Best practices

What else do we recommend for a positive Buy with Prime shopper experience?

In addition to implementing a successful Buy with Prime shopper experience, we also recommend these ecommerce best practices to help your brand acquire and retain new customers, continually improve your shopper experience, and streamline your website.

Help shoppers understand pricing

Recommendation: Make it clear earlier in the shopper’s purchase what they’ll be paying and whether they’re getting a good deal. For example, by offering free shipping, displaying the cost per use for consumables across different sizes and bundle options, offering a rewards program for subscriptions, or offering a price match guarantee if the product goes on sale after a customer has purchased it.

Shopper goal: Know I am getting a good deal.

Impact: Save time for shoppers in comparing costs of their purchase when comparing items across different websites. Reduce surprise costs for shoppers when they get to checkout (according to Baymard Institute, 48% of shoppers abandon checkout due to high extra costs like shipping and taxes that are calculated at checkout).

Help shoppers understand the quality of your products

Recommendation: Shoppers often find that the details about a product offered by the store are not sufficient because it can only show the product in a positive light. Include videos or photos by other customers in a “real-world” context to show the product in use. Include embedded influencer or subject matter expert product reviews with more context about the product and how it’s used.

Shopper goal: Know a product is as good as it is described.

Impact: By having more information and tools for comparison on your website, shoppers can spend less time hunting across the web for more information and feel more confident in making a purchase.

Make return information easy to discover

Recommendation: Make it easy for shoppers to discover your return policy, requirements and costs before they make a purchase (for example, by embedding this content in a collapsible section or linking to it from the product page). Include information about Buy with Prime returns on your return policy page. Offer convenient return options like returning to a nearby store location.

Shopper goal: Understand my return and purchase coverage options.

Impact: Give shoppers confidence in making their purchase to know they will not be wasting time or money on a new product or company.

Streamline the checkout experience with a single step

Recommendation: Customers want to complete their purchase with minimal effort and time. Shoppers prefer options that reduce the amount of information they need to type in (e.g., name, address, card number) and don’t require them to locate their physical credit card to enter the number, especially when that card wasn’t close at hand. Offer online payment services to give shoppers a greater sense of security and a fast way to check out with their saved information. For guest checkout, reduce the number of steps required and don’t require shoppers to create an account.

Shopper goal: Make it convenient to get my product.

Impact: Save shopper time and reduce checkout abandonment by offering payment services and reducing the number of manual entry steps in your checkout.

Tell your brand story

Recommendation: When shoppers discover a new brand, they want to verify it’s a company they can trust. Help your shoppers understand and connect with your brand by including an about us page, and be transparent about details like materials, manufacturing process, company motivation and goals, and showing how engaged your brand is with customers.

Shopper goal: Learn more about a brand

Impact: Help shoppers get to know your brand and build a relationship with shoppers.

Make it easy to discover products offering Buy with Prime

Make it easy for shoppers to discover all the items on your site that offer Buy with Prime. This can be achieved through a Buy with Prime filter, or a collections page that talks about Buy with Prime and features Prime eligible items. See examples on the Buy with Prime Merchant Brand Guidelines.

Other site basics to consider

Finally, outside of meeting shoppers’ core needs, every site should consider the following to ensure their website is usable and delightful for customers:

1. Does your website load quickly? Shoppers expect sites to work quickly, and load times over 1 second can disrupt a shopper’s flow.
2. Is your website accessible (and therefore usable) by all shoppers?
3. How does your website look on different devices? Is your website as easy to use on mobile as it is on desktop?
4. Are there any extra or unnecessary steps in the process that could be removed?
5. Is your website copy simple and clear?