruben on board today, as a CRO manager and expert who will also give us his thoughts and share his experience with the topics we will discuss later. Would you mind, saying a few words about Online Dialogue?

Ruben:

Yeah. Of course. So like I said, it’s in the CRO and experimentation agency. It was founded in 2009, so we have lots of experience. I started myself in 2008 with CRO and experimentation, so, I also have quite a lot of experience in this fantastic kind of work.

With online dialogue, we set up and lead experimentation processes, conduct full programs, and teach people, and, of course, advise on how to improve the culture and strategy, everything related to, experimentation and the CRO.

Ariane:

Perfect. Thank you so much. So, yeah, but the basic question is, of course, why do we need user research and ecommerce? And what we’re seeing, of course, also due to the pandemic globally is that we really have a strong shift from offline to online shopping. So here on the right side, you’re also seeing that products are hardly ever bought exclusively online anymore.

And what we are also seeing that is there’s strong competition due to a large number of online stores that pop up every day. What was super interesting to you in our studies is that the large majority has only used 2 to 4 online shops in the past. So, of course, an excellent user experience really matters as a competitive advantage to really stand out in the masses. What we did in our study is that we, of course, wanna find out what the main success factors for an excellent ecommerce performance are, which features and services users expect, and which ones might also be exciting. And, of course, we were here.

We will focus on, the cross-industry insights, but in our study, we were also focusing on these 4 industries, food, electronics, furniture, and fashion. Because, of course, your product or type of product, really defines, the user needs and of course, differs also. What we did exactly is that we started off with 20 in-depth interviews with regular online shoppers, and we went through the whole customer journey together with them in their favorite stores. And, yeah, we evaluated the strengths and weaknesses. Then in the second step, we conducted an online survey with 400 respondents, to validate our quality findings.

Let’s dive into the findings. What we will do now is we will go through a classic, customer journey here. So we will start off with home page navigation and product search will continue with the search results, the detailed pages, moving on to card and checkout. And after that, we will talk a little bit about delivery. So starting off with our 1st phase home page navigation and search and also starting with the home page.

Here, of course, the gut feeling is the main decision maker. So we really decide within a few seconds or even milliseconds, ‘Do I really like this online store? Do I want to discover the store? Can I really find the products I’m looking for? Or do I try somewhere else maybe?’

And what’s important here is that not everyone has to like or feel addressed by the whole page or in general of the shop, you really need to have a good knowledge about your target group. Because, of course, you mainly wanna address them. A good example here is ASOS, which is, an international fashion store here. It’s super interesting to see that the younger audience, really feels addressed here by the style, the colors, the layout, and the older audience, not that much. So they probably go to another store to look for their products. This is totally fine as long as ASOS really has a young target group, but I’m strongly assuming so.

And something else that really gets clear in our studies, not only in this one, but also in other studies we are conducting is that we can roughly, divide, the audience into your planned and inspirational buyers and, the planned buyers, for instance, they really know what kind of product they’re after, and they really don’t wanna be distracted much. So they really wanna get the job quickly done. So for them, of course, it’s super important here that you have a prominent menu. You have the search function, highly visible, and the person really sees on the first side, hey, this is where I get my product.

On the other side, we have these inspirational buyers, they normally don’t know exactly what they’re after. They just wanna have a look around, see what’s going on, what are new trends, for instance, So they, really appreciate and feel addressed when you already, yeah, give them some inspirational content here on the homepage. So for instance, here with fashion, they’re seeing, oh, nice. There are some new, trends going on where I can directly browse without really narrowing down my search. Moving on to the navigation.

So what’s best practice here is, of course, easy being said. But, yeah, you should ensure a quick overview of categories without many clicks needed, to navigate across levels. So here less is often more. I brought you two examples here. So for instance, with Walmart, you see this is the 2nd level and you can see that, like, the user really needs a long time just reading through all the set categories here. But, of course, Walmart has a really broad product range, which, of course, makes it a bit more challenging, but, yeah, less is more in many cases here.

And which is like a very famous, supermarket chain here in Germany, they do a really great job here. This is the main navigation. They don’t have too many categories here and they also use some nice images, to support the understanding, which is my second point. But just make sure you test, if you use images like here or icons like here, that they really support the understanding, and navigation and not confuse more. And, again, something else, which is also addressing a bit this differentiation between the inspirational and the planned, buyers is, that you classify between types and themes, which is nicely done by care.

So I can either precisely look for a white table, or I keep it a bit more general, and I shop by room, which would be the dining room, for instance. The sales area is also a very important topic and might be even more important nowadays due to the inflation, and the economic situation right now. So really make sure that this is really an own, category that is also highly visible, like here at Ecare, who also does a great job. Something else, which is strongly connected to the food industry is last purchases. So if you think about the products you are selling, and, it’s typical that people are, yeah, buying, the same products on a frequent basis, then I would highly recommend you to integrate a category like this also done by Amazon Fresh, so that it can be easy, so people can easily reorder, the same products.

So moving on to the search function. Of course, search is one of the essential parts of an online shop. And of course, it’s really highly connected to the technical implementation. So you can also see in our online survey for almost half the good search, is most important when choosing an online store across different industries. Here are just some passwords. Of course, search as you type.

So, when I’m typing something in like here, of course, I should get some suggestions already. Also, think of other relevant terms that I’m just not looking for a shampoo, but maybe also shampoo, vegan shampoo, or a shampoo for volume. So that your search really accepts broader search terms that the user might use or wedding, for instance, if I’m looking for a wedding outfit. Looking for a wedding or, what else? Yeah, vegan, gluten-free, stuff like that.

Of course, the type shouldn’t be a problem. What we’re seeing on a frequent basis is that the longer the search term is, the more typos are not really corrected. So this, of course, should also be something, where the risk should be minimized. Then, also a really nice feature is an add-to-cart function directly, in the search. Which is done nicely here in this grocery online store.

But again, you have to think of your own products. If it makes sense, here for food. It makes total sense because normally we buy the same groceries that we like. So we don’t need many details. So, of course, speed is key in this case, and here you can easily just type in some passwords and you can directly add them to the cart.

And even change the quantity. What’s also pretty nice and liked by users is if you already integrate some visual supports, here in the form of images. Again, it might make sense in your case or not, for food again, it makes total sense because you can see that all the titles are pretty similar. So the visuals really help to distinguish between the different products here. So that was a short introduction, to a homepage navigation and search.

Now I’m super curious, Ruben, what are your thoughts about these topics?

Ruben:

I think you gave some excellent tips. I see this, a lot in my A/B test and I’ve been involved in thousands of A/B tests. And the things you show here, tend to be a winner. Of course, you’d always test, because it works on one website. Might be counterproductive on another website, but I definitely see this as very good tips.

Regarding the homepage, yeah, it’s really important to show there, why people should be on your website, and why they should do business with you. That’s very important to have a good value proposition and the right tone of voice. That’s, of course, very important. And I really see in A/B tests that it really decreases the bounce rates and makes people more curious to continue on the website. So having a good value proposition, for your home page and landing pages is really essential.

Regarding navigation is also nice. If you’re not sure how to do your navigation, there is a UX research method called card sorting, and it’s always very interesting. You basically put topics of your website on cards. Have your website visitors or your customers sort the cards that kind of structure your navigation And, actually, IKEA is doing a very good job. I’ve been working for the 2 biggest furniture online brands in the Netherlands.

And we saw when we compared it to other competitors, both in the Netherlands and outside the Netherlands, we noticed that they either show products in the navigation or rooms. So it’s either bedroom, living room or table closets, beds. And we were very curious about how should we structure the navigation of a big furniture store. So with its card sorting, and the outcome was actually that 50% of the people like to see it sorted by, actually, what it is. So the furniture and the other 50% want it sorted by rooms.

So IKEA is doing a perfect job by displaying both in the navigation, making it very easy to find the products they are looking for. And as you said, also see a lot, keep it concise. Don’t show too many items in the navigation, but also make it easy to, quickly find what you’re looking for with only a few clicks.

Ariane:

Mhmm. Great.

Ruben:

And regarding search, that’s also interesting. Search is very important because people who search are a bit higher, with higher intention for purchase generally, but because it’s hard to optimize, it’s often neglected. You know, you can easily change the value proposition, just a copy test, copy A/B test, but to change the algorithm of a search, for instance, or make it, cope with typos. It’s generally a lot harder if you run regular client-side A/B tests with a tool like VWO. But if your search is used a lot, it’s definitely worth it to try and optimize.

Ariane:

Yeah. Definitely true. Yeah. Worth to invest

Ruben:

Definitely.

Ariane:

Great. Thank you so much. Alright. Let’s move on to the next phase. So the search results and the detail pages, and, of course, what information excites users here, are pretty interesting and not very well implemented in many shops that you already display the existing variance here.

So Zalando is one of the biggest, fashion online stores here in Germany, and they are doing quite well job. So here, I’m directly seeing, hey, and these sizes are available in these colors. Of course, this saves me a click to the detail page. So this is super helpful information here on the search results page already. Something else is that users really like it if they’re able to see more than just one picture here already.

Of course, really depends on the type of product you’re selling again, but for fashion, for instance, it makes total sense, because, of course, the images are one of the essentials here. So what you can do, of course, is a classic most over for desktop. So I’m moving with my mouse over the image, and it shows me another one. Here, it’s important that the second image should really differ from the first one. To have added value.

So for instance, here, I have the hero image with the model wearing the top. And then for the second picture, I would choose maybe just the top, and then zoom in so I can see stuff like material or pattern. And something else that I’ve also seen in some online shops is that they are also integrating some kind of slideshow. So you have, like, 2 hours here and there just easily, and the user can swipe, through all images already here. And of course, brand, title, and, price is standard. A wish list, of course, is also a feature that is liked very much.

Some users can argue that this feature is only available if they’re locked in. If they have an account, then the user normally uses a card instead for, yeah, the wish list function, but I also understand that there are other reasons, to do it this way. So delivery, we will talk later about this topic, but this is really one of the most important topics, for users. So if possible, I would also already display, something like this on the results page, or at least an availability indicator. This is nicely done, of course, at Amazon where you can see okay, standard delivery date, or also the faster option here.

Then the topic filters, of course, nothing new itself. But, what we are also seeing a lot is that many shops have way too many filters again and with many filters that are not really relevant. So, again, we would advise you to really test which fill is being used, and which ones are not, and really think of your product and what kind of filters the users need for instance, for food again, we have Walmart, who is doing a great job there, and if you’re open some, food-related results pages, then you can easily, yeah, filter by gluten-free or vegan options for instance. Customer reviews are also an important topic, but users are a bit invaluable, and benevolent about it. Because, of course, reviews themselves, are super helpful.

But, of course, they also know that there are many fake reviews around So the trust is not very high. So what I would recommend here is also to always show, okay, which variant, the person who writes the reviews has bought. So this ensures some trust, in the review. And, of course, if you think of I don’t know. Maybe the person bought the top in white, and says, oh, this is way too transparent.

Of course, this might not be the case for other colors. So this information generates trust and is also helpful. For electronics, of course, we need a nice specs overview, which is also done by, some shops already because if you think of the laptop itself, it probably looks like the same from the outside, but of course, the inside is the main factor here. So the user can already on this page see it nicely. Okay.

This is the hardware. This is what the laptop has. And what else is something, that is highly appreciated is a comparison feature. This is also something that many shops do already, so I can just select my, desired items. And then I can have a nice, and clear overview of all specs, to easily compare them.

Alright. Moving on to the detail page, for our products, what’s convincing here? Again, of course, pages about the properties of the product, but also think about the relevance. Don’t display too much at once. So what we always recommend is to really work with collapsible drop-down menus, nicely done by Salander.

So the user can just decide on his or her own. Okay. This is information that I wanna be seeing or not. And for electronics, again, some specialties, of course, you need a clear overview of the specs, but also the included items. This is also a question that comes up many times in our research, is the recharger included or not?

And this, of course, yeah, impacts the way the price is, perceived too. So Apple does a really great job here. They have their own element on the detailed pages saying, okay, what’s in the box? And I can directly see, okay, nice. The cable is included.

And the delivery details, of course, I said, if possible, I would also give this information sooner. But of course, latest, I would give this information on the detail page. And if you work with different margins, then this information should also be here. Which is also nicely done by Zalando here above. I can directly see, okay, it’s shipped by x, y, z.

And then I see, the different delivery options, the price, and the time, and I even see some benefits. Which, of course, also, motivates the user to really finish a purchase. Yeah. Something else that is like for our user the availability alert, which is popular, in the fashion industry. So, if my desired variant isn’t available, at the moment, I can just be notified by mail, once the size is available again.

Okay. Moving on to the pictures because, of course, the pictures are one of the main elements of the detail page. So really make sure that you present your product in different perspectives and contexts. Staying at the top, the example of furniture. Here I can see the plain white table, with the measurements which are some really important details of furniture, but also in context here, the table with the surroundings. One tip here is that you really should link the products you’re showing in these pictures to this detail on page 2.

Because what happens sometimes is that, the user sees this picture and says, oh, that looks nice. Actually, I like the chairs too. I really wanna have them, but actually, there is no information, are these chairs available here? Where are they? How much do they cost?

So I really would advise you, to link, the included products here if they’re from your shop too. Zoom, of course, a 360° view is also super popular and implemented by most shops. What we’re seeing on a frequent basis here is that the zoom function isn’t implemented well on the photos that are being uploaded. So what happens a lot of time is that the user really uses the zoom function to see details. But then the image gets blurry. And, of course, then the details cannot be really derived.

So this is really something that you should avoid. And for electronics, also, important to show ports, for instance, because of course, it’s easier. Same for the measures here. It’s always easier for the user to visually understand things than just having text. So really think about your product, which details are important, and then try to, yeah, visualize or display the details already in the images.

In addition, of course, to the text elements below. Because for the parts, for instance, it’s always easier to see the picture saying, ah, okay. Nice. These ports, I need instead of just having maybe, like, some weird yeah, names for these ports and the text. Ratings and revenues are already talked about a bit.

So this is, of course, something that should show up on the detail page if you have that implemented. Product recommendations are also appreciated by users, especially similar items or complimentary items, nicely done by this fashion store About You. The thing is in reality, the technical implementation could be improved. So it really only adds value to the user if it works well and if it really shows me good similar items or complimentary items, like the whole look, for instance, or the whole room. Yeah.

So this was it about the search results and the detail page. And now I’m happy to hear, what Ruben says about it.

Ruben:

Thanks. Again, I agree with all the things, you said over the past slides. Indeed, filters are absolutely crucial. I have seen immense results in A/B tests, especially in furniture and fashion. They’re definitely important to show the right filters, and also the right amount of filters.

It’s really beneficial to check your data, to see what filters are used very often. Put those higher up. If the fields are not being used, hide them, delete them, or put them at the bottom because you don’t want to show too many filters because then people have too many choices to make. But, again, in furniture fashion, I’ve seen tremendous results here. It’s good even be, on mobile, where I saw a lot of usability tests where people just scroll past the filters because it’s just a small text link or button, and by just making it pop out more, giving it more attention, people start using it, and the conversion rates definitely increases.

On the search result page, you already showed some great examples. I think it’s crucial to test here what information you show and which information you don’t. Again, you don’t want to show too much information, but you do want to show the information your users are looking for. And this can be different for every product category, even if you see Amazon, you show an image of Amazon, but for one category, the search result page looks very different from another category. It could be displayed in a grid. It could be displayed in a list.

There could be a lot of information. It could be very little information. It really depends on your product and your categories. So definitely test there. On the product detail page, as you said, product information is crucial, especially after they scroll down.

I mean, they have some intention to purchase because they like the price. They like what they will get, they sell the USPs of your organization. If you have them, definitely highlight them, especially if your delivery date is faster than competitors, if your shipping cost is lower, but do show that information and make it stand out if it’s a competitive advantage. But once they scroll down, keep the ability high, and make it easy to find the information they are looking for. Don’t be clever with all sorts of icons, omit everything related to jargon, like words they don’t understand, and make it very clear and easy to find the product information because that’s crucial.

Those people are about to buy. You just have to give them the right information they are looking for. You also displayed product images, and 360° images. What I see a lot in furniture, and it really seems to work is VR (virtual reality). So using a phone or an app, people can see the table in the closet, actually, in the room. And they see what it looks like.

They see kind of how big it is. They see if it matches the other furniture and let’s see if it matches the wall, So VR is definitely something to look forward to or look into when you are in the furniture market. And lastly, you already mentioned a little bit, in the previous section with personalization, especially for the food industry, it’s critical. If you always buy the same brand of milk, when you get to the search result page, you don’t wanna see all other brands, or at least you want to see your favorite brand first to make it easy to search. And to find the one you’re looking for.

So I definitely see a lot of personalization in that regard work for the food industry.

Lea:

I wanna make a comment in the chat as well. Martina said she finds that measurements are also very important for travel bags. Which, I mean, if you’ve ever flown with Ryan, you know, that’s true.

Reben:

Very true. I actually, just had a small, better call in Cambodia Vietnam for one and a half months. I had to buy a nice backpack, and I definitely looked at the measurements, including also, the weight. Because I want to carry on, too many kilos on my back. So very good, very good point there.

Definitely. Really look into your product category and see what people are looking for and really think about and test what you will display, both on the search results page, and the product detail page and in what order.

Ariane:

Perfect. Yeah. I think you brought up a really important topic overall, which is like mental effort. So if you’re, like, having a look at your own shop, really try to see it through the eyes of the user and really try to have a smooth customer journey there, people not thinking too much, like going through many categories or many filters, because this always, yeah, involves some kind of decision-making process, and this, of course, causes energy. And this is something that humans, in general, don’t want.

Ruben:

Exactly.

Ariane:

Perfect. Thank you so much. Alright. Let’s move on to the card and check out, add-to-cart at first. So, of course, visual confirmation is implemented by most of the shops.

Here I brought up the example from Walmart. You could see that two items have been added and you can also see the total price of the cart. This is something that, yeah, differs from shop to shop. I can see the reasons for both versions. Again, test it, and see what, yeah, performs better. Something else that you can also think of is a lateral play of the shopping cart, which, again, makes more sense for products, or for your online shop your users are normally buying a lot of different products.

So it can serve as some kind of a checklist, you know, so they can see, okay, I’ve edited the Cumber already, and these and these products are still missing. And again, of course, ideally, you give the users the option to collapse the whole thing again. So it’s up to the user if they wanna see it or not. Some wow effect that we had in our study was, in the baking supply shop, I would say. So here, they give you a free item but they really don’t promote it that much before.

So that was a really nice surprise when they opened the cart. And they saw that they really get a free good a year where they can even, yeah, select a certain taste. And, of course, this also motivates users to really finish the order. Moving on to the cart itself.

Of course, you need a clear concise listing of products. It might be the case that it makes sense to do that by category as it is the case for food. So if you offer a broad range of products and your users are buying different kinds of products, then of course, it makes sense to categorize them here too. Just for a better overview.

And, of course, you should be able to edit them. Also, the price should be really clear especially when there is a discount. Yeah, unfortunately, there are many shops, where this isn’t the case. And then, of course, it’s a huge barrier to continuing or finishing the order. Also, make sure that your product links to the corresponding detail page.

So in case I just wanna look something up about the product again, I can just click on it and I’m, yeah, I will be on the detail page again. Delivery and payment methods. This is shown as something that should be mentioned here in the cart or already just for expectation management. So you do a pretty nice job here. In the cart, you see directly, like, which kinds of, payment methods they’re offering and also what kind of delivery services they have included. Something special about fashion is that their free returns are super important as well as the payment by invoice. At least the German users order many more action items, then they really will keep, for instance, they, yeah, order different sizes. So this is why these two aspects are really important for fashion to offer. And again, about the product suggestions, this is also something, that our users are open to, but it really depends on the implementation here again.

So the user really has to have a feeling that it’s really useful for them that you really wanna offer them some complimentary items, for instance, that really makes sense. Because otherwise, it feels more like, they’re just trying to sell me something more, which was the case for Samsung, for instance. So Samsung, I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but back then, they really had one whole checkout page just with product suggestions. And of course, this is something that users really put off because they have to feel, hey, this is not something that supports to help me. This is something to just increase sales. 

Yeah. So also keep it relevant and quality over quantity. And of course, in the cart, you can also think of your product and some related services you might offer to users. This is done a lot in the electronics section.

So there is stuff like trading, warranty extension, or theft protection, some services that you can easily add to the cart. So, yeah, think of your product and there may be some, other service too, that you might offer to your user, also to stand out, of course, in regards to the great competition. The checkout, so something that users really like if they have a guest log-in. Might also be, sorry, related to the German sample. But, of course, I also see arguments that you’re not offering that.

But, from a clear user experience or clear user perspective, the guest log-in is, preferred. About the forms that you have to fill out, of course, really use a minimal amount of personal data. This might also be strongly linked to the German culture here. We’re pretty particular about, like, data protection. So something that I saw, for instance, a few weeks ago in the Spanish online shop. I had to create an account before I could even access the online shop, plus I had to give them my ID, my personal ID number, really prior to seeing everything, something from the shop.

So, yeah, as you can guess, I, wasn’t exploring this online shop anymore. But happy also to hear your opinion, Ruben, if this might be something German-related.

Ruben:

I always see that the Germans are the ones that click the most on the terms and conditions.

Lea:

Really?

Ariane:

By far. Yeah. So I’m not surprised by what you’re saying here.

Ariane:

Yeah. Totally believe you. Yeah, something else about the forms. Again, also, closely linked to the tech clinical implementation here really try to decrease, the risk of incorrect entries. We have plausibility checks and, this is also pretty much linked to the technical implementation.

And, of course, offer, all popular payment methods and delivery services. Here, of course, it’s also strongly linked to our German sample, where PayPal is a clear winner, and for the delivery service, it’s DHL. By year, run some tests, or you know already, what the popular payment methods are in your country. I know that credit cards, for instance, are super popular in other countries. Oh, yeah.

And, Ruben, what do you think about card and checkout? What’s important to hear from your perspective? Yeah.

Ruben:

I think the most important point I wanted to add before I do all the other points is, if you don’t have a guest checkout, or you want people to or you have both options, but you want people to, create an account at a value proposition to why people should make an account. That definitely works as, just giving people the choice of guest checkout or an account. If you have, like, a value proposition, like, it’s easy to track, their delivery. If you want to order again all the information already filled out, give a reason why people should create an account on your website, it definitely decreased the drop-offs there, but still, of course, if possible, allow for a guest checkout, that always works best. But, yeah, excellent points again, indeed delivery dates, return policies, crucial, absolutely crucial, seeing a lot of, conversion improvements there once we show it and once it’s good, and clear, not just in a checkout of carts, also shows on the product detail page as already discussed.

Payment icons, yes, very, very important, but ensure it doesn’t get all. I’ve seen some Shopify stores where it really stands out like huge, like, 5 payment icons, and people just get confused, especially if they only think they can pay with PayPal and some other, Apple Pay, for instance, and they don’t have debts, then they think they cannot pay with their credit card for instance or debit card or whatever. So ensure, it doesn’t confuse people, but, yes, it’s very important to show. But I’ve seen it being, decreased in conversions once it stands out too much. Some of them. Regarding forms, you already sent link auto-fill forms, very important, not just for making it easy to fill out the forms when you purchase something, but for some people, it’s impossible to fill out forms.

You have a lot of impaired users online, and we often tend to forget them. But autofill forms really help them to purchase online, just like good font size, for instance, and good color contrast. Out-of-field forms are not just beneficial for a regular user, but also for those who are having a hard time reading or typing out-of-field forms, make sure it works very well because it’s absolutely crucial, and indeed, as you said, in a checkout, what I see, a lot of test winners limit distraction. Remove the clutter, and test whether it’s shown a product or not. For some categories, it could be a certainty, like, a s still buy this product, so I’m good.

For others, it could just be a distraction because I already know I’m going to buy these products. And if you keep showing it to me, it’s just distracting and triggers pain because I constantly see the price. So limit distraction, and test there as well. The last one is, to show the steps people have to take in the checkout, both at, and top of the steps, but also in the button. Show in the button what the next step is, to have descriptive call-to-actions.

Ariane:

Perfect. Yep. That was something I was just thinking about. Yep. Having a clear checkout process so people know how many steps are involved, is good here. Perfect.

Ruben:

And for the German, I have turmeric conditions. Very big.

Lea:

Yeah. Definitely.

Ariane:

Cool. Okay. So our last stage delivery and beyond. As I told you, delivery experience is really one of the most important aspects here. As you can see on the right side, we also ask for the most important aspects when it comes to choosing an online store.

Here you can see that all top free aspects are linked to delivery. So we have fast delivery. We have no shipping costs and free returns. But of course, this differs between industries. So you should also be aware of your own industry and what kind of standards there are for the delivery time and also the costs.

So for instance, for electronics, I think the user’s maximum would like to wait for 2 or 3 days to get their, laptop or a smartphone, and they don’t wanna pay for shipment, whereas it’s different for furniture, for instance, where users accept a longer delivery time and also some costs for the shipment because they know, of course, it’s a big item. So yeah, really, you should know your industry and what kind of standards there are. And, yeah, for food, of course, it’s super important that you not just offer the normal delivery standard, but also, certain daytime windows. Because, of course, you might have refrigerated items there. So you really wanna be there, when the delivery arrives.

And for furniture, of course, you can also, yeah, stand out when you’re also offering some other services here. So for instance, taking along the old advice or some kind of assembly service and, yeah, IKEA again does a really great job. They really have optimized the services. You can choose between so many different kinds of services there. Yeah, which is of course great for the user.

And another topic is the environment, which hasn’t been top of mind in our study, but for some of our users, it was super important, that they had a feeling that the online shop really considers this topic too. So for instance, give them the option of either getting one parcel with all items, but maybe a bit later instead of many different parcels, and you might get some of the items a bit earlier. So, yeah, we’re thinking that this is definitely a topic that will become more and more important with time and might also be a chance for you to stand out, to offer some good services there too. Alright, Ruben. So what are your thinking and thoughts about delivery?

Ruben:

Yeah. Good. It’s extremely important. I’ll start with your last point. Yes.

Please be environmentally friendly and take care of the environment. So we really need to do that with everyone. To ensure a better world. However, do test how it’s displayed on your website. Both in my A/B tests or for my colleagues and scientific literature, we see that there is an easy way for brands to say, like, hey, we are environmentally friendly, and people will think, yeah, that’s good too but you’re trying to sell me more by telling me this, and that’s not honest. That is not authentic. So, yes, please take care of the environment. But do test how you display it on your website because I do really see that people think, like, yeah, you’re trying to just sell me more by saying that you take care of the environment, and that’s not fair, and we shouldn’t do it like that. So be careful there, how you display it on your website.

Very important. But as you said, delivery is extremely important. If you have fast delivery, low shipping costs, it can definitely be a competitive advantage. It affects your market or whenever something’s exclusive, and not food, of course, because I want to have my dinner tomorrow. But when it’s exclusive, people are willing to wait longer, as long as it’s clear for how long. People don’t like, yeah, it will be somewhere between 2-10 weeks that we will deliver your couch. Yeah, people don’t like that, make it clear. People are willing to wait as long as you’re clear and do live up to your promises because I’m really seeing in different markets, reviews plummeted, where I refused to say, like, everything was okay. I liked the product, but it came 1 week too late.

And you get a low review score. So it’s definitely important to have to write, deliver, and, manage expectations there. There’s also one other point before I forget. We’ve also tested a lot with, giving options like the day and time, when people can have to deliver stuff at their their homes, and it also, kind of differs, which was really surprising. It differs per product category.

It also depends on delivery time, whether it’s tomorrow, 2 days from now, or 5 weeks from now, sometimes people say they want to choose, but for our A/B tests, we see that’s not always the case. Mhmm.

Ariane:

Yeah. Also, the mental effort, again, that is involved probably you have to make too many decisions if you have too many options.

Ruben:

Yep. Exactly.

Ariane:

You’re nice. I just remember one question in our survey where we asked, like, what was your personal highlight, in regards to the last online purchases? And about 30% said fast delivery was their highlight. Yeah. So, yeah, delivery is crucial.

Alright. So thank you so much. We are coming to our conclusion now. So what is our conclusion here? When you think of your usability and user experience strategy, really try to have a holistic approach here, really think of your users, get to know your users, their needs, what’s important to them, how they interact with your shop, how they’re using your products, which information is important for them, and really try to cover all of these questions in a holistic strategy like we are giving you here an example to really, have or, yeah, objective and straight and clear, approach here of addressing the whole experience, not only just aspects because, of course, you really need their user experience to be, great and total.

Because it’s like Ruben said, prevalent. Yeah. If you get the feedback, yeah, the product itself was perfect, but it arrived 2 weeks late, then of course, yeah, you have one aspect that will, yeah, be, how do you say it will come to, like, negative overall impression. Just because and there was just one aspect, maybe, but, yeah, try to really keep a holistic strategy here in mind and test test test. Ruben, what are your thoughts on, like, some key recommendations for our audience?

Ruben:

Exactly. Exactly. Like you said, you have to really get to know your customers, talk to them, go talk to customer service, and read your reviews. I see more and more in product teams where there is some, like, continuous discovery where everyone in a product team has to talk to a customer, like, interview them, at least once a week. So it is really important to get to know your customers. But as we already said, what users say is not always, what they do.

So do keep testing, test a lot. And learn what works for your websites because what works for one website might not work for another, and could even hurt your conversion rates. So talk to them and get to know me even better by testing different solutions. And also, as mentioned, yeah, do take impaired users into account because there are a lot and we have a hard time navigating your website. It’s a big group, and more and more laws are actually set in place to, making you obliged to take them into account.

Ariane:

Perfect. Thank you so much. So thank you so much for listening today. And, of course, feel free to reach out. I’m hoping we’re having still some time to, get some questions. And, yeah, but nevertheless, here are our contact details, reach out to us.

And, yeah, we love to get your personal opinion about the topics and, yeah, maybe we can help you out with something.

Lea:

Yes. We do have the first question already. And anyone else, if you wanna leave your questions now, there’s a little bit of time. So the first question is, do you think that it makes sense to A/B test slider on product cards in the product listing page, or just go ahead and implement it?

Ariane:

Good question. Yeah, not sure what you’re saying, Ruben, but I would first start off with testing. It’s always better to be on the safe side of things. Yeah, I would prefer to test, I think. And then you know for sure it helps or it doesn’t help.

And I think what’s another option too is to personalize the content. So it might be an option to, yeah, separate your target audience into different segments. And show them different content. So if you know your target group well, then you could also display, yeah, the one side where you see, like, okay. Here it’s working.

This type of person likes it. Use it. This other person does not. Might be possible also to show them different content.

Ruben:

Yep. Very true. Like, experiment, so I always say, do test it because you never know, what works and what doesn’t work. So, yeah, do test it if possible if you have insufficient traffic and conversions, validate it some other way, for instance, for usability testing. But always, test and validate, whatever you’re about to change on the website.

Not just to ensure that your conversion rates don’t plummet, but also to learn.

Ariane:

Mhmm. Yeah. Better. Yeah. It’s always better to know than to assume.

And probably also for internal reasons, it’s also easier to argue if you really have the data and you can really show your colleagues, hey, this is why it’s so worth to invest here because the data is clearly showing that our users prefer version A over version B.

Ruben:

Exactly.

Lea:

So we don’t have any other questions at the moment. I mean, it was a lot of great information. I’m sure a lot of people will go on with the day and this evening, they will think, oh, I should have said this or I should have asked this. But here’s the contact information of everyone, obviously. And also I wanted to mention if anyone is curious, you know, all these things that we’ve mentioned, how they can actually increase your conversion rates in practice.

If you wanna see that, then you can get a free demo of VWO, and all you have to do is answer this question, and we’ll get in touch. So, I mean, I would recommend this definitely because it just takes all the information into practice. So I’ll give everyone a minute to answer that. Okay. Great.

That should be enough time to click a button, I think. Perfect.

Ariane:

I think you will also get our contact details in the follow-up mail. I think just in case there are some more questions coming up. Of course, feel free to reach out directly to us.

Lea:

Yes. Of course. And it will all be recorded and sent to all the participants. And there’s obviously the full published white paper with all the results of the survey that we would very much recommend you take a look at. Oh, yeah.

Ariane:

True. Thank you.

Lea:

Okay. Well, that’s everything from my side. I don’t know if you guys want to mention anything else, Ruben.

Ruben:

Oh, thanks for having me. It was a fun discussion and if there are any questions, or want to reach out, feel free to email me or connect with me on LinkedIn. Happy to share information and answer any questions the audience might have.

Ariane:

Thank you so much for being here today with us. Yes.

Lea:

Thank you so much for being here. It’s been really interesting hearing you talk about the survey. So, yeah, that’s everything, I think, and we’ll see you next time.

Ariane:

Perfect. Thank you so much. Have a great day, everyone.

Lea:

Bye, everyone.

Reuben:

Bye bye.