Create a Great Fashion Ecommerce User Experience

The best way to incentivize sales is to create an amazing user experience (UX). If online shopping UX isn't good why would anyone buy from you versus your competitors?

To truly answer that question, you need to be able to differentiate your UX from the competition and present your products to encourage sales!

If you have an online eCommerce fashion store then follow these 5 tips for creating a great UX!

1. Craft a stunning design
   
   
2. Tell a story
   
   
3. Make it easy for people to find what they are looking for
   
   
4. Provide the info they need to buy
   
   
5. Design a great post-purchase UX
   

We're only human and we will definitely judge books by their covers. Especially in fashion!

If you want to encourage sales, then make sure you're good at visually communicating with your customers. Shoppers want up-to-date and modern designs with little background noise.

You want easy-to-navigate websites with great product pictures and color schemes which are pleasing to look at.

Just look at the difference between this old, clunky landing page and this more modern fashion one:

Having a certain aesthetic or 'look' is extremely helpful in getting customers to actually want to browse your fashion site.

If your fashion store looks like the first website example, customers will be overwhelmed and won't know what to look at.

If you create something like Wren & Ivory, people will want to browse and buy. The colours for this fashion ecommerce website are pleasing, the layout is great and it's super easy to navigate and find what you're looking for.

Telling a story to your customers about your brand is so important. It can definitely be the make or break for your customers when deciding to make a purchase.

Three of the most important pages on your site (besides the landing/homepage we already talked about above) are the

1. About Us page
   
2. Product page(s)
   
3. Collection page(s).
   

The about us page is a little blurb for your customers to understand what it is that you're all about. Your about us page should cover

• how your fashion brand started
  
• why the business was created
  
• founder photos and backstories
  
• any other useful or helpful information you want to share with your customers.
  

Having a little bit of a story creates trust and a connection between your brand and your shoppers!

Great About Us page example Sauvage Swimwear About Us Page.

Your product page(s) should provide all the information customers need to make a buying decision.

When it comes to fashion e-commerce sites, you'd want to do the following things to have a standout product page.

Things to consider for fashion product photos

1. Be clear and provide product pictures
   
2. Include different angles (so the buyer can really see the item in question)
   
3. Use good lighting (so the colour shows)
   
4. Use an average model (so people can see how it looks on a normal body)
   
   

Include these things on the product page too

1. A size and fit chart is helpful so that people can pick the right size.
   
2. Provide colour options (and pictures of the options!)
   
3. Fabric descriptions
   
4. An easy and quick add to cart button! is helpful
   
5. Guarantee/return options
   
   

Additional details for the product page

1. Number in stock
   
2. Number of people who've purchased the item
   
3. People who have added the item to their cart alerts

Physiq Apparel is a good example of the Fera.ai option for showing the number of people who've added the product to their cart to add some urgency and social proof.

The collection page(s) are great for showing categories of fashion!

In the Wild n' Chic example below, customers can filter by dresses and only see items that fall into that category. This is an easy way to help your customers shop. The reason it is so useful, is because having useful collection pages helps shoppers find exactly what items they want when they want it.

Having comprehensive collections also helps shoppers on your online boutique easily compare all the different dresses (or any other item) on the site to one another and decide what it is that they're looking for.

The page(s) on this example have good, clear and well-lit photos, the price of the item and a quick descriptive title of what exactly the item is.

Some sites even have a 'hover-over' option which shows a picture of a different angle of the item when you hover over the image with your mouse.

On top of having a great collection and product pages, you want to make it easy for customers to find what they're looking for.

This means having easy to use (and find) search tools and filter tools, as well as a navigation bar.

Most sites have a navigation bar in their header (top of their site), as well as the magnifying glass search icon in the top right corner of the navigation bar.

Check out an advanced tool like Smart Search & Filter by Searchanise for your website searchability needs. It's a search and navigation tool that you can easily install into your Shopify eCommerce site.

Searchanise basically does all the work for you and indexes all of your products. This allows your customers to see results as soon as they type their first letter into the search bar. If you install an app like Searchanise to optimize the search on your fashion eCommerce website you can provide a great UX via:

• Instant Search Dropdown
  
• Automated Filters for Search Results and Collection pages
  
• Upselling tools like New Products, Customers Also Bought and other Product Blocks
  
• Detailed Analytics including Products Bought through Search

This app is easy to use on your site and you only pay for the product count, not for the total number of search queries, which makes it a cheap and easy to use option for your eCommerce business.

Filter tools usually exist on collection page(s) as they allow you to set parameters so you only look at certain items at once, or so that it sorts the items in a specific order.

Most commonly you'll see fashion filters for the type of clothing (shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, accessories, etc.) or to sort the items by (newest, most popular, best selling, A-Z, Z-A and either highest price to lowest price or lowest to highest).

As we mentioned above, make sure to have high quality photos on your site! This means neutral backgrounds so that customers can easily see your fashion products on display.

If you offer different colour options try to include pictures so customers can more easily decide what shade they want.

Again, make sure to include sizing charts so that customers can see whether they're a small, medium, large, etc. It can be even more helpful to give the measurements of the model (height & weight) in the picture (if there is one) so shoppers can compare to the picture.

If possible include models of different sizes and ethnicities so that each shopper is better represented and can feel that the item is right for themselves and their style.

Showing items on different body types is essential for sales as it encourages trust with shoppers that these items will fit their body type AND look good on them.

If you're connected to social media this is a great opportunity to use user generated content (UGC). If you've had promotions or sales of certain product(s) you can include a special hashtag. Using a social proof app like Fera.ai, you can include a 'photo wall' on your product page to share the images that your users have shared and created. This helps visitors see how the clothing may look on others and make the buying decision easier!

Encourage further trust and build relationships and social proof by offering a loyalty program, good return or exchange program for purchases, and free shipping.

Make this information readily available on your site and also on product page(s) if necessary. This information is important to shoppers and can help tip their decision into a purchase if they know they'll have options if they either don't like the item or it didn't fit.

Good return policies means happy customers and great sales!

Once your customer buys something from you, your work doesn't quite stop.

You'll want to ensure they had a good experience with perhaps a follow-up email. You can send the tracking and delivery information and perhaps add a little blurb asking to leave a review, or have a system in place that sends an email after delivery to ask for feedback and reviews.

Check out an app like Spently if you want to see how you can deliver a solid post purchase experience with your transnational e-mails!

You can also have an in-cart option to encourage social interaction. You can create a community through this by either asking visitors to sign up for your newsletter or blog, or by sharing your social media hashtags and accounts and encouraging them to post their fashion finds online!

Now you know what you need to create a great experience for your fashion-savvy shoppers:

• Stunning design
  
• Story telling
  
• Easily searchable products
  
• Product information
  
• A great post-purchase experience
  

You can use the tips and information outlined above to create a fashion experience that delights your shoppers and makes you more sales!

Jameela is the owner of the Shopify store Alora Boutique and the Marketing Manager at Fera Commerce. You can find her on the interwebs on LinkedIn and Instagram.