Time and time again, we encounter eCommerce retailers that think “they know their users”. And sure, most of them have a good idea of who they are. But knowing who they are is a different story than knowing how they act, what they like, and what they don’t like about your website. In fact, these behaviors and attitudes have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of your eCommerce website converting visitors into buyers. The good news is, that you can gain insight into your users by performing user testing. An often-overlooked tool by eCommerce merchants, this tactic has typically been reserved for government organizations that are mandated to ensure their websites are accessible to everyone, and to large scale corporations with the wallet to fund user testing.

My experiences working with the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated the value generated by performing usability testing – as there was a heavy emphasis on the usability of any page or site developed. Now, some of you may be asking yourself “I’m a small company, I can’t afford to hire a firm to bring users into a room for usability testing and feedback”. Others may be thinking, “why should I care about usability testing” or “I have more important things to worry about”. However, what you should be asking yourself is “what is the opportunity cost of not performing usability testing?“