This article How to Improve Your Ecommerce Store’s User Experience (and Pay Less to Sell More) has some really good information in it to think about as you are designing your store from the beginning, or modifying your established store.
Here are couple key take-away’s from this article that I found most interesting:
“Every element on your page needs to support the visitor in reaching his or her goal.”
– Can they find what they are looking for?
– Are your navigation menus intuitive and easy?
“…design should support and empower the copy, not the other way around. After all, no one buys a t-shirt or fidget spinner because the site looks nice. They buy because the copy convinced them.”
– Item descriptions need to help sell the item.
– Good item descriptions (without a lot of unnecessary keywords) are also helpful for SEO.
“Just because you have a good desktop UX doesn’t mean you have a good mobile UX. Mobile is an entirely different beast. The context has changed, the intentions have changed, the motivations have changed.”
– Make sure to preview your website on smartphones and tablets so you know what the mobile experience is like for your customers. Make improvements where necessary.
“Do user research. This sounds expensive and you can make it expensive, but there are some good tools available that can help you. Read this sentence again: can help you. They will not solve the problems, but they will help you to spot the problems.”
– See the Free Tools category for a couple tools to help you with research.
“You think about your customer’s experience with your company every day, whether it’s the details of the products you sell or the packaging they tear into upon delivery. Wouldn’t it make sense to think about their experience on your website just as carefully? Your competitors certainly do.”