Suimple

I spend a lot of time tweaking ecommerce sites and am always looking for companies that are providing good user experience. This morning I bought some Adidas indoor soccer shoes for my daughter at the temple of simple ecommerce.

Target: shoes.com

My five minutes at Shoes.com has left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and it doesn′t even bother me that I spent $25 over my budget. If you have an ecommerce site you need to visit shoes.com and humble yourself before its simple design and powerful user psychology. Here are some of the high points.

Clean Product Shots and Lots of Them.

Yes product shots are expensive but if you are going to be marketing online they are a necessity. You need professional product shots done with style and you need lots of views that your user can see without leaving the page. Great product shots increase sales and reduce returns.

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Reduce Customer Anxiety

Customers are anxious about buying things online, they just are. You need to tell them is ok to buy from you. It doesn′t get much more reassuring then free returns and a 115% price guarantee. Check out the shoes.com detail page this message is displayed prominently in the header and again right below the “add to cart” button just in case you were having second thoughts.

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Descriptions, Short and Concise

If your images do all the talking the description becomes secondary, not unnecessary, you still need a description but you can slide it down the page a bit. This way all or your purchasing controls are right next to the image leaving you space for your anti anxiety weapons. The description is there, it is short, concise and best of all it is out of the way of the conversion.

Suggest, Don′t Up Sell

The suggestions were relevant to the current product which is all that really matters however what really struck me was the placement. Usually the up sell is way off in the corner or at the bottom of the page. Shoes.com places them right under your mouse when you are viewing product images. So close you can′t help but click, genius.

Care About the Details

Look at the review component, it doesn′t matter that no one has reviewed this item. Shoes.com shows 5 stars, sure they are grayed out but if you didn′t read closely you wouldn′t notice. Sneaky, maybe but you can tell they thought it through.

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Never Stop Selling

After I added my item to the cart I was having serious doubts about sizing, the team at shoes.com was on it. I was able to download a paper foot size template like the ones you used to stand on as a kid. We measured up the foot and were assured this was the right shoe. This little bit of customer service gave me the momentum I needed to complete the purchase and send me on this rave. They made me reflect on my childhood while buying shoes for my child, that is some serious user centered design.

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