Carousels are a popular feature on e-commerce homepages, but their usability is often lacking. Only 28% of top e-commerce sites now use carousels, down from 52% in 2013, as their serious usability issues become more apparent.
While carousels can be visually appealing and help expose various content, they come with a long list of detailed requirements to make them truly user-friendly. Only 41% of sites with carousels have an implementation largely free of usability problems.
Ultimately, carousels require extensive effort to implement well. For most e-commerce sites, more straightforward static content sections may be a better choice, as they perform just as well with users and are much easier to develop and maintain. Carousels should only be used if the detailed UX requirements can be fully met.
