01 Jul
Digital shift, the need for comfort, and the convenience of getting products at your doorsteps have made online shopping a trend. However, despite their popularity, eCommerce businesses experience conversion rates as low as 4.63%. While businesses focus on eCommerce business pain points, they often overlook the eCommerce customer pain points. As a result, users face compromised shopping experiences that lead to abandoned carts and customer churn.
So, it’s imperative to identify and fix those pain points to achieve eCommerce success by driving more sales leads and conversions. Let us help you!
By the end of this article, you’ll learn all about eCommerce customer pain points and workable solutions to fix them for increased eCommerce success.
What Are Customer Pain Points?
Customer pain points refer to the problems, issues, and queries that your existing and potential customers encounter in your eCommerce store due to which they have rather bad and compromised shopping experiences.
Such pain points could be a slow-loading website, long checkout process, lack of payment options, lack of product range, security concerns, and the list can get pretty huge.
However, whatever the case, customers experiencing any of such issues don’t make your eCommerce store come out as a good shopping destination and you can lose lots of sales and profits.
So, you must put yourself in your customers’ shoes, identify all the types of customer pain points, and do your best to fix them.
However, the big question is how to identify customer pain points. Moreover, a bigger challenge is to find ways to fix those pain points.
But we’ve got you covered for all of it. Hereinbelow, we have identified the top 11 customer pain points and the best ways to fix them. So, keep reading to solve all your eCommerce business pain points and problems that are directly associated with the pain points your customers are facing.
Top 11 Customer Pain Points and Workable Solutions to Fix Them
The eCommerce industry is a tough space to work in. The competition is cutting throat and offering the best customer experience is your best chance at growing your business.
Statistics reveal that almost 60% of the customers abandon their carts at checkout because their pain points are not addressed well in the eCommerce stores.
It will be clearer upon a look at this bar chart that shows the top reasons for cart abandonment.
Every reason points out a specific eCommerce customer pain point that needs to be addressed. Let us get into more details and see the most common types of customer pain points and their fixes.
Slow Website and Long Checkout Process
Customers want to complete their transactions as soon as possible. So, a slow website that takes forever to load and complicated or too long checkout processes are a big turn-off.
You’d be surprised to know that 73% of the customers abandon their carts due to the checkout process.
Solution:
Since customers will be put off by a long-driven checkout process, the only workaround seems to be simplifying your checkout process.
It’s best to have a 1-page checkout system where the customers are not tied to too many questions or requests for completing their transactions.
Moreover, single-page checkout pages will prevent your store from getting bulky, thereby helping speed optimisation and making your website faster.
Besides that, you must also follow other strategies for website optimization to ensure that your website is not too slow. Some ways can be managing cache settings, configuring lazy loading settings, image optimization, etc.
You can achieve this by having a good website builder and content management system at your disposal. CMS like Magento, WooCommerce, etc., that come with a free website builder and other optimization tools can help achieve ease in making your website faster and user-friendly.
Poor Customer Support
A report from Statista suggests that 40% of the customers stop interacting with businesses that lack the quality of their customer support and services and move on to the competitors.
Solution:
Customer support is the most important aspect of an eCommerce store because shoppers don’t want to remain stuck with questions, queries, and doubts.
So, enhancing the quality of your customer support by using tools and technologies like chatbots can help solve any problems that your customers might be facing with customer support.
Chatbots can be automated and will be available at the customers’ disposal 24/7. Whether the customers want instant answers to their queries or a personal shopping assistant at any hour of the day, the chatbots on your eCommerce store will enhance their experience.
So, chatbots come with multiple benefits and using one in your store will be a great step in enhancing the quality of your customer support and eliminating a major customer pain point.
Receiving Incorrect Order
Imagine waiting desperately for your order only to open the package and see that it’s entirely different from what you had ordered. The hassles involved with the entire complaining, returning, and replacement process are enough to make you want to never purchase from such an eCommerce store again.
Well, these will be the same feelings of your customers too if they receive the wrong orders from your store.
Solution
The lack of a proper order management system causes all the issues with the order confirmation and delivery. So, the best fix for this issue is to incorporate a proper order management system within your eCommerce store that keeps minimal to no room for mistakes.
Additionally, the process of returning the wrong product must be effortless for your buyers. Furthermore, it helps as a disaster management strategy to take responsibility and apologise for your mistake so that the buyers feel more connected to your store and see that you care for them.
Lack of Payment Options
Customers wants ease, convenience, and security in making their transactions. If their preferred payment option is not available in an eCommerce store, they’re bound to abandon their carts.
An infographic from Column Five Media suggests that 56% of the customers look for a variety of payment options in an eCommerce store.
Let us support this with a more comprehensive view of the different options that customers generally seek in an eCommerce store for a better experience.
So, you can understand that lack of any of the options becomes a customer pain point.
Solution:
The only way around this pain point is to integrate as many payment options as you can on your eCommerce store, especially when you’re operating worldwide.
People will prefer their local payment options and want prices mentioned and paid in their currencies. So, it’s essential to integrate different local and international e-wallets and payment systems in your store.
Moreover, you can also offer options to pay using cryptocurrencies, etc. Never miss out on cash on delivery options either as customers look for such options, especially when shopping for the first time in your store.
Incomplete/Irrelevant Product Information
A report from Adweek suggests that 81% of the buyers base their buying decisions on extensive online research. They want to know all about the product before finally placing an order.
So, if there is little to no information about the product, or the information available is misleading, the customers will find it difficult to arrive at a buying decision.
Solution:
Work on your product descriptions and ensure that they’re relevant and engaging. Hire product managers and content creators to work out the management of your products and product information on your eCommerce store.
It’s essential that you keep it short but also not miss out on all the essential and relevant information.
The above image is a clear example of what you must not do when it comes to listing your products on an eCommerce store.
With proper descriptions that give away all the essential information, you have a stronger hold on persuading your target audiences to buy the products.
Hidden Charges
Has it ever happened to you that you ordered a product that seemed within your budget, however, on the checkout, the price seemed to escalate by some amount that goes towards taxes, shipping, etc.?
Such escalated charges due to hidden fees for shipping or other perks and offers can lead to the customers turning down the purchase altogether.
For instance, look at the image above. The cost of the product on the product page seems to be only $92. As a customer, you’d assume that’s all you ought to pay upon placing the order. However, on the checkout, the additional shipping cost and taxes turn out to be even higher than the price of the product.
This will make you want to abandon the cart, isn’t it? Well, that’s what your customers will do if they have the same experience with your eCommerce store.
Solution
Transparency is the key to solving this customer pain point. Your customers don’t want to encounter any hidden fees or charges at the checkout. So, ensure that they don’t face the same.
It’s best to reveal all the costs conspicuously on your eCommerce store. If the prices are exclusive of taxes, mention the same and inform your customers that there will be additional taxes at the checkout.
You can also integrate tax software into your eCommerce store to offer the customers more ease in understanding the tax calculations and charges. The software will also help ensure that you’re able to manage the tax liabilities on your store better and will solve a business pain point too.
Besides mentioning the taxes and other charges, if there are any extra shipping costs or additional payments for any perks that the customers are opting for, make sure that they’re mentioned on the purchase pages too to not shock the customers at checkout when they’re one click away from converting a sale.
Poor Store Navigation
How long do you look for a product that you want before you finally give up due to the tiredness of endlessly scrolling and still not finding your desired product? Well, pretty soon!
Poor navigation in the eCommerce stores where it takes forever to find the right products is the biggest customer pain point.
The image below shows some of the most common things that can frustrate customers during online shopping.
Most of the reasons in the above chart point to poor store navigation experiences. Be it the inability to find the product, seeing results that do not match your search, or the difficulty to understand the store navigation altogether, everything comes as a huge pain point that needs a solution.
Solution
Keep things as simple and easily understandable as possible. Offer filter options on your eCommerce store that allow the customers to enter their preferences and search accordingly.
If you find any enhancements to be made, use a visual feedback tool, like zipBoard, to pinpoint the area and the issue to the developer. So, that s/he can make the changes without missing any context.
Your customers must not be forced to scroll endlessly. They should see things that attract and appeal to them. Moreover, the navigation must be smooth and effortless. The customers must be able to scroll up and down the pages without any difficulties.
All this requires effort in website design too. So, ensure that you get the right person and the tool for designing your website so that there are no issues with the store navigation.
Difficult Exchange & Return Policies
According to a report by Clever Tap, eCommerce stores experience up to 30% of returns and exchange requests.
It can be because of wrong delivery of products, unsatisfactory product quality, damaged products, etc.
So, the exchange and return policies must be effortless to follow for the customers. Most customers will check for exchange and return policies before placing their orders just to be sure that they have room to recover their money in case the product doesn’t satisfy their demand.
However, if such policies are not available or are extremely difficult to understand and follow through, the customers consider not making the purchase at all and go to the competitors.
Solution
It’s essential to help the customers with proper refund, return, and exchange requests. The first step in solving this pain point will be to write a thorough return and exchange policy and publish it in your eCommerce store.
When writing such a policy, you must ensure that you cover every query or question that the customers can have as regards returns and exchanges.
When you have a well-defined return and exchange policy, customers will be at more ease when ordering from your platform knowing that they can trust you and that their money will not go to the drains if they are not satisfied with their purchase for any reason whatsoever.
In addition to publishing your return and exchange policy, it will also be great to offer
personal guidance and assistance to the customers when they face any issues with making their refund requests or getting them cleared.
No Personalization
What seems to be a better shopping experience between the two options?
- Looking around for what you need all by yourself.
- Having a customer service executive helping you around the shop, paying attention to your tastes and preferences.
Most people will choose Option 2 here. When a customer services executive constantly assists you during shopping, your experiences become more personalised and you can be more satisfied with your purchases.
Now, while this is easy at retail stores, personalization somehow becomes lost in eCommerce stores. However, that’s where the problem for customers starts.
Lack of personalization in eCommerce stores is a huge pain point and customers seek places where they don’t suffer this problem.
Solution
Add as much personalization as you can to your website. You can integrate chatbots to assist the customers during their shopping. Alternatively, you can add live chat options where real customer service executives will help the customers as they navigate your store.
Statistics reveal that 68% of customers report having a positive experience in an eCommerce store when they have a sales representative assisting them all the while.
The image also mentions that customers want their representatives to be knowledgeable and resourceful.
All these qualities add up to creating personalised customer experiences that make the customers leave your store fully satisfied.
Unimpressive User Interface
The user interface and design of an eCommerce store is not just a customer pain point, but an eCommerce business pain points too.
As per reports, visitors form opinions about a website in as less as 50 milliseconds. So, your website must be appealing to the eyes of the visitors.
Uninteractive user interfaces that take forever to understand are a huge problem with customers and they will not put up with such websites and stores.
Solution
Work on the design and interface of your eCommerce store. The UI/UX is the most important aspect of any website. They can make or break your customers.
With an attractive and impressive user interface, you can bring more traction to your website and ensure that your visitors convert to sales. So, go through multiple website templates before deciding on a design, theme, and layout for your website.
Once you’ve chosen your preferred template, make sure you conduct user acceptance testing(UAT) before launching your eCommerce site. A UAT makes sure your site meets the end demands/goals of the customers/clients. Here’s how you would conduct UAT for your eCommerce site.
In addition to choosing a proper template for the website, also ensure to have engaging content and significant ease of use and navigation on your eCommerce store to ensure that the user interface is impressive.
Improper Packaging & Handling
Have you ever received a product with packaging as distressing as shown in the image below?
Well, if you have, you must have never visited that website ever again. The same goes for your customers too.
Most eCommerce stores overlook the packaging and handling of their products, either due to the need for urgent deliveries or simply as a method for cost-cutting. However, such substandard quality of packaging can damage the products and lead to negative customer experiences.
Solution:
Always pay attention to the quality of your packaging. Most people remain excited about their orders and if they get them in a beautiful package, they remain more satisfied and happy with their order.
Your customers must always have the most fulfilling unboxing experiences, something that may want them to create videos and offer free promotions to your brand.
Moreover, proper packaging and handling of the products also ensure their safety and you can rest be assured that the products will not get damaged in transit.
The trend is also towards more sustainable shopping behaviours and patterns. So, if you use eco-friendly packaging materials, it could be a bonus.
Are You Ready to Fix Your eCommerce Store?
eCommerce business is trending and has a lot of scopes. However, it can boom only when your customers have good experiences in your stores.
It becomes essential to look out for your customers’ needs, demands, and expectations and meet them to their utmost satisfaction. That involves understanding their concerns and solving them to the best of your capabilities.
Interview with eCommerce Specialist Melvin Simpson
Optimizing eCommerce UX
This case study explains all the eCommerce customer pain points that must be fixed to deliver a great customer experience.
Check Case StudyWe hope you found it helpful and are all set to grow your eCommerce store to the next level.
Author’s bio:
Vineet Gupta is a SaaS marketing professional who helps businesses in improving their online presence and lead generation.
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