Wouldn't life be better if the decision making process we went through was as simple as possible? Today, we’ll look at how you can simplify decision making for your users and make it easier for them to do business with you.
Don’t Hide Things from Users
There is one thing that sucks more than anything else when shopping online; hidden charges. Tell me what I have to pay and tell me early. That includes taxes, shipping, packing, and optional delivery times too.
Author/Copyright holder: Aftab Uzzaman. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC 2.0
If you have complex calculations to make… then get the user’s postcode (ZIP in the US) and start making those calculations. Finding that a $10 product requires $100 in shipping at the last minute is a great way to convince a user to shop elsewhere.
Demonstrate Guarantees
If you guarantee to be cheaper than a competitor; explain the guarantee in full and in plain English and then show the competitor’s price for the same product. Don’t make users go and hunt out the competitor and do the math themselves. And be honest. If you can’t be cheaper; don’t promise to be. Differentiate your offering on another basis instead.
Author/Copyright holder: EC Europa. Copyright terms and licence: All rights reserved Img source
Dishonest, devious, badly worded guarantees are a great way to send users packing.
Reduce Complexity
It’s wonderful that as a custom laptop manufacturer you offer a million possible combinations of components to build a dream machine. It would be even better if you could distil that down into some simple choices for the customer who doesn’t have a clue about what kind of RAM is better or how much they need – so that they can make an easy choice.
Author/Copyright holder: Mikol. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 2.0
Sliders, quick menus, intelligent survey questions, etc. can make the insanely complex, incredibly easy to navigate. You don’t need to eliminate choice – it’s a great business tool; you do need to make choice easy enough to get through that your customers make it to the shopping cart.
Sort out Coupons and Special Offers
If you’re going to send out coupon codes; at a minimum keep them simple and memorable. “Laptop Discount 001” is way better than “01HG&^%KL”. Better still, automate these coupons. Let people click on a link and have the offer and/or discount automatically applied to their shopping basket. There’s no need to make this kind of interaction complex or frustrating. You’re doing something good, usually, when you offer a special offer – you want your customers to be excited and happy to do business with you. You don’t want them banging their heads on the keyboard in frustration as they try to enter a 30-digit code they can’t even copy out of your e-mail to them.
Header image: Author/Copyright holder: Vimal Kumar. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC 2.0
