What to look for in a high-quality eCommerce UGC integration

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What to look for in a high-quality eCommerce UGC integration

There’s nothing that gets customers bouncing off your online store faster than slow load times, poor user experience, and lazy integrations from cheap widgets that ruin the infrastructure of your site. This is why choosing a User Generated Content platform that values the integrity of your website’s foundation is really important to a successful customer content strategy. Read on to learn more about what defines a good User Generated Content integration.

What should you look for in an integration?

We cannot stress enough the importance of selecting a platform that provides the highest quality widgets. Widgets that have the smallest possible footprint – will minimize the effect on your website. This not only means that your website will maintain its current load times, it will also mean a higher-quality integration at a lower cost to the infrastructure of your eCommerce.

Widgets should be high quality 

This is something that often lets the User Generated Content strategy down so be wary when searching for a UGC platform that the technical elements are as high quality as possible as it has a huge impact on your website performance and the online buying experience so it should not be overlooked.

Take the time to find a platform that allows for not only a simple integration process but one that makes your site better, not worse. It’s also useful to find platforms that support integrations of all descriptions, with plug-and-play modules for every eCommerce platform, so that you’re getting an integration you can trust. 

Visual appeal

Of course, effective integration isn’t just about the technical aspect, UGC is a form of visual marketing. All your customers care about is what they see – so it’s important to prioritize a platform that will enable you to create an attractive integration that fits your brand image. 

UGC widgets should come with flexibility in terms of the visual displays. That way the arrangement on your website can be highly customized to work with the aesthetics and layout of your site.

User Generated Content carousel on the United Colours of Benetton website.
User Generated Content carousel on the United Colours of Benetton website.

There are many different options offered when it comes to User Generated Content integration layouts including:

  • Carousels
  • Galleries
  • Lookbook
  • Mosaics
  • Walls 
  • Masonry 
  • Circular

Dutch watchmakers CLUSE boast a seriously stylish aesthetic on their site which is perfectly arranged in the form of a lookbook. The lookbook assigns different sizes to different images to create a visually pleasing mosaic. Take a look at the snapshot taken from CLUSE’s Lookbook below: 

CLUSE User Generated Content Integration

Customizable

Then, with a feature like a Customizable Widget Editor, you can build stylish UGC galleries and carousels that match the rest of your website, helping to improve the entire buying process with a pleasing aesthetic and user experience. All of this is crucial to creating a UGC strategy that converts and should be at the top of your list when it comes to choosing the best partner for your brand.

Small footprint 

Flowbox widget performance relies on our tool having the smallest widget footprint possible, which makes sure that the load times of our client websites are positively affected by the UGC integration. Having a small footprint really is a must for UGC integrations, as site performance has large repercussions in the fast-paced eCommerce space – consumers really don’t want to wait to connect with their favorite products, and slow loading times can cost companies precious conversions. 

Simple integration process 

A high-quality integration is of course of great importance, but another important aspect of UGC platform value for companies is simplicity. Companies want to integrate a widget that isn’t going to disrupt their eCommerce efforts, so a platform that has a talented technical support team that can do the heavy lifting is essential. Simão Figueiredo, the eCommerce & UX Specialist at Salsa Jeans, had a positive and straightforward integration experience with Flowbox, sharing the following in our Salsa Jeans Case Study

“The platform is working super well. Any problems we had, I spoke with the Flowbox team and they helped us a lot to change everything that we wanted to change. It was a good choice, and we are super happy to be working with this kind of strategy, and in particular with Flowbox.”

Simão Figueiredo – eCommerce & UX Specialist at Salsa Jeans

Unlimited integration

Now, let’s talk about the depth of your integration. A top UGC platform will provide you with unlimited widgets that seamlessly integrate into several areas of the website, homepage, and across the online buying journey. This includes product pages, specific collections to match certain themes on your site, or even category pages where brands can show content based on specific criteria (man, woman, children, etc.) All of this means that you can successfully enrich the website shopping experience by showcasing social proof in all the right areas of the buying journey. 

UGC Integrations: Summing up

When it comes to integrating UGC into your eCommerce, one word is vital – quality. As discussed above, high-quality integrations are customizable, unlimited,  visually appealing, boast a small footprint, and make things easy for businesses during the integration process.