Putting sliders on your ecommerce website : A highly ignored mistake

Are sliders helpful for websites? The consensus is that they’re not. But that is too easy an answer; the truth is somewhere in between. Some web-designing gurus call it a phase, some call an easy but ineffective way out of tricky ecommerce website development situations. So here we look at sliders in an in-depth, scientific, purpose-serving manner. And just so you know, we will talk about the bad & the good.

A self-respecting ecommerce website designing company in Delhi NCR or anywhere in the world, like MMBO, will tell you that people are really INTO sliders. You’ll see them on websites, on Facebook as carousel, and even on Instagram. However, as discussed above, they don’t work as much as you would think they do. Then why do people use them?

Two reasons:

They look appealing a.k.a flashyThey showcase a lot of products in one goWhat do statistics say?In a study by Notre Dame University, a website ran a slider that got a click-through rate of barely 1%, and 80% of those clicks were on the first item on rotation. Some other websites in the study fared a little better with 1.7%, 2.3%, and even 8.8% click-through rates. However, every single time, the first item got the most clicks. Also, statistically, these websites should have had a far higher click-through rate because the audience was niche.

In another study by Beaconfire, a digital agency, four different client websites were put through the test. The CTR on every website in this study was below 1%. And once again, the maximum number of the clicks came in through the first item in rotation.

Do you want a third study? Here it is. Conversionista, a conversion rate optimization firm, ran an A/B testing on their client Grizzly Zoo’s website. In one version, they used a large image slider on the homepage, while on the other version, they used a static image. Which one do you think fared better? Visitors clicked on the static image over 40% of the time, while the slider got a CTR of about 2%.

Why are sliders bad?· They cause banner blindness

People conceive sliders as advertisements. So, over time they choose to ignore them; this is called banner blindness. No matter how good your slider looks, no matter how you brand them, they will end up looking like an ad, and people will avoid them, consciously or unconsciously. Ask any reputed website designing and development company you want, and they’ll tell you how much people detest brands that use "sneaky ads" in the form of anything but ads. This is how people mostly see your sliders.

• They distract, confuse, & overwhelm

Sliders intend to represent different products with different characteristics, one after another. In a matter of seconds, the view changes, and people do not have time to focus on what you’re showing. It’s true that our attention span online has decreased; but, not to 2/3 seconds. Also, according to ecommerce website development statistics, such images distract and confuse people. Options are good, but too many contrasting options take away from the importance or insistence to purchase.

If you went to an ecommerce development agency that is up to date, you’ll know that, since sliders are so fast, people can barely read the content on ONE slider, forget about clicking on a CTA button.

• They take control away from your visitors

The whole point of a website, in fact, the whole point of any ecommerce venture, is to give the visitors what they want. Sliders take away from that. How? Simply by either showing content that nobody asked for, or by moving too quickly, or by using tiny or inappropriate navigation.

Additionally, sliders chip away from user experience by simply being too slow for mobile optimization.

Where CAN you use sliders?1. If a product on your website works in a series of steps, a lot of information at once can overwhelm your visitors. So, you can use sliders to depict the different steps of product usage. It works according to many ecommerce development agencies like MMBO, a top website designing company in Delhi NCR.

1. If you update your website regularly, you can use sliders to showcase the new additions to your collection.
2. Artists, graphic designers, and ecommerce website development experts can show their skills through their portfolios designed in the form of sliders.
3. In ecommerce, websites can use sliders to highlight their best-selling or popular items.

Tying it all upThere is a right and wrong way of using sliders. No matter what the numbers say, you can use sliders to your benefit. However, you might need a little help in avoiding the grave mistakes and partaking in the slider-fest efficiently. You can find that help in a highly respected, trustworthy agency like MMBO, the best ecommerce Development Company in Delhi NCR.

As the best Digital Marketing Company in Delhi NCR, we want to deploy our interactive services to drive awareness, engagement, and conversions for your brand, we back our team and ensure you are able to establish meaningful connections.