Why the increased focus on e-commerce?

It’s cheaper for customers

We’re likely to be buying on the internet more often, because we’ll be trying to find a better deal. When our disposable income is reduced, we’re more likely to shop around. These days that means buying and researching prices on the internet.

Those of us who are shopping online already, are likely to do it more and for a wider range of purchases. Others who aren’t yet shopping online may soon find it hard to resist.

The price comparison website Confused.com recently launched a new TV advertising campaign based exclusively on  the usability of its new website. The campaign appears to be aimed at people who want to get the best deal, but are resistant to using a website to get it. Confused.com are trying to entice reluctant internet shoppers on to their website and usability is their selling point.

It’s cheaper for businesses

According to the Society of Information Technology Management,  the average web interaction costs a UK organisation £0.27. Over the phone it’s £3.76 and face-to-face is £9.34 (borrowed info from Gerry McGovern). So the cost-saving benefit of e-commerce is pretty obvious really.

When budgets are being slashed, it’s a good idea to use it wisely. The web is the cheapest route-to-market for most companies. So we can expect to see some of them pushing their web offering strongly.

Getting more from your e-commerce site

You can increase the volume of business you do online in 2 ways.

• Increase the number of people who visit your site.
• Reduce the number of people who leave without buying anything

You can increase the number of people coming to your site by spending  more money on advertising, pay-per-click campaigns and search engine optimisation. But you could also get more out of your current visitors, by fixing the problems that make them leave without buying anything.

Most of the people who visit an e-commerce website will leave without making a purchase. So even a small reduction in the number off these drop-outs can result in an impressive increase in sales. These improvements can often be achieved with relatively simple changes.

An extreme example is described in Jared Spool’s article, the $300 Million Button. Spool explains how an e-commerce website saw a massive increase in sales just by letting people buy without creating an account.

As amazing as this story is, you don’t need to look far on the web to find a retailer repeating the same mistake. Perhaps you’re reading this and realising that your own site is one of them.

Breaking the redesign cycle

You don’t need to redesign your website in order to make significant improvements to it. A good thing that might come-out of the credit crunch is that more web managers realise, large-scale redesign projects are a waste of time and money.

A responsive company does not improve itself by throwing everything away and starting again every few years. Instead it tweaks and adjusts itself by improving only the things that need to be changed. It’s just a matter of finding the things you need to improve.

Finding the areas to improve

The 2 techniques I most often use to help my clients improve their websites are:

• Expert usability reviews
• Usability testing

It’s often a good idea to use them both, but not at the same time. You start with an expert usability review and then follow up with usability testing after you’ve made some improvements. This allows you to get more out of both techniques.

The expert usability review

Many e-commerce websites make similar mistakes, so an experience usability person can often spot them. By asking a usability specialist to review your site, you can find issues that are likely to cause problems for your visitors. They should be able to recommend positive changes for you to consider.

A classic example is the number of websites that force registration (or even appear to do so) before making a sale, as described in Jared Spool’s article.

Usability testing

Usability testing is a very good way to find the problems that are limiting your site’s potential to sell products. This involves watching people using your website unassisted.  You can run your own usability testing or get a professional to do it for you. There are benefits in both approaches and you can also do a bit of a mixture of both.

What’s more important is that you take enough of an interest to watch the tests yourself and that you test regularly. It’s better to test your site with a handful of people every few months, than do all-singing-all-dancing studies every year or so.

Such grand studies can leave you with more information than you know what to do with. They can also be fairly demoralising, rather than inspiring a culture of constant improvement.

Measuring success

Before you begin to improve your website, it’s a good idea to find some measurements that you’d like to see improve. It’s all very well trying to identify usability issues. But the changes you make should lead to a measurable improvement in the performance of the site. Surprisingly, this is a step that many businesses overlook.

Continuous improvement

Your website can be improved. This is a fact regardless of which site it is. Improving websites is easier and more effective manage when done continuously. If you manage an e-commerce website and are worried about the financial climate. Then I recommend you start improving your website now and never stop.

Did you find this useful?

If you found this article useful or even if you want to tell me I’m wrong, please leave a comment using the form below. You might also be interested in the following posts:

• Focus group usability testing
• Usability test tasks to avoid
• The benefits and limitations of expert reviews

If usability testing is Champagne then an expert usability review is Cava. It is cheaper and the results can often be similar. This is when a usability expert reviews the site or areas of it for usability problems.

They are often described as heuristic evaluations. However I think this is just to make them sound posh. An heuristic evaluation relies on heuristic principles rather than the experience of the reviewer.

It’s quicker

A usability specialist can often deliver your expert review in the same week that you ask for it. If time is precious then an expert review can deliver results within your tight timescales.

It’s cheaper

You don’t need to recruit participants and you use less consultancy time, so it can work out to be a lot cheaper.

You can use it to get more out of your usability tests

If you’ve never done any usability testing on your site, there can be a lot of issues that will be obvious to a usability expert. So an expert review can help you fix these issues before you do some testing. You’ll then avoid having the study being dominated by issues that you didn’t need a usability test to find.

The limitations of expert reviews

The results are based on opinion. It will hopefully (but not always) be an expert opinion, but it is an opinion nonetheless. Usability testing results are (hopefully) based on observed facts. You know the issues exist because you saw people having problems.

You need an expert to carry them out. With a bit of coaching you can do your own usability tests. But expert reviews should be carried out by someone spends a lot of time watching people using websites. You have to trust the fact that the person doing the review actually has this experience.

It’s difficult to prioritise the findings. Even a very experienced usability specialist will struggle to prioritise the findings of their review. The very important findings will be obvious. Everything other than that is difficult to put a severity level on.

Some sites are not appropriate for expert reviews. If the subject of your site is specialised then an expert review may not be a good idea. For example if you’re a plant hire firm, a usability consultant is not best placed to provide you with insights into the motivation behind people looking to hire cherry pickers. Only the really outstanding issues will be found.

Some advice

Find out about your expert. If you are paying a company to review your site, find out about the person who is going to review it. How long have they been with the company? How much usability testing have they done there?

Like many consultancies, some usability companies hire people straight out of university. Many of these people will make excellent consultants but until they’ve spent a lot of time observing users, they are not  experts.

Test with real users as well. After you’ve fixed the issues from your expert review you should make usability testing your next step.