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To improve ecommerce customer experience, make it easier for people to find and evaluate products, give them clear information at the point of choice, remove avoidable checkout hurdles, design for mobile deliberately, and make post-purchase tasks simple. These improvements span the journey from product discovery through order tracking—not just the homepage.
Where ecommerce experiences commonly fall short
Baymard Institute’s benchmarks show substantial room to improve product-page and checkout usability across desktop, mobile, and app experiences. In Baymard’s benchmarks, “mediocre-or-worse” describes the experience ratings in its evaluation; it does not mean that every site has the same problems or that every store should make the same changes.
| Baymard benchmark | Desktop | Mobile | Apps | Publication or update |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product-page UX rated mediocre or worse | 52% | 62% | 64% | Product Page UX 2026: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices, updated March 18, 2026 |
| Checkout UX rated mediocre or worse | 64% | 63% | 46% | Checkout UX 2025: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices, updated November 25, 2025 |
These are Baymard’s benchmark findings, not market-wide measurements or predictions of the result a redesign will produce. Baymard’s benchmark research largely covers leading US and European ecommerce sites, while the shopper survey discussed below covers US respondents. A store’s product category, audience, region, and catalog complexity can change which usability problems matter most.
1. Make product discovery and evaluation easier
A shopper who cannot find suitable items—or cannot compare them efficiently—may never reach the product page that could answer their questions. Treat navigation, category pages, and filters as part of the buying experience, not just as site organization.
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Help shoppers narrow the catalog
- Use category names and navigation labels that make the catalog structure understandable.
- Offer filters that reflect real purchase decisions for the category. For example, shoppers may need to narrow items by size, compatibility, material, or another relevant attribute; the useful filters depend on what is being sold.
- Make the selected filters visible and provide a clear way to adjust or remove them. Check that a shopper can tell why the results changed.
- Review search and navigation using common shopping tasks: can someone locate a product for a stated need, and can they distinguish the relevant category from similar ones?
Baymard’s 2026 product-page article reports that product pages are central to purchase decisions, but discovery determines whether shoppers reach the right decision point. The practical goal is a coherent path from category or search results to a product that fits the shopper’s needs.
2. Make product pages useful and confidence-building
A product page should answer the questions a shopper needs to judge the item and its trade-offs. Put the information close to the purchase decision rather than expecting people to infer it from a short description or hunt through unrelated pages.
Put decision-critical details where shoppers need them
- Show clear product specifications that matter for the category, with terminology shoppers can understand.
- Use useful imagery to help people assess the item. Where relevant, images should make important details or variations easier to evaluate.
- Make price and availability clear, including relevant distinctions such as selected options or variants.
- Make delivery and returns information discoverable from the product decision point. Shoppers should be able to understand applicable terms before committing to checkout.
- Let shoppers explore reviews as part of evaluation. Review content is most useful when it helps people judge the product, rather than serving as an isolated score with no context.
These are practical implications of Baymard’s product-page research, not a mandatory feature checklist for every store. A retailer should prioritize details that help customers assess its particular products. A clothing page, a replacement-part listing, and a digital subscription do not need identical content to answer their buyers’ questions.
Baymard’s Product Page UX 2026: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices was first published October 24, 2023, and updated March 18, 2026. Its benchmark figures indicate that usability issues remain common across evaluated desktop, mobile, and app product pages, but they do not identify the specific issue on any one merchant’s site.
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3. Remove avoidable checkout friction
Checkout is where shoppers provide information and commit to a purchase. Make the path understandable, avoid unnecessary account hurdles, and disclose fulfillment and total costs clearly before payment. Baymard’s 2025 checkout article recommends making guest checkout prominent; its expanded 2024 checkout study update describes more than 200 qualitative user/site checkout usability sessions informing updated guidance.
Make the purchase path clear
- Show guest checkout as an easy-to-see option. Do not make account creation appear to be the only way to buy if a guest path is available.
- Reduce unnecessary account barriers. Ask for information needed to complete the order, rather than adding avoidable hurdles before purchase.
- Use understandable form fields. Labels and instructions should make clear what information belongs in each field and how to correct an error.
- Explain fulfillment and total costs before payment. Make delivery terms and the amount due clear before the shopper completes the transaction.
- Walk through checkout as a customer. Try the sequence from cart to payment and note any point where the next action, a required field, or a cost is unclear.
In 2024 E-Commerce Checkout: Expanded and Updated Checkout Research Findings, published March 13, 2024, Baymard Institute’s research team noted that user issues and needs tend to remain largely the same even as design trends change. The practical implication is to solve task and comprehension problems rather than adopting a visual trend for its own sake.
4. Design and evaluate mobile experiences deliberately
Do not assume that a desktop design will work well simply because it has been shrunk to a phone screen. Baymard reports separate product-page and checkout benchmark results for desktop, mobile, and apps, which is a reason to evaluate each actual experience on its own.
Test the tasks customers need to complete
- Find a product from the mobile navigation, category page, or search.
- Use relevant filters and understand the resulting product choices.
- Review product details, availability, delivery or return information, and reviews.
- Enter checkout information and understand the costs and fulfillment choices before payment.
- Complete the same key tasks in the app if the retailer offers one; do not treat app and mobile-web results as interchangeable.
Observe whether people can complete the task, understand product and fulfillment information, and move through the experience without unnecessary effort. Assess accessibility as well as screen layout. Compare the results across the store’s relevant devices and channels, then prioritize issues that obstruct important tasks.
5. Support customers after payment
The customer experience continues after an order is placed. Make order status and delivery tracking easy to find, and consider account features such as order history, saved-payment management, or loyalty information when they suit the retailer’s customers and operations.
Prioritize useful account tasks
Baymard Institute’s 2026 article by Anja Meerwald, Ecommerce Quantitative UX: 3 High-Level Trends & Takeaways from 20+ Charts, describes a survey of 1,083 US online shoppers. In that survey, 51% said order status or delivery tracking was among the most important account features, and 24% identified loyalty programs as a high-priority feature. These findings reflect the surveyed US shoppers; they do not establish the preferences of every audience or prove that adding an account feature will improve a particular store’s results.
Use the findings as a reason to examine whether customers can reach common post-purchase tasks without confusion. Where account features are appropriate, make order information and tracking straightforward to locate. Add other account functions when they support an actual customer need, rather than filling the account area with features by default.
How to choose what to fix first
The five recommendations are an editorial synthesis of research on product pages, checkout, mobile and app usability, and customer accounts. They are not a five-step intervention tested together. Prioritize using evidence from your own customers and store rather than assuming that a benchmark describes your specific problem.
- Map a real shopping journey. Start at discovery and follow a representative customer task through evaluation, checkout, and the relevant post-purchase task.
- Identify the point of difficulty. Note where people cannot complete a task, misunderstand product or fulfillment information, encounter avoidable effort, or cannot find self-service support.
- Compare like with like. Review the actual desktop, mobile-web, and app experiences separately when those channels exist. Keep the task consistent so the comparison is meaningful.
- Choose a focused change. Address the clearest obstacle first—for example, making guest checkout visible or moving relevant delivery information closer to the product decision—rather than changing unrelated parts of the journey at once.
- Evaluate the result with your audience. Revisit task success, information clarity, effort, mobile usability, accessibility, and post-purchase self-service. Use your own customer feedback and store data to determine whether the change helped.
Baymard’s benchmarks can point to areas worth examining, but they cannot guarantee a conversion lift or substitute for evaluating a merchant’s own audience and experience.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Frequently Asked Questions
Are all five improvements necessary for every online store?
No. The relevant product information, filters, account functions, and checkout details depend on the products, customers, and purchase flow. Treat the five areas as places to examine, then focus on problems that affect your own customers’ tasks.
Does a good desktop experience mean the mobile experience is good too?
No. Baymard reports distinct benchmark results for desktop, mobile, and apps. Evaluate the actual mobile site or app rather than inferring its usability from the desktop version.
Do the benchmark figures predict how much a redesign will increase sales?
No. They describe Baymard’s evaluated ecommerce experiences and survey findings within their stated scope. They are not a promised result for an individual redesign; assess changes using your own customers and store data.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Are all five improvements necessary for every online store?
No. The relevant product information, filters, account functions, and checkout details depend on the products, customers, and purchase flow. Treat the five areas as places to examine, then focus on problems that affect your own customers’ tasks.
Does a good desktop experience mean the mobile experience is good too?
No. Baymard reports distinct benchmark results for desktop, mobile, and apps. Evaluate the actual mobile site or app rather than inferring its usability from the desktop version.
Do the benchmark figures predict how much a redesign will increase sales?
No. They describe Baymard’s evaluated ecommerce experiences and survey findings within their stated scope. They are not a promised result for an individual redesign; assess changes using your own customers and store data.
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