Retail UX in 2020: the impact of changing consumer behavior

During the pandemic, retailers had to rethink operations, supply chains, and entire online experiences. Some struggled to keep websites up and running, others tried to match customer expectations around delivery and stock availability.

By looking back at the state of ecommerce during the pandemic, we can better understand the continued impact that a global health crisis can have on UX.

UX under pressure

Covid-19 had an impact on user experience in a number of ways. First of all, the sheer volume of traffic for some retailers presented challenges for website performance.

In terms of site stability and performance, slow load times meant a poor experience. It’s also about usability – if you have any areas of friction during the checkout, these problems are amplified when more people are shopping on the site.

There was also an impact on the user research process. Common techniques like usability testing in physical labs have been impossible under the circumstances, while it’s hard to benchmark performance when traffic and customer behavior wasn't normal.

For this reason, the usual research process has been impacted for some retailers.

As Matt Curry, Head of e-commerce at a major UK retailer, pointed out during the pandemic, in "unusual" situations, it isn’t always possible for retailers to test as normal:

“We are using this time to get through as much development as possible – we can’t do any A/B or multivariate testing as the traffic isn’t usual”

It helps if retailers have carried out plenty of testing in the past, as this can help to inform new developments. For example, Matt had a backlog of won test variants that can be implemented based on what they’ve already learned.

Another positive of the pandemic was that there was an opportunity to carry out different research, as Matt pointed out:

“In terms of user research, one of our designers is taking this time as an opportunity to conduct closed group research on our branding, since they would normally be busy right now creating a catalog, but we haven’t been able to shoot anything.“

One issue for retailers was that, with a greater shift to online meaning extra demand, and with variable stock availability, UX became even more important.

By contrast, poor UX was even more apparent, as James Gurd pointed out:

“I don’t think Covid-19 has fundamentally changed UX challenges for online, simply amplified poor UX because more people are online and for longer.”

The effects on offline retail channels became ever more important for multichannel retailers, as James Gurd also pointed out in 2020:

“I know several companies that have reprioritize internal development resources to improve core site speed and performance, now that their sole revenue channel is online. It shouldn’t necessitate a global pandemic to take performance seriously, but at least there will be some UX gains for consumers out of this.”

Another interesting result was a spike in desktop traffic in some categories. Less commuting and fewer people going out reduced mobile shopping to some extent. This trend may have been temporary, but it was a reminder that desktop UX will remain important, especially in sectors such as travel and finance where checkout and form completion can be easier on a larger screen.

The pandemic also led retailers to design solutions for problems that were previously unforeseen. For example, dealing with customer service when call centers are harder to staff, or allowing limited numbers of customers into stores.

Some retailers looked to quickly design solutions for this issue, while others opted for third party solutions, as Matt Curry explained:

“One thing I’m looking at this week is an online appointment booking system for the stores so that they can be open by appointment only and only have one customer in at a time. We’re looking at a third party system for this, one that gives sales assistants the opportunity to provide a remote shopping experience via video.“

The long-term effects on e-commerce

As more businesses shift online, and existing online businesses scale up or adapt to changing customer behavior, the digital experience has never been more vital – it’s what enables businesses to retain their new customers and will underpin their future growth.

As physical stores have now reopened, online channels have eased to some degree, but many of the changes in customer behavior will have long-term effects.

The choice and convenience of online shopping is here to stay.