12 Questions to Improve your E-Commerce Buyer's Journey

12 Questions to Improve your E-Commerce Buyer’s Journey

12 Questions to Improve your E-Commerce Buyer’s Journey

The simplicity, security and quality of your buyer’s journey determines, in part, your e-commerce website’s performance, i.e., its conversion rate. Which is why it is important to fully optimise this journey.
The most effective solution is to ask your customers and website users for feedback via customer surveys. Here are 12 questions to ask in order to optimise your website and customer journey.

An E-Commerce Buyer’s Journey and its Importance

The buyer’s journey on an e-commerce website simply refers to the path taken by a user, from arriving on the site, via a search engine for example, to completing an order. The buyer’s journey can also be defined as all the steps taken by an Internet user/customer from getting ready to buy (browsing online catalogue) to completing an order (payment). This is also known as the customer journey.One of the biggest concerns of any online retailer is shopping cart abandonment. Retailers are always striving to reduce their cart abandonment rate as much as possible. As we’ve seen in a previous article, the cart abandonment rate determines a retailer’s conversion rate in e-commerce.
It is proven that a poor buyer’s journey increases the percentage of abandoned carts. To transform these users into buyers, it is therefore essential to optimise the buyer’s journey on your e-commerce website. This journey is essential because it determines in part your online store’s performance.

The Different Steps of the Buyer’s Journey

In e-commerce, the buyer’s journey varies from one website to another, but it always involves the same key stages. In chronological order:

1. The user arrives on your website.
2. They use the menu and categories to browse your catalogue.
3. They click on product pages.
4. They add the products they’re interested in buying to the basket – via an add to basket button.
5. The customer places an order, with or without signing in (customer account).
6. They select a delivery method from the available options.
7. They chose a payment method from the available options.
8. They confirm their order and proceed to payment (e.g., by entering their bank details).
9. They receive a confirmation email. This last step is, strictly speaking, no longer part of the buyer’s journey.

This is a simplified overview of the customer journey when buying a product from an online store. As mentioned above, the quality of the buyer’s journey is essential. If the journey is too long, with repetitive steps (in particular asking for the same information several times), too complex or not reassuring enough for the buyer, then they may abandon their basket. There is a simple solution for this; ask your customers what they think.

Questions to Ask Customers to Improve your Online Buyer’s Journey

Your buyer’s journey should be well-designed. But it’s not always easy to know whether a buyer’s journey is qualitative or not, even if there are good practices in this respect. And what matters most is that your customers and visitors enjoy shopping on your website.

You need to adopt a customer-centric approach. Subjective factors (customer satisfaction) are more important than objective factors. Which is why it is so important to ask your customers what they think about your e-commerce site and, more specifically, your buyer’s journey.

Here are 12 examples of questions to ask your customers, to improve your buyer’s or customer journey:

• Is it easy to find what you’re looking for in the categories?
• Are the product pages detailed enough?
• Did you have any problems adding a product to your basket?

• Do you mind signing in to place an order?
• Are there enough delivery options?
• Which delivery mode do you prefer?
• How would you rate our delivery costs?
• Do you mind PayPal being our only payment option?
• Do we offer enough payment options?
• Is our order review page clear?
• Do you think our buyer’s journey is easy?
• How would you improve our buyer’s journey?…

These are just examples, of course, and need to be adapted to your company goals. Depending on the results, you should prioritise optimisation actions to be undertaken. Don’t forget that the buyer’s journey is only one element – albeit a very important one – that determines your user experience.