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Ecommerce Articles & Videos

  • Online Shoppers Take Note of Socially Conscious Retailers

    Ecommerce brands that demonstrate their efforts toward social causes stand out to customers who hold similar values.

  • Livestream Ecommerce: What We Can Learn from China

    Livestreams allow users to see products in detail and get their questions answered in real time. They can be integrated in ecommerce websites and on social-networking apps.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Interaction Types

    Our user research discovered 6 distinct types of interactions users/customers have with companies on social media. Recognize each type, and support each one with different design approaches.

  • Social Commerce vs. Social Selling

    There are two ways to facilitate e-commerce social media: you can sell directly on the social platform, or simply promote on social media with a link to a traditional e-commerce site for the actual purchase.

  • UX Guidelines for Augmented-Reality Shopping Tools

    Ecommerce AR tools are relatively new, so must be highly discoverable and easy to learn. Calibration issues run rampant, and users must dedicate focused attention to interact with this unfamiliar feature.

  • Imagery Helps International Shoppers Navigate Ecommerce Sites

    Nonnative speakers rely on visual cues to navigate international sites presented in an unfamiliar language. Use imagery to support text and help these shoppers.

  • Augmented Reality for Ecommerce: Is It Useful Yet?

    Augmented reality is an exciting technology, but the experience of using it is underwhelming, which hurts its overall perception of helpfulness.

  • 5 Types of E-commerce Shoppers

    Extensive user research with people shopping online identified 5 main types of behavior: product-focused, browsing, researchers, bargain-hunters, and one-time shoppers. Each user type benefits from different UX elements.

  • Don't A/B Test Yourself Off a Cliff

    A/B testing often focuses on incremental improvements to isolated parts of the user experience, leading to the risk of cumulatively poor experience that's worse than the sum of its parts.

  • Emojis in Email Subject Lines: Advantage or Impediment? đź‘Ť đź‘Ž

    Our research shows that emojis in subject lines increase negative sentiment toward an email and do not increase the likelihood of an email being opened.

  • Communicating Changes Throughout the Buyer's Journey: A COVID-19 Case Study

    When emergency situations impact retail operations, stores must inform customers of resulting changes to services with salient communications across all channels.

  • Online Shopping for Food and Groceries During Covid-19: Workflow Issues Impact the Ecommerce Customer Experience

    Allow users to reserve delivery windows before they start shopping; clearly communicate delivery minimums and fees; allow users to specify substitutions for low-stock items as they shop.

  • Animated GIFs in Email Are Worse Than Static Emails

    On average, people have a more positive reaction to emails without animated GIFs compared to those with animated GIFs.

  • UX Guidelines for Ecommerce Product Pages

    Customers shopping online rely on product pages to decide what to buy. Help them by answering questions, enabling comparison, providing reviews, and facilitating the purchase process.

  • What Is a Conversion Rate, and What Does It Mean for UX?

    Conversions measure whether users take a desired action on your website, so they are a great metric for tracking design improvements (or lack of same). But non-UX factors can impact conversion rates, so beware.

  • What B2B Designers Can Learn from B2C About Building Trust

    Even though B2B and B2C ecommerce sites have different kinds of users, both types of sites can use similar strategies to simplify purchase flows and increase consumer trust.

  • Ecommerce Selling Strategies from Brick and Mortar Stores

    The user experience of shopping online can be enhanced by employing proven selling strategies from physical stores in the design of ecommerce websites.

  • Alternative Payment Methods Enable International Purchases

    By understanding customers’ payment preferences and offering options that people are used to in their own country, sites can improve the checkout experience for international purchasers.

  • Store Finders: Why People Still Need Locator Links

    In addition to a site-wide store-locator link, location-finder links in key areas anticipate users’ needs and make it easy to find a physical location within the context of their task.

  • Applying Discounts and Promotions on Ecommerce Websites

    Coupons and other discounts should be easy to apply and shopping carts should clearly display how the total was affected by the promotion.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Interaction Types

    Our user research discovered 6 distinct types of interactions users/customers have with companies on social media. Recognize each type, and support each one with different design approaches.

  • Social Commerce vs. Social Selling

    There are two ways to facilitate e-commerce social media: you can sell directly on the social platform, or simply promote on social media with a link to a traditional e-commerce site for the actual purchase.

  • 5 Types of E-commerce Shoppers

    Extensive user research with people shopping online identified 5 main types of behavior: product-focused, browsing, researchers, bargain-hunters, and one-time shoppers. Each user type benefits from different UX elements.

  • Don't A/B Test Yourself Off a Cliff

    A/B testing often focuses on incremental improvements to isolated parts of the user experience, leading to the risk of cumulatively poor experience that's worse than the sum of its parts.

  • What Is a Conversion Rate, and What Does It Mean for UX?

    Conversions measure whether users take a desired action on your website, so they are a great metric for tracking design improvements (or lack of same). But non-UX factors can impact conversion rates, so beware.

  • Ecommerce Selling Strategies from Brick and Mortar Stores

    The user experience of shopping online can be enhanced by employing proven selling strategies from physical stores in the design of ecommerce websites.

  • Designing Search Suggestions

    Useful search suggestions lead to relevant results and are visually distinct from the query text. (This is about how to design the search feature on your own website, whether it's an ecommerce site or not.)

  • Mobile-Checkout Experience: Tips

    Remember these essential experience elements that are often overlooked or easily forgotten during the mobile-checkout design process.

  • 5 Tips for Effective Online Advertising

    How to include ads on websites and interactive environments without undermining the user experience.

  • Pitfalls of Conversion-Rate-Only Concern

    Numbers don't paint the full UX picture, so in the quest for conversion rate optimization, don’t lose sight of the fact that we’re designing for humans.

  • 3 Rules for Better Comparison Tables

    Successful comparison tables help people make decisions quickly. Simplicity, consistency, and informational are qualities of good comparison tables.

  • 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities

    Several usability findings lead directly to higher sales and increased customer loyalty. These design tactics should be your first priority when updating your website.

  • Wishlists, Gift Certificates, and Gift Giving in E-Commerce

    Although gift features leverage the online medium and draw new users to a site, they also introduce many usability pitfalls. Among them are poorly designed email notifications, which many users simply ignore.

  • Show Prices for Common Scenarios

    B2B sites often have overly complex pricing structures or can't show prices at all. To help prospects with early research, list representative cases and their prices.

  • One Billion Internet Users

    The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

  • The Slow Tail: Time Lag Between Visiting and Buying

    Users often convert to buyers long after their initial visit to a website. A full 5% of orders occur more than 4 weeks after users click on search engine ads.

  • Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for Ecommerce Design

    Many design elements work for Amazon.com mainly because of its status as the world's largest and most established ecommerce site. Normal sites should not copy Amazon's design.

  • 8 Steps to Prepare for the Holiday Shopping Season

    Reduce the bounce rate for organic landing pages, collect data to manage PPC for maximum ROI, and take 6 other steps to maximize your site's holiday sales potential before it's too late.

  • Informational Articles Must Ask For the Order

    Unless you have explicit links to product pages from article content, users who visit articles directly from search engines might never realize that you sell related products.

  • After the Buy Button in E-Commerce

    The best way for e-commerce sites to increase subsequent orders is to treat customers well after they place their initial order.

  • Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites

    Even small holiday decorations can increase joy of use and make websites feel more current and more connected to users' lives and physical environment. The key is to commemorate without detracting from your users' main reasons for visiting the site.

  • Is Poor Usability Killing E-Commerce?

    User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival.

  • Helping Users Find Physical Locations

    When we asked users to find a nearby store, office, dealership, or other outlet based on information provided at a parent company's website, users succeeded only 63% of the time. On average, the 10 sites we studied complied with less than half of our 21 usability guidelines for locator design.

  • Profit Maximization vs. User Loyalty

    Instead of maximizing the profits from an individual visit it is better to encourage loyal users and establish non-monetary differentiation and frequent-user programs.

  • Web Research: Believe the Data

    Much is known about Web user behavior, yet research findings are often ignored in actual projects. Examples: up-front customer registration doesn't work; frequency of use and effectiveness of Web marketing methods are negatively correlated.

  • Why People Shop on the Web

    A survey of 1,780 people who have bought something on the Web found that convenience and ease of use are the main reasons to shop on the Web. Non-buying visits (product research) are important to shoppers.