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After years of lag, the Canadian ecommerce market is finally on rise. According to Canada ecommerce stats, online sales in Canada are estimated to reach 29 billion Canadian dollars by 2021, up from 18.3 billion last year. Such a booming scene assures immense prospects for budding UBC grads aspiring to launch their own startup. However, the boosted market also attracts tremendous competition.

So, how can you stand out among the scores of ecommerce websites today? Experts stress on making your site more user-friendly to visitors. You only have a few seconds to grasp their attention. If they don’t feel comfortable browsing your site, they won’t hesitate to check your competitors. Here’s a few tips on how you can increase your site’s usability:

Concise & brief sign-up forms

Don’t bore your visitors with lengthy, detailed sign-up forms. It’s a busy world and you have to make things fast for your users. The primary thing you need as an online store is a user’s email and password. You don’t really need to know secondary details like address, occupation, etc. Your customers will prefer a short and concise sign-up form that they can fill in seconds.

Prominent CTA buttons

Higher conversion rates are fundamental to thrive in today’s ruthless competition. The CTA button is one of your most potent weapons to leverage the conversion rate of your store. But you must be careful about its placement and appearance. If your visitors can’t find it, there will be no clicks and no conversion. Don’t make them search for your CTA button. Place it somewhere they can find it easily the moment they land on your homepage.

Incorporate search functionality

Your ecommerce site should also incorporate “search” functionality at the top of the page. It’s better letting them define what they want rather than making them scroll forever through your extensive list.

Mobile app integration

This is another important point to ensure a user-friendly ecommerce site. More than 17 percent of Canadian buyers use mobile for online purchases. Thus, make sure to get the app version of your store online so you don’t miss out on this market.

“If you neglect mobile-based shoppers, you are going to miss out on a huge buyer base. Thus, when choosing an ecommerce builder, make sure it ‘s equipped to help with app integration for your store”, stated Catalin Zorzini, the CEO of leading ecommerce review guide ecommerce platforms.

Help shoppers with breadcrumb navigation

Buying a product from an online store involves a number of steps. Your customers want to keep track of their previous steps while progressing to subsequent ones to understand their current progress with the other. Thus, experts advise integration of breadcrumb navigation into an ecommerce site to make it more user-friendly. Breadcrumb navigation will leave traces of previous steps for the shopper as they move from one step to another. This way, they can easily get back to preceding steps and edit the necessary details (if needed). Breadcrumb navigation will also show the consequent steps a shopper has to complete to finalize the order. Altogether it provides them with a complete picture of the whole ordering and buying process so that they are not lost midway. Finally, be careful to detail the break-up of the total payment so that there are no unexpected charges for the customer.