Ecommerce Website Design

An Eye-Opening Guide

Did you know that 43% of shoppers use the internet and social networks to research products before purchasing, and it is expected that by 2024, eCommerce revenue will be worth $476 billion in the U.S?

There is no way retailers can stay offline if they want to maximize their audience reach. Ecommerce websites define your business while helping you gain resilience and reach new markets.

If you are thinking of expanding your retail & offline business to online, an eCommerce website can give you brand recognition as well as a worldwide market to sell your products.

A dedicated site for your business is a complete solution that renders you the control over every aspect of your customer experience ranging from branding to shipping and customer service.

As we move further with the eCommerce website design and development, let us see the future and scope of the eCommerce opportunities.

In 2019, sales in online stores were 14.1% and are expected to reach up to 22% by 2023. This growth in global retail sales is due to the shift in the shopping trends.

Business owners must take advantage and give their customers a way to buy soon while also reaching out to overseas or international consumers.

If you see the eCommerce sales of Q1 in 2020, even during the pandemic, people were seen shopping online leading to continuous growth throughout the year. The first quarter of eCommerce sales in 2020 was 11.5%.

There are multiple reasons that justify that you should move from offline to online delivering excellent online services and building brand loyalty.

Reasons to Invest In an Ecommerce Website

New Market Acquisitions — Reach new customers online that you otherwise might not be able to reach with brick-and-mortar sales.

Creating Unique Experiences — Create a direct impact on the customers’ journey with personalized services for an exceptional shopping experience.

Strengthening the Brand — Have complete control over your products, unlike not getting recognized when you sell them on big platforms, such as Amazon or eBay.

Now that we have analyzed how an eCommerce site provides opportunities to the business, let us move further with the designing part of the website.

Ecommerce Website Checklist to Consider

In order to have a perfect eCommerce website by your side, there are three things that you need to master — aesthetics, functions, and user experience. A very less number of websites have all these factors under control resulting in a continuous flow of traffic and customer retention. Let’s understand these factors one by one.

Aesthetics

In order to build a website that should be liked by a customer, you will have to think from their perspective. Before using personal choices for the website, think twice about how a particular color, font, layout, or image would look on your website. Customers will surely spend more time on the website they like that includes all types of engagement.

Color Scheme

One of the most subjective aspects of web design is creating a visually-appealing website with the proper color. You can use color theory to identify which colors look good and which don’t. The easiest method is by using a color wheel. The color wheel will help you use either analogous colors that are close together or complementary colors that stand opposite each other.

Where analogous helps to deliver harmony in design, complementary colors are best to use for smaller elements. Value and saturation are also essential factors that can be tweaked that match the brand identity as well as draw some attention.

Layout

Customers expect to read content in a natural fashion that allows them to move their eyes easily. Even if the page is full of images and little text, viewers want to have quick moments of pause that let their eyes rest and absorb the information.

Hence it is important to create these moments of rest. Working on the layout becomes critical, giving their visitors a comfortable environment to absorb the information. Using a grid-based layout with sufficient white space between products and other elements gives rest to the eyes.

Graphics

Every part of the website includes all graphical elements, such as page backgrounds, logo, banner images, & much more. In order to deliver professionalism, eCommerce brands use high-quality graphics. So, you can underline these quick and few tips offered by any eCommerce web development services provider -

• Stop saving images in lossy or JPG file format.
• Avoid scaling the images to use on your website.
• Use only a modern image format that supports a full range of colors.
• Have nice smooth edges of all images to convey quality associated with your business.
• Avoid cluttering pages with unnecessary logos, buttons, or other elements.

Good Photography

Product photography can inspire the decisions of the customer. After properly editing them, you can add them to your website and allow the viewers to check the product from different angles. Always use high-quality photos with proper light and color balance while cleaning up the odds that match the criteria of the website as well as giving clarity to the users.

Adding text is also a good idea. However, if the text does not sync with the image ratio it can spoil your product image.

Delivering Content

Placing the most important text high or above all on the page gives the user necessary information without the need to scroll down. Placing information first also delivers better chances of engaging customers.

With the help of Google Analytics, you can analyze the layout of the content appropriately and where it can be placed so that it can be visible on all screen sizes (including smartphones and tablets)used by the visitors.

Clear and Easy to Read

Text is a primary method of communicating with customers hence you must choose the words that are easy to read. Every font impacts the mood of your site differently hence choose them carefully to deliver brand identity. Moreover, the font must be clear and readable, so -

• Avoid using Strange looking fonts.
• Avoid using multiple fonts in one place.
• Easy-to-read font for the main text.
• The font must match the message & mood of your brand.
• Add adequate whitespace to page layout when applying text, avoiding bad kerning.

Eliminate Clutter

Too much clutter can lead to confusion. Noise on the website usually diminishes the efficiency of capturing customer interest. Cognitive load on users will force them to abandon the website leading to loss of user count and ultimately loss of revenue.

Remove the clutter by letting only the essentials on the website. If all the content is necessary, you can move them to a different page or segregate the pieces of content below important parts.

Keep Focus On the Product

Any retailer or manufacturer’s goal is to make sales. When you design an eCommerce website, ensure that your layout supports your product allowing customers to see them easily. Categories should be made available through the drop-down menu while every other page must be laid out to captivate the audience.

Make your website product-focused, where the product’s name, image, and pricing must be mentioned high above while moving the detailed information about the product, reviews, and others downwards.

Shopping Cart

Checkout is where most customers abandon the website due to the elongated and time-consuming process. To make shopping easy for the user, use a clear call-to-action button, provide the users with adequate feedback for confirmation, and add a mini cart widget (like the one on Amazon) that helps them to navigate, discover and add more products.

You can take the design & features one step ahead by displaying the complete product details for the customer to review, rendering the ability to remove or save the product for later, and place any shipping charges or taxes with the expected delivery date to avoid abandonment.

Checkout Design

Anesthetic and modern checkout provides a great eCommerce UX. Since eCommerce success determines the number of purchases completed hence checkout design matters the most, contributing to a successful conversion.

As multiple payment options have risen, today’s shoppers have different preferences. Catering to such needs and expanding the user base, add multiple payment gateways allowing customers to complete their orders. Minimizing the number of fields, making registration-optional, and using clear & real-time error indications can contribute to faster checkout.

In a Nutshell -

Putting all these factors into an eCommerce web design will make you feel that this perfect online store must be set out to reach the customers. With the help of the premium website builders today, anyone can build a website that not just looks spending but is also feature-rich and agile to run your eCommerce business fast.

You can also connect with an eCommerce website design company to ensure the perfect design is waiting at your door, helping you to create a memorable online shopping experience that will convert your passive shoppers into loyal customers.