A group of people shop in a digital apparel site represented by a large laptop. People are looking at shirts, shoes, pants, and other apparel items in this store.

August 26, 2024

11 Ways An Outdated Apparel E-Commerce Website Can Cost You

When was the last time you audited your apparel brand’s e-commerce UX? Do you have a solid understanding of what shoppers experience when they use your website or do you spend most of your time looking at analytics and sales numbers?

If it’s been years since your last site update, you can bet your brand has fallen behind. Now more than ever, users expect a premium experience when shopping online, and your competitors continually work to raise the bar.

Here’s a look at 11 ways your outdated apparel website is costing you customers and conversions.

1. Missing Structured Data/Schema Markup

Also known as schema markup, structured data is standardized code that tells search engines what site details to include on SERPs.

If your apparel e-commerce brand is like most and you get over half of your traffic through organic search, optimizing your site’s structured data is essential. That’s because structured data helps search engines understand the purpose and context of each page, helping you gain more search visibility.

Structured data is also required for a page to be included in Google’s rich results like featured snippets and knowledge panels.

Since rich results have come to take up a larger share of prime SERP real estate in recent years, appearing in rich results can make a huge difference for your brand.

Use Google’s Rich Results Test to determine if your site already includes structured data.

If a schema markup is present, you’re off to a great start! However, it’s worth collecting a sampling of structured data from various pages across your site, including the home page, blog pages, product pages, and collection pages. Review these pages with your development team to ensure the structured data is being used correctly.

If the test shows you have no structured data, you have two options:

Confident in your development background? Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to start building your own structured data.
More of a big-picture person? Connect with your development team and ask them to add this task to their queue.

2. The Header Navigation Menu Is a Mess

Shoppers gather in an apparel e-commerce store, symbolized by the large laptop. Around the scene are various signs with question marks to denote that some shoppers are lost or don't know where to go next.

Before your site launched, your team spent time organizing product collections and the rest of the pages across your site, then built a clear, concise header navigation menu.

This menu is pivotal. If users can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll return to the search engine or social media platform they came from and explore a different brand.

There are many ways a header navigation menu can become cluttered, fragmented, and less useful over time. Commonly, products or collections are added, removed, or consolidated.

Throw a site migration or even a change of ownership into the mix, and things can become complicated quickly.

That’s why a regular checkup is key to keeping your navigation menu useful and uncluttered. Explore every link in the menu, ensure it functions properly, and make sure you’ve left nothing out.

A thorough exploration of your header navigation menu also presents an excellent opportunity to clean up your site as a whole.

If you struggle with overlapping product listings on collection pages, for example, that could be a sign that it’s time to merge collections or recategorize orphaned products under “Best Sellers.”

One final note: Breadcrumb navigation is worth implementing if you aren’t already using it.

Not only do breadcrumbs make it easy for your users to get their bearings and navigate your site, but it’s also an effective way to minimize the click depth of your pages to maximize discoverability.

3. Your Search Tool Isn’t Helpful

The search tool and your header navigation menu are designed to help users find what they’re looking for quickly.

But if your search tool doesn’t prioritize results based on relevance, suggest popular terms via autocomplete, or let users filter results, it’s not doing your users or your brand any favors.

For starters, your search tool needs to be visible enough that people will actually use it. Sometimes the spyglass icon is enough, but on other sites it makes more sense to fully display the search box itself. What’s right for your brand depends on your site’s layout.

Like the rest of your site, you should optimize the search tool for mobile devices. It should also, use analytics to understand trends and user behavior to provide the best possible results.

4. Pages Take Forever To Load

There’s a clear correlation between conversion rate and page load speed. The better your site performs, the more likely visitors are to explore and convert.

But if your pages load slowly, expect a disappointingly high bounce rate.

There are two informative, practical ways to test your site’s loading speed:

Explore the site for yourself on both desktop and mobile
Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

The PageSpeed Insights tool is a great resource because it provides scores across four categories, each with a breakdown of individual issues and how they negatively impact your site.

Under the performance section, common issues include large layout shifts, excessive main thread work, and too much third-party script.

These latter two are symptoms of a common issue among e-commerce marketers—many mistakenly believe that adding scripts and third-party apps is necessary to enhance their apparel sites.

Some apps can be valuable and are often used without consequence. But the more scripts you pile on, the more server requests your site is forced to make. Before long, your website will slow to a crawl.

Reducing JavaScript and CSS usage—as well as minifying wherever possible—is key to maintaining site health and ensuring optimal performance. Lazy loading, image compression, and eliminating landing page redirects will also deliver meaningful results.

It’s also important to use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on each part of your site to ensure the best possible performance on mobile devices.

5. Your Apparel E-Commerce Site Isn’t Optimized for Mobile Users

A person shops online in an apparel e-commerce store. They are holding a smartphone displaying various apparel items for sale. Beyond the display are two racks with clothing and various shelves holding hats and shoes.

If you haven’t updated your site to deliver a superior mobile experience, consider the following:

Over half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices.
Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means the mobile version of your site is considered first and foremost when Google determines organic search rankings.

Often, people shopping in a physical store will use their phones to see if they can find an identical or similar product online at a lower price.

In addition, recent studies show more and more people are using mobile devices as a “second screen” while they stream movies or shows. That means if they see a relevant ad or an appealing product in the program itself, they can search for it online almost instantly.

So if your apparel site isn’t optimized for mobile e-commerce, you could be missing out in a big way.

How Can I Optimize My Site for Mobile?

Responsive design is the foundation of mobile optimization. With a responsive design, your site will adapt to fit any screen size.

Next, take a mobile-first approach to designing your site. This includes page layout, navigation, loading times, and other features.

Use Pop-Ups Sparingly: Use them where necessary, but keep in mind that pop-ups are even more off-putting on mobile devices than they are on desktop. Weigh the measured advantages of pop-ups against their impact on your bounce rate.
Optimize Images to Preserve Loading Speed: The larger an image, the longer it takes to load, and this delay can be exacerbated further by the limited processing power of mobile devices. Always compress images before uploading them to your site.
Ensure Adequate Sizing and Spacing for Touch Targets: If buttons, menu items, or links are too small to tap, they’re essentially useless. Even worse are pop-ups with impossibly small “close” buttons. If Google identifies this issue on your site, it will impact your Accessibility score, which assesses site performance for users with disabilities or impairments.
Choose Fonts Wisely: If your font is difficult to read on mobile, it will steer users away. Be sure to consider font size as well because a font that’s too small to read will have the same impact.
Optimize Performance and Speed: Keep the performance-related items we discussed in the last section top-of-mind, and remember that most of these issues will have an even more pronounced effect for mobile users.
Test Thoroughly: Test the mobile version of your site on multiple devices and, ideally, multiple networks to identify common issues and edge cases. You can also get a reliable baseline by analyzing individual URLs using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

6. Your Pages Have Little to No Helpful Content

You’ve probably noticed this article is largely focused on user experience elements. An outstanding UX is key to driving traffic, conversions, and revenue, and content is the cornerstone of any solid UX.

Google’s Helpful Content Update of 2022 has since become the Helpful Content System, which should be an unambiguous sign to all digital marketers that high-quality, people-first content is vital.

Why Is Content an Essential Part of E-Commerce SEO?

Content helps people understand each page on your website. Clear, concise, comprehensive content helps users make informed choices.

For many e-commerce marketers, product descriptions are the first thing that comes to mind when they think of content. But best-of-web content should span your entire site, from the “About Us” section to your blog, collection pages, and elsewhere.

You can also enhance your sales funnels with content by creating personalized experiences for your most valuable customer personas.

How Do I Use Content to Improve My Apparel E-Commerce Site?

Don’t just add content for the sake of pleasing the algorithm. Instead, before you start writing your copy, consider how content can improve the usability of each page.

With a clear function in mind, you’ll have a much easier time writing your content. You can expect to see a higher ROI from your efforts because the content will focus on achieving specific goals.

For example, consider a typical collection page for a fashion brand. Let’s suppose the collection is petite dresses for work. There’s a title with an H1 tag at the top, a dropdown menu for filters, a grid of product listings, and not much else.

What content can you add to this page to turn visits into conversions? In other words, how can you help each user find what they’re looking for?

A buying guide is an excellent place to start. It doesn’t need to be a novel—just long enough to highlight the unique features of each product type. This helps users identify the product(s) most likely to meet their needs, which saves them time browsing.

Even more helpful would be a product comparison grid that includes a high-quality image, product name, price, and features of each product in the collection. This visual approach helps users understand and navigate the collection quicker, which means they’re hitting “Add to Cart” that much faster.

7. The Site Lacks Sufficient Product Sizing Information

While shopping for apparel online is convenient, it has one downside: you can’t try something on before buying it.

Ordering an item that doesn’t fit is a huge letdown and could motivate shoppers to avoid your brand in the future. For this reason, providing comprehensive sizing and fit information is a must for every apparel e-commerce brand.

Some users will look for AR try-on tools. Others will simply want a sizing chart with measurements they understand.

Don’t leave anyone out. Include both of these options along with a thorough product description and common sizing recommendations, such as, “For the best fit, order one size smaller than you typically would.”

In addition, be sure to feature high-quality images of the actual product (and variants) on a real person. Include relevant details about each product and the model pictured—such as their height—to give shoppers an idea of how the product may fit.

Returns are a drag on all apparel brands, and they’re not 100% avoidable. However, by being upfront about a product’s fit, you can set customer expectations accurately and hopefully see a drop in returns over time.

8. Pages Aren’t Working as Part of a Sales Funnel

A couple goes through the apparel e-commerce buying process. One the far left, the couple is looking at clothes on a rack. In the middle, the same couple has a shirt in a shopping cart. On the right, the couple is at the checkout stand purchasing the item.

You’ve probably seen websites that look haphazard, aimless, or ineffectual. Unfortunately, even in 2024, plenty of brands have websites simply because they feel like they should.

Placeholder websites do nothing to bring a return on digital marketing investment.

Of course, the purpose of an e-commerce site is to attract traffic and push users to the bottom of the sales funnel. As you audit each page on your site, ask yourself: “How does this page further my business goals?”

Different funnel stages require different types of pages. Your “About Us” section, your blog, collections and product pages each serve different purposes. However, they should all be designed to deliver genuine value to the user and drive them to the next stage of your funnel.

How can you identify a page that isn’t serving this purpose?

Orphaned pages are the most obvious example. These are pages with no links pointing toward them from anywhere else on your site. A significant number of orphaned pages is a sign you need to reevaluate your internal linking structure.

Internal linking is the crucial infrastructure that makes your site’s funnel effective. A page in the “interest” stage should be designed to push users further into the “consideration” phase, and so on.

Eventually, users should end up on your product pages and, inevitably, the checkout page.

However, without a targeted internal linking strategy, your site will struggle with low conversion rates.

9. Product Variants Aren’t Consolidated

You’ve probably noticed a theme throughout this article: minimizing funnel friction. In other words, we want to ensure users can complete purchases or other conversion actions in as few steps as possible.

Users don’t want to have to navigate back and forth between variants. If you’re selling the Best Men’s Shirt, for example, build the page in a way that lets users discover all available options within a single page.

Consolidating your variants contributes to an optimal UX and helps Google and other search engines crawl your website more efficiently, which is why all the most successful e-commerce brands implement this approach.

10. Product Recommendations Aren’t Personalized

Personalized web experiences are becoming ubiquitous, and providing personalized product recommendations is a great way to both attract new users and minimize funnel friction.

Because an algorithm is required to provide personalized recommendations, and algorithms need plenty of data to work with, this isn’t for everyone. If your site is small and doesn’t see a significant amount of traffic just yet, that’s okay—stick with product recommendations based on your business goals.

However, there are a few e-commerce best practices to follow for websites with enough traffic and data for an algorithm to use.

To maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns, the first step is to accurately define your audience and segment customers. For most brands, it’s best to start with broad segmentation and gradually taper your segments based on user behavior.

As your recommendation algorithm uses data to learn about your customers, it will provide more targeted recommendations for the best results.

It’s also wise to test your recommendations often. This includes not just the number of items displayed but also where the carousel is located on the page and the title displayed.

With personalized product recommendations, you can expect a higher average order value, longer sessions, and even a reduced cart abandonment rate.

11. The Checkout Process Is Tedious and Convoluted

A person holds a smartphone with a check out screen displayed and their finger hovering over the "Check Out" button. Beyond the phone is a rack of clothing and shelves with shoes and hats.

Over two-thirds of shoppers who add items to a cart end up leaving the site before finishing the checkout process, and that figure is even higher for mobile users.

Cart abandonment is an enormous problem for e-commerce businesses. Some things that cause users to abandon their carts are beyond your control, such as messages or notifications from other apps on mobile devices that divert users’ attention.

However, you do have control over optimizing your checkout process. Here are a few steps to consider.

1. Streamline Checkout Wherever Possible

There’s always something else competing for your users’ time and attention, so you need to help them finish the checkout process as quickly as possible.

Each field you ask a user to fill out creates additional friction in the conversion process, and you need to ask whether the friction is worth it.

2. Allow Guest Checkout Without Account Creation

By mandating account creation, you’re losing out on both conversions and new users. If you view account creation as vital, at least give users the ability to log in with their Google, Apple, or social media accounts.

3. Accept All Popular Forms of Payment

Once users find that they can’t use their preferred payment method on your site, they’re unlikely to return later and give you a second chance—so get this one right the first time.

4. Make Order Review/Editing Quick and Clear

Your checkout process should conclude with a page that simply and clearly lays out the entire order: the exact item variants, quantity of each item, and price.

It should also be easy for users to remove items, add items, or edit the quantity in their cart from this page. Have obvious and appropriately sized buttons for this purpose, and include a “Continue Shopping” link at the top of the page.

5. Avoid Surprise Fees at Checkout

You may not be able to offer free shipping, but you can at least do a few things to avoid surprising users with this additional cost at checkout.

Commonly, brands display a small banner on their homepage or in the site header to advertise a flat shipping fee for orders that meet a certain price threshold. You might consider adding transparent shipping price info directly on product pages. The goal is to avoid surprising users with shipping fees at the checkout stage.

Let VELOX Media Optimize Your Apparel E-Commerce Site

A group of digital marketers analyze an apparel e-commerce store. The store is displayed on a laptop with happy shoppers looking at dresses. There is a large checklist to the right with green check marks.

As an ROI-focused agency, VELOX builds tailored strategies to drive the revenue apparel brands need to scale.

At the beginning of our partnership, we’ll analyze your business, conduct thorough keyword research, and use our New Revenue Model to show you exactly how much growth you can expect as we move your revenue-driving pages into the top organic search positions.

We’ll also guide you through the on-page optimization process to boost rankings, enhance your funnels, and minimize friction to capture more conversions.

Discover how a fully optimized website can help your brand achieve sustained search dominance. Contact VELOX today and learn about our impressive track record of building apparel e-commerce businesses.