Building a Compelling E-commerce User Journey

What is the Customer Journey?

Launching an online store can be a lucrative move for your business. More people shop online than ever before, but it’s not enough to just throw up a quick shop. Understanding, evaluating, and creating a user or customer journey is a vital step to success. 

Before we do any of that, we have to answer the question: What is an e-commerce user journey? 

The user journey is the sequence of steps, actions, and connections that a user takes on the path to making a purchase. There are points on which the user can join the journey and points at which they can leave. Ideally, we want to onboard someone early and bring them all the way to the “end” of the journey: conversion (Note: This isn’t really the end of the journey – more on that in a minute).

According to BigCommerce.com, we can break the customer or user journey down into a few bite-sized pieces. The user journey can change and morph wildly depending on your industry, audience, and offering. But this is the general skeleton of what a user journey for an ecommerce store looks like.

1. Awareness: The user discovers you during this portion. The journey can’t start if they aren’t aware of you!
2. Consideration: The customer starts to determine whether or not they are interested in what you’re offering. This could include reading your content, comparing you to competitors, reading testimonials, and even adding items to their cart.
3. Conversion: The user actually makes the decision to hit “buy” and complete a transaction with you.
4. Retention: The user is so satisfied, they come back to buy again. This is a true sign that the journey you designed is working.
5. Advocacy: The user is such a fan of your product or service that they can’t help but spread the word. This is key because this spread of awareness helps you begin a new cycle for new users! 

Before you can build your own ecommerce user journey, we need to educate ourselves first. It’s important to know exactly who you’re marketing to. That way, you’re designing your journey with the ideal customer in mind.

Create Your Specific Buyer Persona 

A buyer persona is a detailed fictional example of your ideal customer. This is a pretend person that sums up all the qualities your most likely buyer will have. For example, your buyer persona could include details like:

• Age
• Gender
• Profession/income
• Location
• Hobbies
• Goals and values 
• Buying habits 

If you sell affordable men’s sneakers, your buyer persona may look like the following:

Mike is a 25 year old male student. He lives in a metropolitan area and enjoys playing sports. He often takes trips outside the city for hiking and camping. He has a part time job and spends his extra money on gear for his hobbies. Because he doesn’t have a lot of money and is focused on school, he wants to make sure he’s always getting a good deal. He doesn’t shop often, but researches brands before buying to make sure what he buys is of good quality. He also often uses social media and looks to his peers to see what styles are popular. 

Not all of your customers will fit this exact persona. They might be older or younger, have a different profession, or be looking for different things from a shopping experience. But your buyer persona should cover a wide range of people that you would expect to interact with your brand. 

When you know who you’re talking to, you can build their journey with their unique needs in mind.

Determine Your Pre-purchase Relationship 

Once you know who your ideal customer is, you can find them where they are. The first part of the user journey involves getting your customers to discover you and your offering. You can do this more easily if you know where to conduct your marketing. 

Once you know your buyer persona, you can have a better understanding of where they spend their time. If they’re on social media a lot, social ads are a good way to go. If they watch a lot of YouTube videos, consider video content. If they do tons of research before they buy, optimize your blog posts for SEO.

Your customers can’t buy from you if they can’t find you. So be intentional about your marketing.

Create a Website E-commerce User Journey

Once your ideal customer finds you, if they’re interested in your offering, chances are they’ll go to your website. They may be primed to buy right away or, they may come to the site to get more information. Either way, create an e-commerce user journey on your website in order to make the buying process as easy as possible. 

Here is my favorite way to map out a website user journey:

Pick a Page on the Website Where Someone May Arrive

The homepage is always a good contender. But remember that people could enter the site on any page. Your Shop or Services page may be the next most likely spot. Either way, pick a page to start and observe where someone would have to click in order to reach their goal.

Determine What the User Wants To Do

If they just want to browse and learn more about your company, provide ways for them to navigate the site without being sold to. 

If they want to see what you offer, make your offerings easy to spot. You can add a “Services” menu to your drop down, or have the first CTA above the fold lead to the “Shop” page. This way they can browse around. 

If they want to learn more about a specific offering, provide search and filtering tools so they 

can find the item that meets their needs. They may be convinced you can solve their problem, but they will want to find the exact item for them.

If they want to buy a specific item, display your prominent or popular offerings immediately. If they’re on this path, chances are they already learned enough about an offering and they just want to find it and hit buy!

Create Signposts on Each Page of Your Site

Think of your site like a network of roads. If you’re on Main St. and you want to turn onto Bridge Rd., you can’t unless you know exactly which road is Bridge Rd. You use signposts to figure that out. A website is the same way. Each page is a location and each link or button is a signpost, directing the user to another place. 

Your signposts will create your user journey, so make sure they make sense. For example, if someone is on the about page and you discuss your dedication to using recyclable materials for a certain shoe, link directly to the sales page for that shoe, right then and there. If you publish blog posts, include links in those posts that lead to specific services or products as they are mentioned.

Identify User Frustrations 

If you have the data, isolate metrics that demonstrate where people get lost or confused. You can track things like bounce rates and abandoned carts. This can show you what pages people get to before they leave and what products people are frequently interested in, but not enough to buy. When you have that information, you can make tweaks to your website or copy to compensate. 

Plan for differing goals and emotions. Maybe someone wants to come to the site to learn about a shoe they like, but they aren’t ready to buy. Enable the ability for them to save the product to a wishlist, or email themselves a quick link back to the product page. 

Always remember that people are complex. They will never do exactly what you hope they will. Provide options for alternatives. For example, maybe someone lands on a page for a certain shoe they saw on your Instagram page. Ideally, they’d love it and click buy. But any number of things could happen: 

• Maybe you’re out of that style in their size. Make sure that they can easily backorder the shoe. 
• Maybe it’s out of their budget. Make sure that page includes information about new promos, sales, or discounts. 
• Maybe they need it now and can’t wait for shipping. Provide details about if that shoe is available in a physical location. 
• Maybe they like the shoe, but the last shoe they bought ended up being poor quality. Provide a section for each item with testimonials from other customers. That way this new customer can be confident that they know what they’re getting.

These are all paths on the user journey that can bring the customer to a satisfied solution – and a conversion. 

Determine the Post-purchase Relationship 

If your website user journey is crafted with care, you should expect to see conversions trickling in. But the e-commerce user journey doesn’t end there. You should think of this journey as a circle, not a straight line. In fact, I argue that user cycle is probably a better term!

Did you know that it’s 5 times more expensive to earn a new customer than it is to retain an existing one? After purchasing, consider adding these things to your customer’s experience to keep them in love with your brand:

1. Send a thank you email for their purchase that contains information about what the person bought, when they can expect it, tracking information, etc.
2. Make receiving their item a delightful experience with memorable packaging, personalized thank you notes, freebies, etc.
3. After delivery, send them promos and discounts for related items. 
4. Ask for a testimonial after a few weeks, giving them the opportunity to give feedback about their purchase. 
5. Provide referral discounts; allow them to earn discounts on new products if they bring more customers to your site.

Iterate and Begin Again

Building a compelling e-commerce user journey is not a one-and-done activity. Your online store or shop should always be improving. Track user activity and analyze analytics regularly to determine flaws, successes, patterns, etc. Listen to customer feedback. Make small incremental improvements often in order to make the buying experience smoother and more delightful.