A good UX is a key determinant of your brand’s success.
Research shows that 88% of customers avoid revisiting a website after a bad user experience. Why? Because websites with messed up navigation compound existing problems rather than solving them.
Even if your product is good, a poorly designed interface, confusing navigation, or a slow checkout process can drive away new customers and tarnish your brand’s reputation.
The consequences of poor design choices build over time, ultimately harming your business.
In this article, we’ll explore the hidden costs of bad UX and how poor design affects revenue.
How does poor UX design affect revenue?
Any design that stops the users from having a frictionless user experience is termed as poor design. A poor UX design doesn’t only frustrate users, it also affects revenue.
Source: JoBins
When users spend hours browsing through overcomplicated layouts, slow load times, and complicated forms, they leave before converting. This results in a low conversion rate and a high bounce rate leading to lost revenue over time.
A study reveals that businesses miss 35% of sales on the table because of bad UX. Instead of driving growth, a poorly designed UX eats up your profits because you have to reinvest in building better designs for maximum revenue and customer loyalty.
This shows that UX design is a key differentiator of your brand since it is an important element in determining user experience.
Impact on Revenue
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Increased Customer Acquisition Costs
According to PwC, one in three customers leave after a single poor experience with a brand. A bad user experience not only affects the existing customers but also makes it harder to attract new ones.
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Reduced Average Order Value (AOV)
A bad user experience can limit average order value because customers struggle to find additional products or services to purchase, leading to lower revenue. A clear design accompanies the user to find and buy more products.
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Direct Revenue Loss
Research indicates that companies can lose up to $2 billion annually due to slow-loading websites and frustrating user interfaces. Investing in UX in the early stage of your business is a smart decision to avoid such losses.
Hidden Costs of a Bad UX
The truth is—every lost visitor is lost revenue. A bad UX not only hurts finances but also incurs the following hidden costs:
1. Lower Conversion Rates
Customers want easy navigation to perform their desired tasks, so simplify their journey with a clear and intuitive UX design. If the user is unable to find the required information because they find the interface too complicated, they’ll walk away.
Also, users generally access websites on their mobile phones. If the CTAs aren’t clear, texts are not readable, and load times aren’t fast, conversion rates get reduced.
2. Decline in Brand Reputation
Even a single bad experience makes users think twice before trusting your brand. If users associate your website’s UX with frustration, it becomes difficult to regain the brand’s positive identity.
A clunky, confusing, or outdated UX design encourages users to doubt your product and look elsewhere to accomplish their goals. This erosion of trust spreads through word of mouth and creates a bad public perception about your brand.
62% of customers admit that they share bad user experience with others.
In fact, consumers are 2X more inclined towards sharing a bad user experience than a good one. Although a strong brand is built on trust and reliability, a bad UX can destroy both.
3. Falling Behind the Competitors
As mentioned above, users tend to share their bad experiences with a product on social media and other online review committees. This gives your competitors the upper hand to meet the user expectations and promote themselves as a better option.
The consumers who leave are most likely to land on your competitor’s product or website.
Not only do you lose market share but also visibility and credibility. In contrast, platforms with seamless UX promote user engagement and help users monetize their time. The easier you make it for users to achieve their goals, the better your bottom line.
4. Increased Support Costs
A poorly designed user experience demands the unnecessary attention of the customer support team because of the surge in complaints and repeated inquiries. This results in investing more time, effort, and money in support staff.
The time spent on resolving repetitive queries diverts resources from high-value tasks, increasing workload and operational costs.
The exact scenario occurred with Apple when they launched Apple Maps, which was a disaster in terms of design and usability, costing them $30 billion.
Source: Yahoo
5. Lost Sales Opportunities
The customer is one glitch away from leaving your website. When users encounter a cluttered interface, they find it difficult to locate required tools and execute tasks.
For example, a vulnerable checkout process that involves a long form with multiple questions and slow-loading payment pages. This frustrates the user, encouraging them to leave the checkout process midway.
This issue isn’t just limited to e-commerce businesses. Service-based platforms, including those offering paid chat jobs, also suffer when users struggle with complex onboarding processes or poor navigation. If job seekers cannot easily find or apply for roles, they may abandon the platform altogether, leading to lost revenue for the business.
On calculating this closely—considering your website receives 1000 visits daily, if 10% of users drop off due to a bad experience, this results in 100 lost sales opportunities every day.
6. High Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who abandon a site after viewing only one page. As most users view websites on mobile, research says that the average bounce rate for mobile users is 67.4%.
A bad UX is a significant contributor to this statistic. If your website has excessive pop-ups, unclear directions, and disorganized information, bounce rates are guaranteed to increase.
A high bounce rate is a direct sign of inefficiency of your website, and you must focus on rebuilding before it’s too late.
Final Thoughts
Based on the article, it is fair to conclude that bad UX is not just an inconvenience—it’s a silent revenue killer. It’s natural for users to form an opinion about your product or website after experiencing its usability.
A bad UX design has the power to disrupt your business with the mentioned hidden costs. In contrast, a well-optimized UX not only boosts user satisfaction, but also improves conversions, sales, brand reputation, and overall business growth.
Author Bio:
Vaibhav as a Content Marketing Specialist holds experience of 2+ years with key holding on content strategy, collaborations, content distribution, etc. In addition to this, he helps various SaaS websites acquire high-authority backlinks.
