E-commerce is breaking all records in terms of popularity. However, sometimes, the results of an online store work are not as great as they could be. Why?
Customers are often disappointed by particular common e-commerce site problems. This impacts customer satisfaction and, consequently, sales.
In this blog post, we review common e-commerce complaints. If you think your e-commerce website might have some of these issues, our digital agency is ready to check and fix them. We can also create an online store for you that will meet all e-commerce expectations so your customers have no reason to complain.
Common e-commerce complaints
So what do customers complain about in e-commerce? We have searched the web for their common complaints, as well as analyzed the requests of our website support customers’ who reached out to us for optimization.
The good news is that the issues that might take away big profits from e-commerce businesses are really easy to fix on the website level. So we are listing both the e-commerce complaints and their possible solutions.
Cumbersome checkout process
Complaint: With the year 2020 on the doorstep, one of the oldest e-commerce complaints is still relevant. The checkout process should be simple and clear but often is still a real challenge for buyers. Many customers complain they have too many fields to fill out in order to check out.
Solution:Solve these complaints and reduce your checkout abandonment rate by using these best practices:
- Think of the minimum fields that are really necessary for the purchase and make the rest optional.
- Show your users the checkout progress indicator so they know how much is left.
- Use the inline form error indication that shows the user immediately if a field is filled incorrectly and offers a suggestion.
- Use the autocomplete feature for cities, shipping provider departments, and so on.
- Save the customer information for future orders so they don’t have to fill it in again.
Slow website speed
Complaint: Much ink has been spilled over the importance of website speed, but many people still complain about slow sites. Users get disappointed when they want to browse a number of products, compare them, or put them in the basket, but the website responds very slowly.
Solution: Discover what hampers your e-commerce website’s speed and improve this. This can be heavy plugins, unoptimized images, poor caching, and so on. The best option is to order website performance audit, and you can do it by contacting our web agency.
The product does not look as expected
Complaint: Another big issue that ruins customer satisfaction, causes product returns and makes the user never shop with you again is customers receiving a product that does not look like what they expected from the e-commerce page.
Despite all the convenience of e-commerce, the fear of buying a pig in a poke remains high among customers. Solving this problem will lead to increased sales.
Solution:
- Provide product characteristics that are as complete as possible.
- Add high-quality product photos from multiple angles.
- Include photos that demonstrate the product size in comparison with people or objects.
- The zoom feature should work properly (not like on many websites where it simply shows the same image without really magnifying anything). Users should be better able to see the texture of the product.
- 3D product animations and videos are also very helpful.
- Customer reviews, star ratings, as well as blog posts help them customers avoid mistakes.
Wrong product received
Complaint: It’s as simple as that — customers complain of receiving the wrong product. This is frustrating and will force you to apologize, read angry reviews on your social media pages, and cover extra expenses.
Solution: You may think that mixing up the products is mainly about your staff’s inattention. However, your e-commerce website can be very helpful in the proper product management. This is especially true when you have hundreds or thousands of items.
Make sure your online store offers provides for the easy-to-use:
- inventory management
- handling of products with multiple variations (in color, size, etc.)
- order tracking
- shipping management
- and so on.
All these and other features can be added to your e-commerce website by an experienced web development team.
Poor display on mobile
Complaint: Since the share of mobile e-commerce is supposed to reach 53.9% in 2021, the complaint about poor mobile display becomes more and more frequent. Users say that even when both the product and the price are ok, they get disappointed with a website that is unable to display the goods properly on mobile devices.
Solution: Make your e-commerce website mobile-friendly ASAP — it’s a must-do. This can be a separate mobile version or, even more popular, responsive web design that has your layout adapt automatically to the current device screen.
Lack of security
Complaint: A frequent complaint from customers is that they wanted to buy something but realized the e-commerce website was not secure — they saw a browser warning that marked the site as not secure, the payment process did not inspire trust, or a similar issue.
Solution: Switch your website to HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure). Make sure you cooperate with trusted payment providers and that all steps of payment procedures follow the best security practices in remembering the users’ credentials and more.
Unresponsive customer support
Complaint: When customers have questions or, still worse, troubles with the order, they want to contact a human being. Sometimes, they are already angry at this point.
A slow response or lack of response discourages them from buying anything, turns away from your website for the future, or if they have already bought something, return it with angry complaints. Indeed, customer satisfaction in e-commerce largely depends on your readiness to talk.
Solution: Your website should show the customer support contacts in a prominent place. Various live chat services are especially good in this sphere. They may have voice or video conversation features. However, showing the support chat popup can be an annoying practice, so consider using it very rarely if ever.
Unexpected fees
Complaint: In cases when an extra fee suddenly appears, customers feel like they are treated unfairly. They often accuse the online store of being a fraud. Of course, this eliminates any customer satisfaction with the transaction.
Solution: Make sure your online store clearly shows all the fees the customer has to pay. It is even better to do this on the shopping cart than in the checkout stage. Your website should be able to calculate such things as taxes in different countries.
Let your site meet the best e-commerce expectations!
The above mentioned are just a few common e-commerce complaints. Contact our web development experts and let’s make your online store the place for satisfied customers that love to shop with you!
