What is ecommerce user experience, and how does it affect sales?

Ecommerce user experience is how easily a shopper finds, chooses and buys what they came for. Good UX removes the friction between wanting a product and owning it. Poor UX adds doubt, effort and dead ends. It shows up directly in sales: in our A/B tests, removing a second navigation menu lifted conversion 30.2%, and adding a simple way to browse lifted it 21.3%.

UX and CX are different jobs

User experience (UX) is what happens on your site: navigation, search, product pages, cart and checkout. Customer experience (CX) is the whole relationship: shipping, support, returns and every email after the sale. Both matter. This article is about UX, the part you can test and improve on the site itself.

Signs your UX is costing you sales

You do not need a redesign to find UX problems. Your analytics usually shows them first:

• A big gap between mobile and desktop. If 1 device converts far below the other, the layout is likely the problem, not the shoppers.
• A steep drop at 1 step. Compare how many people move from homepage to collection, collection to product, product to cart, and cart to order. The biggest drop is your first target.
• Shoppers who loop. Visitors who bounce between the same pages, or search for something your menu already offers, are telling you the path is unclear.
• Conversion and revenue moving apart. A change can bring more orders at a lower value, or fewer orders at a higher value. Track both.

Removing a second navigation lifted conversion 30.2%

On 1 store, the desktop homepage had a left navigation menu as well as the main menu in the header. We tested removing the left menu and changing nothing else. Over 14 days, conversion rose 30.2% and revenue per visitor rose 11.4%.

2 menus gave shoppers 2 ways to do the same thing, and more choices to weigh before they could start. Revenue grew less than orders did, so the average order was smaller. More shoppers bought, which made it a clear win.

Look at your own site for the same problem. Do you have a header menu, a sidebar menu and a footer menu that all list the same categories? Are there 2 search boxes, or 2 buttons that lead to the same page? Each duplicate gives shoppers 1 more thing to decide before they start. Remove 1 at a time and test it. For more on menus, see Optimizing Website IA and Navigation for Conversion.

A shop by color section lifted conversion 21.3%

Good UX also means matching how shoppers already browse. On 1 store, visitors were already landing on color-specific collection and product pages. We added a shop by color section to the homepage and tested it in 2 positions.

On average, conversion rose 21.3% and revenue per visitor rose 33.5% over 14 days. The best position depended on the device. On mobile, the section worked best first. On desktop, it worked best second.

The idea came from watching what shoppers already did, then making it easier. That is UX optimization at its simplest. Revenue per visitor grew faster than conversion on both devices, so shoppers who found what they wanted also spent more. And the best position was different on each device. If we had only tested 1 layout, we would have left part of that lift behind.

Shoppers preferred a clear product option by 15.0%

Cleaner is not always better. On a product page, a second product option sat inside the product box with a filled button. We expected it was distracting from the main option, so we moved it out and toned it down. Shoppers preferred the original. On desktop, conversion fell 15.0% and revenue per visitor fell 24.3% in 16 days, so we paused the test.

The same change on mobile lost too, with conversion down 6.3% (see the test). The second option was helping shoppers choose, not distracting them. Good UX makes the right choices easy to see, not fewer.

This is why UX changes need testing, not just a design review. Toning down the second option looked cleaner, and it matched a common rule of thumb about reducing choices. Shoppers disagreed. Only the test showed it.

How to measure UX changes

A UX change should be tested like any other change, with an A/B test that splits traffic between the old and new experience. Track conversion rate and revenue per visitor, and read each device on its own. Plan for at least 2 full weeks of data. Early results often swing: the navigation test above flipped several times in its first weeks before it leveled out.

Where to start: watch real shoppers use your site

Every test above started with an observation about how shoppers behaved. Analytics shows you what visitors did. Usability testing shows you why.

Our standard for qualitative usability testing is 5 to 7 participants per device or audience, with 7 on mobile and 7 on desktop preferred. Each person completes 3 to 5 realistic, goal-based tasks in a session of about 15 to 18 minutes. That is long enough for people to explain their thinking, and short enough to avoid fatigue.

The patterns you see across those sessions become your first test ideas. For the full method, see Usability Testing for Better UX and Higher Conversions. For a wider review of your site, see How to do a CRO audit.

Good UX makes the right choices easy to see, not fewer.

Frequently asked questions

What is ecommerce user experience?

Ecommerce user experience is how easily a shopper finds, chooses and buys a product on your site. It covers navigation, search, product pages, cart and checkout.

What is the difference between UX and CX in ecommerce?

UX is the experience on your site. CX is the whole relationship with your brand, including shipping, support and returns. UX is the part you can test directly on the site.

Why is user experience important in ecommerce?

Because shoppers leave when buying feels hard. In our tests, removing a second navigation menu lifted conversion 30.2%, and a shop by color section lifted it 21.3%.

How does UX affect ecommerce conversion rate?

Every bit of friction costs some shoppers. Clearer navigation and browsing that matches how shoppers already shop raised conversion in our tests, while hiding a useful product option lowered it 15.0%.

How long does it take to see results from UX improvements?

Plan for at least 2 full weeks of data per A/B test before calling a result. The tests in this article ran 14 to 16 days.