10 ways to drive customers away from your website

Studies and reports abound about what makes a usable and user-friendly e-commerce website. One would think business website owners would ‘get it’ by now. Although the numbers of un-usable and un-user-friendly websites are diminishing, many still exist. It’s hard to tell if these lack luster sites are a result of poor design and layout by the website designer or due to the personal likes and biases of the business owner. What’s interesting to note is that these websites have many design elements in common and behave similarly. Here are ten ways to make it difficult, if not impossible, for a customer to initiate and/or complete a purchase on your website.

Site design -

1. Barrier to site entry: Examples are lengthy flash intros or a home page that’s blank except for a ‘click here for site entry’ link.
2. The one page website: A credible business website has at least three pages – Home, Contact, and About. Anything less, just doesn’t look professional.
3. Hard to read text: White text on a black background is the most common culprit, but other stark color combos also exist. Text that’s too small doesn’t help either.
4. Hard to decipher photos: A customer can’t make an informed buying decision with an undersized photo lacking detail.
5. Site clutter: Not enough white space and no focus on the content makes it hard to figure out what the site is all about.

Site usability -

6. Hard to find contact/shipping/return info: The reason why this drives customers away should be obvious.
7. No phone number: If there’s a problem with an order, people usually prefer speaking to a live body.
8. No physical address: Can’t help but wonder if the business is legit if there’s no real street address.
9. No contact form: A form is a quick and easy way to send a message as opposed to providing a link to an e-mail address. Looks more professional too.
10. Can’t calculate cost of shipping until the bitter end of the purchase: This classic method of frustration still endures.

As online purchasers, we’ve encountered at least one if not more of these types of e-commerce website design bloopers. For further reading on what makes a usable business website refer to these previous posts:
http://www.allcustomwebdesign.com/2009/03/building-blocks-of-business-website.html
http://www.allcustomwebdesign.com/2009/01/how-to-optimize-product-photos-and.html
http://www.allcustomwebdesign.com/2009/02/what-makes-useable-shopping-cart-and.html

As website designers and business owners, we need to imagine ourselves as the customer and honestly ask ‘Would I buy from my own website?’