Experts from digital agencies have, for quite a while, focused on the user experience as the core differentiator on-line. One-click purchasing has been the target for many on-line retailers since the concept was introduced by Amazon. While I agree with the importance of the user experience I wonder if there is too much hype around the utopian one-click concept.
My experience is that site visitors exhibit a range of e-commerce browsing behaviours depending on the site, its product range and their point in the purchasing cycle. I believe my premise applies to all retail e-commerce websites from music to banking and grocery to TVs.
My starting point is the nature of the product. Typically regular users of grocery and retail banking websites are task oriented; these users make regular visits and typically repeat transactions. Users are annoyed by web-experiences that divert them from their task and the nature of the task is very functional in nature. Features that streamline purchasing enhance the user experience; these include shopping lists, favourites and one-click checkout. Products such as clothing, consumer electronics and, to some extent white goods, are less frequent purchases and typically involve comparison shopping, such shopping often involves more than one website. On an initial visit users may browse through a product set to get ideas about which product to buy, on later visits they may have decided on a product and now return in order to buy; these websites therefore need to support multiple buying behaviours.
We can identify four browsing behaviours that a site should support:
- Recreational: The visitor is looking for new ideas and opportunities.
- Functional: A product type is in mind (for example a camera or a sofa) and the visitor is deciding which product to buy.
- Pre-qualified: The visitor has a particular brand or model in mind and is looking for the best deal and delivery options across multiple vendors.
- Surgical: The visitor is here to buy a specific product (probably having been to the site before). They may have been browsing a paper catalogue.
My argument is that a typical retail website must support all browsing behaviours because a single visitor may exhibit several browsing behaviours over time; no single route to purchasing will suffice.
Here are a few ideas about how a website should support these browsing behaviours:
- Recreational: Employ sophisticated browsing, search and product promotional mechanisms. Guided navigation, advanced search and very creative and interactive user interfaces are key. I like the interactivity on furniture sites for example (take a look at www.boconcept.com).
- Functional: Use commonly recognized terms in the navigation scheme. Surface content to as high a level as possible using product carousels and list best sellers to anonymous visitors. Provide buying guides and product information for the more complex products. RS Components has a massive product range and does a very good job of categorization and surfacing content in a browse/search interface (www.rs-online.com).
- Pre-qualified: Enable users to browse by brand and product name perhaps using guided navigation techniques. If possible build a comparison capability (e.g. across multiple vendors), as a minimum make it easy for the visitor to return to buy. Visitors can browse by brand name at John Lewis and Bloomingdales for example (www.johnlewis.com / www.bloomingdales.com).
- Surgical: Help the user to return to the same product easily; Lands End enables users to enter part numbers on the home page as a way of supporting the paper catalogue (www.landsend.com). You can also enter a part number into the search engine at Heals furniture store (www.heals.co.uk) and get to the specific product, although it is not clear from the web site that this is possible (someone in store told me about this feature).
Browsing behaviours are not a substitute for personas; I fully endorse the use of personas to develop and enhance the user experience. However I do recommend personas are created with visitor behaviour in mind and that page designs are tested for their ability to support all four browsing behaviours.
