Common Problems with Online Retail Sites

Many online merchants still make common sense usability mistakes.

Although online retail sites have come a long way in the last 10 years, many merchants still make common sense usability mistakes. Following is a list of problems that are prevalent on many retail websites today:

1. Placing the "Add to Cart" button is below the fold.
Why should a user need to scroll down in order to add something to the cart? If a customer lands on a product detail page, make it immediately obvious that he can order that product.

2. Not having quantity box next to the "Add to Cart" button.
Some merchants don't allow customers to select a quantity when adding a product to the cart. If a customer wants 5 of something, don't make her click the "Add to Cart" button 5 times! Make it easy for people to place larger orders.

3. Using small "Add to Cart" and "Checkout Buttons."
Merchants should draw attention to the "Add to Cart" and "Checkout" buttons. These are buttons that a merchant wants a customer to click and hence should be large and noticeable.

4. Getting cute with standard terminology.
There is no reason to change standard ecommerce terminology - especially just to be different or cute. Stick with the basics like "Add to Cart" or "Add to Shopping Cart." These are terms that people are comfortable with and terms that people will look for when placing an order.

5. Not displaying a response after adding an item to the cart.
If a customer adds something to the cart, she should immediately know that it worked. Displaying the contents of the cart is the best way to achieve this. Some merchants do this by taking a customer to a separate shopping cart screen. Better yet is having an always on screen shopping cart.

6. Not quoting shipping or sales tax.
It is now 2007 and ecommerce systems have come a long way in being able to quote accurate shipping and sales tax costs. If a customer is ready to place an order and sees a "To Be Determined" next to any price specific line items, there's a darn good chance that he will abandon the order. By all means, an ecommerce system should quote a final order total, eliminating any doubt about what the customer will be charged.

7. Putting too many images on one page.
Although one could argue it would be nice to allow a customer to simply scroll down and see a hundreds of product images for a specific category, the truth is that such pages can take forever to load. People generally are not patient. Some merchants display products lists screens with tons of nice looking images. The problem is that many people will leave while waiting for those pages to load. Keep the number of products on a page to a reasonable level. What is reasonable depends on the physical size of the product thumbnails.

8. Not including a search feature.
Web surfers love to search – just ask Google. Unless an online store has just a few products, it should include a search. It is often buyers that use a search. They know what they want, they want to find it quickly, and then checkout.

9. Hiding the merchant's phone number.
Although most people shopping online will eventually checkout online, there are those who want to pick up the phone and call the merchant. Perhaps these people have specific questions or special requests that they would rather talk with someone about. The merchant's phone number should be prevalent in the online store. This also adds confidence to people that do place orders online.

10. Improperly referencing images when going secure.
To many times merchants will look at their storefront, click on some categories and products and assume their store is ready to launch. It is imperative that merchants also place test orders before going live. Often times a customer will click on a checkout button to be greeted with a security warning message. This message is usually the result of the online store going secure (https) but referencing images in a non-secure manner (http). Even though there is a good chance that the transaction would be safe in this scenario, the last thing an online shopper want to see is any kind of security warning message prior to entering a credit number.

Merchants are often so busy working with their back end order and product management system that they neglect to periodically look for ways of improving the customer experience. Making a site easy to use will yield a higher conversion rate which results in more revenue.