Photo: Nataliya Vaitkevich

NEW STUDY! Which e-shops give the best user experience in Europe and why?

“User experience” is a word that you hear quite a lot these days. It is a hot topic not only for UX and UI specialists but for many other professionals too. It is known that user experience is one of the crucial aspects of running a good online business. So Sharewell.eu decided to ask 20 000 people from Europe to share their best shopping experience to find which e-shops give the best user experience and also explain why.

What is user experience, why does it matter, and how to improve it (in brief)

User experience is the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or a computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

It matters because if a website degrades the user experience too much, people will simply stay away. The simplest way to improve your customer’s experience is to ask them to conduct user tests. The benefits of user testing come in different shapes and sizes and can help you create better solutions for everyday problems.

Back to the study “Sharewell Users Choice 2021”

Sharewel.eu asked 20 000 people to nominate an e-shop that has given them the best experience during Christmas. Not only did research participants have to nominate an e-shop that has given them the best shopping experience, but also justify WHY. They also answered 23 questions about the nominated e-shops interface, loyalty programs, customer service, return policies, and copy.

They wanted to understand from end customers which are the most customer-friendly sites in Baltics and Poland. Who to buy from and why exactly customers love them.

Who participated in the study?

You probably know that women love more online shopping than men. This study confirms that because 59.9% of answers came from women. The average age of participants was 34.5 (34 years for women and 35 years for men) with bachelor degree living in Europe and salary range from 1000 to 2000 EUR.

What matters the most to have noteworthy experience?

The first question customers replied was”Why did you think of this shop? How does it give you the best Christmas shopping experience?”. It is important to know that it was the first question, and no choices was provided. The answer was a free-form text and came before other questions. So no ideas was implemented in respondents’ heads.

Most of the respondents nominated e-shop because it was easy to use, navigate and find items. Then followed by a wide range of goods, quick and reliable delivery and good price. Interesting that offers, discounts, experience with customer support, and return policy were last to come into customers’ minds. That doesn’t mean it is not valuable in their opinion (data revealed it later), but the majority of them just didn’t think of that first.

Has a new trend emerged among users?

Not only did Sharewell.eu looked at the general data, but also some interesting gems that shoppers mentioned as a reason for nominating. Several people from the Baltics mentioned that they nominate shops because it helps the environment or they donate to charity. Remember, this is the first question in the study and users had to reply to why they nominated e-shop in a free form text. If you had a choice between 2 shops and one donates to charity and the other does not. Which one would you choose? This might be an upcoming trend as people care for the environment more and more.

“One tree is planted when purchasing the product”

“environmentally friendly.”

It is also interesting that some respondents mentioned that they fell in love with the shop after participating in a test study with Sharewell.eu . It makes sense that after doing user tests participants want to check the shop out. They know that the brand invests in being more customer-centric and they care about how the customer feels. The user feels closer to a brand and turns into a brand advocate.

Which e-shops got nominated the most?

The highest-rated page was AboutYou with 7,42% of votes, followed by Amazon (4,1% votes) and Zalando (3,5%). Is it a surprise that AboutYou was nominated more times than Amazon? Let’s check how our test users justified that. We gave them a free text space to explain themselves. Here are the top 5 reasons they nominated AboutYou:

The variety of products is high. They can find everything they need in one place.
Delivery of purchases faster than customers expect.
Prices are good or lower.
It is easy to find items and navigate through the site.
The shop is trustable and has a great customer service.

Variety of products and that they can find everything they need was mentioned the most and it is understandable. Especially since Covid-19 hit the world. Most of us were pushed to buy more (or only) online. You see, not everyone bought things online before. Many people experienced online shopping for the first time and just are not used to before. Also, with increase of online shopping highlighted the importance of UI and that leads to UX. If a consumer struggles to find the item or finish the purchase they just move on to another site. Shop that provides a better user experience is just a click away.