You’re ready to sell your products to the world and that means having a highly attractive “storefront” on the information superhighway. That’s what an ecommerce website is and you want the best “real estate” you can secure in the world’s virtual business district.
As for your store, you want it to deliver unbeatable experiences. From arrival to checkout, your customers will experience nothing but the best. Your success means more than just having an ecommerce website. Anyone can do that. Good ecommerce website design is what it takes to deliver on your intentions.
New to all of this? You’ll need to begin with first principles. Let’s start at the very beginning and work our way up.
What is an Ecommerce Website?
An ecommerce website allows your customers to find and buy products from your business online. But just as there are differences between physical stores you’re happy to do business with and the ones you’re reluctant to support, your ecommerce site has to meet a few requirements.
Being able to find the things you need, attractive presentation, good service, and other elements like safety and security are things you’d expect from a good brick and mortar store, and they matter in virtual stores too. That brings us to the next consideration: ecommerce website design.
What is Ecommerce Website Design and Development?
Say the word “design” and the way an ecommerce website looks is the first thing that comes to mind. It certainly is an important factor, but it’s not the only thing you should consider. User-friendliness and trust are important too, and they should guide your design decisions.
Apart from looking great, your store visitors will want your store to deliver what they’re looking for easily – nobody wants to browse your whole product range just to find what they’re looking for. Having made a purchasing decision, your customers will want to know that the information they share when making a purchase is secure, and they’ll want an easy checkout process to seal the deal.
Good ecommerce website design looks great, but it also offers ease of use and shows your customers that they’re in good hands and can transact with confidence. It begins by helping visitors to find products, displays them well, and allows purchases to be finalised safely in the fewest possible number of clicks.
What is ecommerce website development? Some people distinguish between design as a primarily aesthetic feature, and refer to “development” when talking about how a site works. Both factors are important in ecommerce, and each should contribute to the other.
Ecommerce Website Design Tips
Looking for a few hints to get your thought processes started? These top tips are supported by research and should form part of your thinking.
- Focus on what you’re trying to sell. Don’t clutter pages with distractions. Keep it clear and avoid including anything that can distract customers from the products they’re interested in.
- Carry your brand identity through to everything on the site. Brands are always important, but they’re even more vital when doing business online. They become the “face” of your business and they express its personality.
- Let your design serve your customers’ needs. Of course you’re proud of what you do, but customers are interested in meeting needs and solving problems. Make it easy for them. Prioritise their perspective.
- Choose colours with intent. Use colours purposefully to reinforce your branding, set the mood, and promote action.
- Use high-quality images. Unless you’re really good at creating professional-quality images, get a professional to help you. When you’re selling online, your images have to do the talking for you. Don’t allow low-quality images to blur the message.
- Make it easy on the eye. People are looking for something specific, and they don’t want to wade through a morass of visual clutter to find it. They should see what they want without having to exert themselves.
- Show you’re a pro. Anything that makes your website look amateurish will reflect that impression onto your business. It might even make it look like you don’t really care about what you do. Pull out all the stops to make the right impression.
- Offer evidence of customer satisfaction. Reviews, comments, ratings: if you’ve got a great business, you have happy customers. Showing people who are considering a purchase that real people are happy with their purchases from you helps to boost their confidence.
- Make navigation a breeze. Would you spend half an hour looking for something on an ecommerce website? How about ten minutes? If you answered “probably not,” you’ve hit the nail on the head. Make it easy for your customers to find what they’re looking for.
- Don’t lose customers at checkout. A customer chose items and headed to the checkout. How did that go? If you asked them twenty questions and demanded a sign-up, you may just have wasted their time and yours. Keep your checkout design and the purchasing process crisp and simple.
- Old, but important news: be compatible with all devices. Let’s not forget that people may visit your online store using a mobile phone, a computer, or a tablet. Your website must display equally well on any device.
Ecommerce Website Builders and Platforms
Looking for an ecommerce website that screams “newbie” to those in the know? Then website builders are for you. They use simple templates with limited customisation and, while you certainly can get an ecommerce website up and running quite cheaply, there will be severe limitations. Specifically, a lot of the important aspects of ecommerce website design are beyond your control when you use website builders. If you’re shooting for quality, fully customisable design will be among your requirements.
As for Ecommerce platforms, there’s a multitude of options and each one has its own pros and cons. Choosing what’s best for you will depend on several important practical considerations. Factors like hosting, the cost of ownership, available integrations, speed and scalability, security, and support for multiple payment methods will be among the things you should evaluate.
Looking for majority opinions on the best ecommerce website builder and the best platform for an ecommerce website? Many people feel that Squarespace offers the best option in ecommerce website builders, while Woocommerce is the ecommerce platform that supports in the region of 30 percent of online stores.
Need Help Setting up Your Ecommerce Website?
Each business is different, and what each of them needs from an ecommerce website will differ too. There are no easy recipes that cover all the bases. If you want a really good ecommerce website that works for your business and brings in revenue, a professional design that’s tailored to match your business and your customers’ needs is the best option.
So, before you try to shoehorn your business into a generic template, explore your options. The gold standard? Our award-winning website designs speak for themselves. Ecommerce web development is among our specialities, and with Yellowball, Ecommerce website design agency in London, you can be sure of unique ecommerce websites that look great and function smoothly, setting you up for success. Contact us today to find out more about our Ecommerce website design packages.
