Instilling Confidence in Online Shoppers: I Bought a Sofa Online and Good UX Sealed the Deal

At the dawn of the ecommerce era, it was often said that people would never buy big-ticket items online. Nor would they buy high-touch items only on the basis of a website description. Wrong and wrong: sites that follow the basic UX guidelines for ecommerce design have long disproven both claims. But there’s still far to go from a basic user experience to one that truly anticipates users’ questions at each step of the shopping process. Supporting users and making them feel safe in their choices can vastly increase the conversion rates for complex purchases and other big decisions that a website would like users to make. Here’s an example.

I’ve been in the market for a new living-room sofa for months now and I’ve been dreading this purchase, because finding the perfect sofa can be a huge chore.

After perusing all the local furniture stores without much luck, I begrudgingly took my search to the web. Purchasing something as large and important as a sofa online, without seeing it in person or giving it a good sit, can be intimidating and stressful. I browsed all the big-name home-furnishing websites for months, looking for something I was willing to pull the trigger on. I saw a lot of things that I liked, but I could never get to the point where I was ready to make a purchase. Every time I would muster up the energy to shop online, I would get overwhelmed with uncertainty and quit. I can’t tell you how many hours I wasted online without ever purchasing a sofa. It was exhausting and demoralizing.

After a while, I ended up on Joybird.com, a furniture site I had heard about before, but I had been purposely avoiding because it was too expensive. I caught wind of a sale and  went to the website. I was so delighted by the experience, that, within only a few days, I purchased a couch. The sofa was outside of my budget, but I was willing to pay a premium for saved time and a good experience. The furniture was nice, too.

Anytime I have an exceptionally good or bad online experience, I try to reflect on it to understand what exactly made my experience so positive or so negative. I learn a lot by doing it, and the reasons always seem to be grounded in basic principles of design and UX.  In this situation, what made this experience stand out and seal the deal were the following aspects:

• The site broke down a complex task and facilitated product comparison.  There are many factors to consider when shopping for a couch: size, style, layout, fabric, woodwork, firmness. Weighing all of these at the same time can be difficult.

Joybird broke down the process into a series of smaller decisions that allowed users to compare options easily. First, it focused users on selecting a style and layout for the sofa. Each sofa was pictured in the same setting and in the same fabric, allowing users to pick the style they liked best without being distracted by other aspects like color, fabric, and setting.

Each product-detail page included the exact same product information, and the same quality of imagery, so it was easy to compare product specifications and fabric choices.

After users selected a piece of furniture, the next steps were to select a fabric, a wood stain, and, for sectional sofas, an orientation for the piece.

On other websites, sectionals were pictured in different settings, at different angles, and in different colors. All this varying information at one time made the selection overwhelming and distracted users.

• Joybird explained complex concepts by providing descriptive text and visuals.

Some concepts are explained more easily through visuals than text. Imagery and illustrations can provide context and detail that may be difficult to explain through writing.

Through my research I learned that there are a lot of different types of sectional sofas. Never having bought a sectional before, I was unfamiliar with the lingo around the different orientations and seating options such as right arm facing, left facing and bumper styles. Many websites allowed customers to filter by a handful of configuration options, but provided no explanation for what each configuration type meant.

With furniture, comfort and fit can be difficult to explain because they’re abstract, subjective concepts. Joybird broke down some aspects of comfort and fit, and provided illustrations to help users think about their preferences in terms of seat height, comfort, and posture.

When buying a sectional sofa, it’s important to understand the orientation. Industry terms like left-arm–facing and right-facing are difficult to understand for customers unfamiliar with these concepts.  Providing a visual for various orientation options eliminates confusion and ensures that users understand which option will work for their space.

• Joybird understood what goes into a purchase decision and anticipated my needs.

As I shopped for a sofa across a lot of other websites, I always had unanswered questions and there were many times when there wasn’t enough detail to help me make a purchase decision. Joybird seemed to know what questions I had and what I needed to understand clearly before purchasing. They anticipated my needs and had thoughtful answers and information prepared for my specific questions.

• I wanted to know the exact combination of selectable features for the products shown. Often, websites use photos of product variations, without providing specifics about what variation is pictured. When many product variations are similar, users may feel uncertain about which variation is being displayed. Joybird provided a small caption below each image in the product carousel, to let user know the name of the fabrics and colors featured on the product-detail page.

• I wanted to see the true color and fabric weave.  The quality, texture and tone of the fabric can change the look and feel of the sofa and the entire room.

Many websites showed color and fabric options, but not to a sufficient level of detail to make customers feel confident buying. Thumbnail images were often small and blurry, making it difficult to get a true idea of what the fabric will look like and feel like. Zoom functionality was hit and miss: some sites did a good job of letting you zoom in to see details of the stitching and fabric, while many other sites’ capabilities were not that robust.

Joybird’s material information included large high-resolution images. Each swatch came with a description of weave and texture.

The product-customization workflow also provided helpful fabric-type tags on each swatch, to show you which fabrics had special properties such as stain-resistance or pet-friendliness. Detail about each of these properties was provided on click and gave users an understanding of what makes a fabric stain-resistant.

When the user selected a fabric or a wood stain, the main image of the sofa changed to reflect those selections.

At the end of the product-detail page, the next logical step for interested shoppers is to look more closely and physically touch and feel the materials available for their sofa before they choose to customize and buy. Joybird anticipated this next step and provided customers with a path to order a free fabric-swatch kit, so they could decide on a purchase.

Many people start browsing online, but choose to make purchases in stores because they can sit on the actual couch or touch the fabric. Providing material samples to online users gives them some of the benefits of the in-store interaction and can prevent losing potential customers to brick-and-mortar retailers.

• I wanted to know how the product looked in a room and what it might look like in mine. After I had selected a handful of sofa styles I was interested in, I was ready to see how they might look in a real space. Joybird used photos from actual customers posted on social channels to show the versatility of the products and how these different sectional configurations might work in the physical space. These images allowed me to imagine how these sofas might look in my room and how they would work for me. They also gave me a sense of the size and height of the pieces when put in context of a room.

Size is a huge factor when it comes to selecting the right sofa for a space. Verifying the size was the biggest source of frustration for me on other websites. Many sites gave one basic set of dimensions for a sectional (e.g., length), without clearly explaining how these were measured (for example, seating length versus overall length).   I found myself forced to contact the companies to clarify the sizing details.

Joybird provided the option to see very specific sizing details for every aspect of the piece. This level of detail left little room for uncertainty.

Websites should find out what information people need to know before they are comfortable purchasing a product online. Figure out their highest-priority questions and the biggest hurdles that you must help them overcome in the shopping process. Focus on designing for these questions and challenges, so customers feel well informed.

• Joybird instilled confidence.

Most importantly, Joybird succeeded at making me comfortable to pull the trigger on an expensive item that is traditionally purchased in person. Every small thing it did leveled up to this mission-critical factor.  It broke down difficult tasks and explained complex concepts thoughtfully. It understood my information needs and designed specifically for these needs by providing granular details, helpful imagery, and offline processes necessary to turn shoppers into customers. It reinforced the confidence built by the online experience by providing outstanding customer-service options, such as a 365-day home trial, free returns, and a lifetime warranty. These features showed that Joybird was confident in the quality of its products and made customers trust the company.

Joybird didn’t stop there. It extended the customer journey post purchase and continued to instill confidence by being transparent and personalizing the delivery process for customers. It provided the option to sign in and follow the furniture’s journey, and provided email updates as the product made its way to the customer’s home. These personalized follow-up interactions maintained users’ confidence and trust through the remainder of the journey and lessened the risk that they second-guess or cancel their purchase.

Replicating Joybird’s Success

Joybird, a niche furniture manufacturer that strictly sells furniture online, was able to focus its knowledge of this domain and design the entire shopping experience around it. Although not all organizations have as narrow a focus, Joybird’s example shows that optimizing an experience to the unique needs of the online customers can result in a successful solution. Blanket solutions across many different products and services may let unique customer needs fall through the cracks.

When designing a solution, start by fully understanding the problem you are solving. Conduct customer research to gain insight into the questions users need answered and into the challenges they encounter throughout their journey. Conducting a field study or diary study with users in your target audience. Gather information about the entire process and map the customer journey to identify problems and opportunities to address with your design. Conduct usability testing to observe customers using your solution and gauge sentiment about the process and level of comfort purchasing. Iterate and address issues and challenges you observe to create a solution that meets user needs.

Conclusion

In my journey of shopping for a sofa online, I went from a skeptical shopper to a committed customer in only a few days, due largely to the quality of the experience. I faced a lot of frustration after hours of trying to spend my money online. In the end, I found myself purchasing a product for more than I had intended, simply because of the additional value I got from an experience that was faster, easier, and more comforting than anything else I found on the web.

In this age, consumers have access to seemingly endless choices on the web, and organizations are matching each other in terms quality, selection, and price. In order to stand out in a landscape where a competitor’s offerings are only a few clicks away, companies must compete in terms of experience.

If you can truly understand your users’ questions and goals and match your offerings to fully address them, your site will have the advantage of converting more customers and, ultimately, making more money.