If you want your conversion strategy to show results, you need to invest enough time in market research. Insights derived from it can substantiate your CRO roadmap for better outcomes. So, no matter which brand we work with, we conduct user research to understand customer behaviour, industry trends, and competition to enrich the optimisation process. 

In this third post of the #WhatYourUserWants series, we talk about online consumer behaviour in the home appliances sector and how these brands could ensure positive user experiences on their websites.  

UK Shoppers Will Continue to Buy Home Appliances Online 

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AO World―the Bolton-based electrical retailer―highlighted UK shoppers’ newfound (or pandemic-induced) fixation with online shopping[1].

To give you perspective, the number of users in the household appliance segment is likely to cross 37 million by 2025 in the UK, according to market forecasts[2].

This implies that people are likely to continue buying more electrical goods online than from offline stores in the upcoming years. 

Given this shift in consumer behaviour, several home appliance brands are now starting to sell products from their eCommerce websites, thereby adopting the Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) business model. This is also likely to push brands to invest in CRO strategies and optimise their websites for better conversions. 

In view of these trends, we shall discuss the insights our research into home appliance brands have unearthed and suggestions to help these brands deliver smooth customer experiences on their eCommerce channels. 

How Do Users on Home Appliance Websites Behave? 

Our research found that the majority of the drop-offs occur at the top of the purchase funnel on home appliance eCommerce websites. Over 35% of users bounce from the homepage itself, while two-thirds of them drop off before adding anything to the basket. 

Most of these website visitors land on product listing pages and product pages, contributing to over 50% of revenues for brands. But we observed that the bounce rate on PDPs is often higher than on the entire website. Now that highlights missed sales opportunities right there. 

These insights tell us that brands need to identify friction areas on websites and make the necessary changes to reduce bounce rates and improve sales. 

1. Users Require Help in Product Selection

We found that too many product choices perplex users instead of helping them make purchase decisions. This behaviour is guided by the Paradox of Choice principle, which says that having several options to choose from can obstruct users’ decision-making capabilities. 

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Also, difficulty in comparing products frustrates users, leading them to choose low-priced items. Prices certainly influence purchase decisions, but factors such as quality, reviews, social proof, and recommendations allow users to further differentiate among products and finally buy one.

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In some cases, users dropped off to browse third-party sites for product comparison and never came back to complete purchase journeys on the sites they started their journey with. 

To counter these problems, home appliance brands can add product badges that will help users scan through relevant products. If you already have product badges on your websites, make sure to improve their visibility for your users to notice them. 

Integrating product selectors and comparison tools can also help overcome the choice paradox by allowing customers to make informed purchase decisions on home appliance websites. 

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Further, optimised product filters, personalised recommendations, and social proof are other solutions that can help users find what they are looking for. 

2. Missing Key Information on PDPs 

Typically, home appliance websites should have proper knowledge assets such as text, images, and videos to help users make up their minds about purchases.

For instance, through user sessions and user feedback, we observed that customers dropped off from PDPs because they could not discover key product information here.  

Now, relying on reviews to make a call regarding purchase is a user trait, but it can also be risky for brands.  

Why?

Because most customers tend to trust negative reviews more than positive ones, despite the former’s questionable credibility. 

Enriching your website, especially product information, with the necessary details is, therefore, important to resolve users’ queries and help them choose the right product for themselves. 

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Not updating the product stock status is another strong reason that drives users away from websites. So, updating stock status is crucial to help customers know about the availability of products on websites. 

The ideal thing to do here would be to add product recommendations on PDPs of low-stock products, so that even if the chosen product is unavailable, you are giving users other options within your site.  

We’ve also seen customers getting frustrated with poorly designed user interfaces. To find a way around these problems, we suggest you:  

• Provide intuitive navigation.
• Allow easy zooming into pictures.
• Add 360° product images.
• Place clear CTAs.
• Ensure easy readability by balancing between colours and white space on your website. 

3. Confusing Checkout Experience 

An effective display of motivational triggers such as financial options, free delivery, and warranty on websites can rationalise users’ emotions about purchases.  

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In user sessions, we noticed that visitors dropped off during the checkout stage because they wanted more delivery options. Some users also cited confusing checkouts as one of the reasons for leaving websites.  

Further, users encountered problems in their mini carts while adding products to baskets. So, you see, not only do these frictions confuse users, but they also fail to justify their decisions to complete purchases.  

Brands can add more delivery and payment options to their websites, but at the same time, they should make these options easily comprehensible and findable for customers.  

Also, a mini cart is valuable in terms of acknowledging recently added products, giving an easy access to the cart, and allowing order changes. But if it is directing users to the checkout too soon, this can overwhelm and make them leave the website.  

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Alternatively, you may break the checkout process on their websites into smaller steps such as add to cart, review cart, and then checkout. This strategy is based on the foot-in-the-door technique, in which if you get customers to agree to small requests first, they are more likely to agree to a larger and more significant request later (checking out in this case).

4. Poor Conversion Rate on Mobile 

Our research confirmed that key metrics such as user conversion rate and average order value are higher on desktops than on mobiles. And the apparent reasons for more challenges on mobile could be limited screen space, complex navigation, smaller images, and poor readability, among others. 

To improve mobile shopping experiences for users, you can:

• Compress the checkout process.
• Improve your website’s autofill features.
• Optimise product filtering.
• Eliminate the need for unlimited scrolling with responsive layouts.

Major Takeaways 

Here are our key suggestions for home appliance brands to streamline user experiences and boost conversions on their websites. 

• Allow users to easily choose the right products by adding product selectors and comparison tools to websites. 
• Add important pieces of information about products and improve their findability on PDPs. 
• Break down the checkout process into smaller steps to encourage customers to complete purchases. 
• Optimise and test mobile UX elements to improve conversion rates.  

What do you think of our insights? Write to us at content@endlessgain.com. 

[1] UK shoppers continue to buy electrical goods online

[2] Household appliances market in the UK

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