Best Practices to Make Your eCommerce Store User-Friendly #StartupChats

Yesterday I had the pleasure of serving as an advisor and sharing my knowledge of Best Practices to Make Your e-Commerce Store User-Friendly on #StartupChats on Twitter powered by Canada Post (@canadapostcorp). Here are my answers to the questions:

1. What does user-friendly mean in an eCommerce context?
   In #eCommerce context, user-friendly typically refers to the user experience being customer-centric or frictionless.
2. Why is a good user experience critical for #entrepreneurs to generate sales for their eCommerce business?
   It’s never been more important for #smallbusinessowners to focus on #UserExperience because buyers are looking to eliminate rather than find suppliers and your competition is only ever 1 click away.
3. What’s the best strategy for website navigation and search abilities?
   Website navigation needs to be tested to ensure you have #awebthatworks for all your customers because people think differently. Site maps and search capability are also recommended.
4. What are the top tips #entrepreneurs should use when making their #online #business user-friendly?
   Here is a list of my favourite website testing tools but there is nothing better than human testing to ensure your online business is user-friendly.
5. Can you think of any #businesses with fantastic user-friendly eCommerce sites?
   If I had to recommend #businesses with fantastic user-friendly #ecommerce sites I’d have to say let the people be the judge… @amazon & @ebay
6. What methods or tools are they using to make their #ecommerce store so user-friendly?
   The big ones like Amazon and EBay spend millions on consultants & tools to keep their #ecommerce store user-friendly including #AI #VR etc. I wish I could be a fly on the wall
7. What can happen when #startup’s eCommerce stores aren’t user-friendly?
   When a #startup’s #ecommerce store isn’t user-friendly they’ve lost the chance to make a great first impression and likely lost the client forever.
8. What are tips for a user-friendly mobile experience, versus desktop?
   User-friendly mobile experiences are more important than desktop for most #smes because stats show us that’s what most users are on when shopping? This list could go on and on, but my top tips for user-friendly mobile experiences are ensuring the website is responsive, loads quickly, navigation & language is intuitive, 1-click phone links, etc.
9. How can businesses get a visual on any user-experience issues?
   #SME can get a visual on user-experience issues with Hotjar and other user experience testing apps & you can also hold virtual focus groups where you watch actual people as they surf.
10. How can #entrepreneurs create and edit their website quickly and
    cost-effectively?
    WordPress allows entrepreneurs to create and edit their website quickly and cost-effectively, way better than any other CMS, which is why they have worldwide market share!
11. What is the most important thing entrepreneurs need to know when
    making their eCommerce store user-friendly?
    The most important thing #entrepreneurs need to know when making their eCommerce store user-friendly is that it’s all about the customer. Their needs and expectations are changing daily so we need to keep our eye on the prize!

This chat had 32 contributors, 24 million impressions and the Wakelet can be found here.