Friction in eCommerce

Do you want people to buy things from you online? Then this is the word that should be in your mind:

Friction

Friction comes in a lot of flavors when it comes to ecommerce, but it’s all the same: a bump in the smooth path your shoppers now expect. That path is the Path to Purchase… plus the actual checkout:

• Sheila Shopper sees a product she likes in your ad, a friend’s social media, your email, or the blog post she got to when she was searching for advice about a problem.
• She clicks on the product. She reads the description, a review, some details that are important to her.
• She sees the price, the shipping costs, the payment options, and none of these things bothers her.
• She clicks on “Add to cart” and the product is added to the cart.
• She decides to continue shopping, lured by some add-on items you’ve shown her, but she decides to stick with the one item.
• She returns to the cart, clicks on “Checkout,” fills in shipping and billing information, sees her total and is okay with it, and clicks “Submit.”
• She gets a message telling her that her order is complete, and that she’ll soon receive an email with confirmation and package tracking data.

Now think of all the places where things could go wrong or at least be slowed down:

• Sheila Shopper sees a product she likes in your ad, a friend’s social media, your email, or the blog post she got to when she was searching for advice about a problem.
• She clicks on the product. There is no description, or it doesn’t include the information she needs. She can’t tell, for example, whether you carry her size or whether the item is made of a natural fiber or whether she will have to dry clean it.
• She can’t see the price, the shipping costs, or the payment options, or one of these things bothers her. For example, she might be uncomfortable with Paypal or she’s unhappy with the shipping costs.
• She clicks on “Add to cart” and the product is added to the cart, but she can’t tell that it was added, so she clicks again or goes and checks.
• She decides to continue shopping, lured by some add-on items you’ve shown her, but she has trouble finding her way back to the cart.
• She returns to the cart, clicks on “Checkout,” fills in shipping and billing information, still can’t tell how much shipping costs, tweets an angry message about your company and feels a little better, and clicks “Submit.”
• She gets no message telling her that her order is complete, and she can’t tell whether her order has gone through or not.

The truth is, ecommerce is one big mess of points of failure.

We built a beautiful ecommerce website this spring for a local wildflower farm, and once the site had been up for a while, the site owner contacted us with some points of friction that we (and she) had not foreseen:

• Federal agencies don’t have to pay taxes, so having taxes calculated automatically doesn’t work for them.
• State agencies often use purchase orders, and there’s no place to pay with a purchase order online.
• Some customers are still confused by PayPal.
• Customers who check on the “terms and conditions” link on the checkout page, which opens in a new tab, get confused about how to get back to their order. (We were kind of amazed that anyone checked on that link.)

None of these things is a big problem. But they’re big enough that people sit back, take their hands off the keyboard, and think what to do next. At that point, some call the client and get it sorted out. Some probably think a bit and then go ahead. But some will abandon their cart and give up.

There’s always another store to go to.

It can be hard to identify potential points of friction. You know all about your products and you know how to get through your store, so you may not notice things that would confuse other people. Your web team is very comfortable with computers, so they may not notice things that could give other people trouble.

The solution? Other people. Do some through testing with your entire path to purchase, and your check out. Make it easy for everyone, not just for people who already know what’s going on. And then be ready to make changes if needed.