Why Your Ecommerce Strategy is Useless without Experience Design

Is there a relationship between your experience design and your ecommerce strategy?

Yes. There is. It’s a fact.

There is no ecommerce without some level of customer experience design. Regardless of whether or not you thought about it or intentionally created a strategy, the experience design is there, implicit in your ecommerce store…

…and it’s either helping you achieve your ecommerce goals or it’s hurting.

So, can you even have a good ecommerce store without intentional experience design?

Sure, you might. We can’t say it’s never happened.

But in this case, you’re luck is on fire, and we’d also recommend that you start playing the lottery to see if you can beat the odds in that case too.

You can have a functional ecommerce store without putting much thought into your customer experience design. And you might even sell a few things.

But will your store be great? Will you be really successful and beat out the competition?

No.

You’re essentially flying blind. You might have a win here and there, but to achieve consistent ecommerce performance, it takes something more.

Now, this is not to say anything bad about out of the box ecommerce solutions. There are some great platforms that help you get started and up to speed quickly and offer nice looking functional selling experiences in a matter of minutes. But these generic templates are the lowest common denominator and should just be used as a jumping off point.

The greatest strength you have with your ecommerce store is in tailoring it specifically to your brand, your product, your customer. This requires a deep knowledge of your own company as well as your target audience. When you tailor the experience with this deep knowledge in mind, you are infinitely more likely to have an incredible ecommerce customer experience design and start selling like gangbusters. This is what differentiates you. It sets you apart.

Warby Parker

Take Warby Parker for example.

Their customer experience design is the opposite of generic.

They completely recrafted the glasses buying experience online by tailoring the ecommerce purchase process to the specific needs of glasses customers.

They even made the experience as good or even better than buying glasses in a physical retail store.

How?

By identifying needs and addressing them. By anticipating the pain points and solving them.

What will the glasses look like on me?

Sounds impossible to achieve without physically trying them on, right?

Wrong.

Warby Parker’s website enables customers to virtually try on any pair of their glasses and see what they look like… From several different angles.

What if I choose the wrong pair?

Warby Parker knocks this one out of the park. Not only do they address the problem as well as physical retail store, but makes the experience even better.

With their free home try-on, customer can select up to 5 pairs of glasses at a time to be delivered to their door to try on at home for up to 5 days, giving customers the time and space they don’t have in a physical retail store to make their selection (and consult their family and friends).

What if I still don’t like them once I’ve made a selection?

No problem. Warby Parker allows free returns, no questions asked for 30 days after you receive your new pair of glasses.

Can anyone help me?

One thing that is nice about buying prescription glasses is that you have a professionals opinion to help you choose, especially in terms of the shape and fit of the lenses and frames.

How does Warby Parker manage that online?

By offering professional feedback through social media and email. All customers have to do is send a photo of their frames on their face and wait for a quick reply.

Customers can also go get peer feedback from the Warby Parker community on what frames to use by posting their pictures on social media and using the hashtag #WarbyHomeTryOn.

Warby Parker changed the game when it comes to buying glasses online.

Imagine if they had simply decided to sell glasses online using a generic template! There is no chance they would be in the position they are today.

As you can see, customer experience design is a critical component to your ecommerce strategy. It is your intentional plan for success. Warby Parker’s success didn’t just happen. They didn’t rely on luck. They had a carefully crafted experience design tailored for their specific audience. That is what brought their success.

Follow in their path. Think about your target customers pain points and design an ecommerce experience that not only works, but will knock their socks off.