7 Golden Rules for Amazing eCommerce Website Design

7 Most Important Appealing eCommerce Website Design Features

Nowadays, eCommerce is entering a new stage of growth. Consumers’ behavior is rapidly changing toward online channels. In fact, experts predict eCommerce sales to reach as much as $1.6 trillion by 2023. The data shows how great opportunities for digital brands are. Businesses that invest in their online projects are likely to emerge as market leaders.

Now is a perfect opportunity to jump on board. Responding to the new eCommerce reality and having a strong online presence is vital for brands. And perfect user experience is crucial for achieving this goal. 

Will developing your online shop make or break your new project? What makes a good eCommerce website? We propose to discuss seven essential features behind the thoughtful eCommerce website design: from the homepage to checkout. 

#1. Accessibility Options

Customers spend 48% more when their shopping experience is personalized. 

Website visitors can easily make use of the accessibility settings window from any page without additional scrolling. The online store should demonstrate a thoughtful and empathetic web design that puts the customer first. Just in mind keep a couple of tips: 

1. segmentation
2. be aware of customer experience

Good examples of personalized marketing may include: 

• adjusting navigation to visitors’ interests
• personalizing search results
• mailing based on user behavior
• using geo-location targeting
• personalizing the eCommerce homepage
• reminding of previous engagements
• showing personalized offers to returning visitors, etc. 

#2. Collect Data

The finished eCommerce platform should meet owners’ and customers’ expectations. Gather data, and work with it. The MVP development stage is the perfect time to collect customers’ feedback before launching the final version. Based on that data further changes could be implemented with minimal losses of money and time.

Data is at the forefront of personalization. You can also extract tons of information about your customers (search queries, page visits, purchase history, etc.) by using tracking tools. 

#3. Be Visually Appealing

There is no one way to create a perfect website design. Be creative in the way you form a unique experience that fits your brand.

The interface is the bridge between users and the content that is being delivered with. Study the stunning trends in eCommerce website design, which facilitates the path of their customers to conversions and makes it exciting at every step. Their approach is user-centric, insightful, and compelling. Their interface is neat, designed to provide a great experience.

To see physically, touch, or try it out is impossible while shopping online. And here appears a psychological barrier, which is difficult to overcome. For this reason, product page design should be very close to the real-life experience. Product specifications, descriptions, and photos should be as detailed as possible. Make the potential customer feel confident about what he or she is going to buy.

According to a Kissmetrics study, approx. 93% of buyers find visual appearance to be the most important factor when purchasing through an eCommerce store. 

Animation

Interactive design is a great way to draw the visitor’s attention and show the practical benefits of the product. Animation makes the website more attractive and allows you to better demonstrate the features of the product giving the user a clear understanding of what he is buying.

Eye-catching Photos and Images

An image can say a thousand words. Brands use professional, high-quality images to showcase their products and sell them profitably. Represent visually each important characteristic. If it’s difficult to present your products only with images, you should definitely consider videos. The goal is to make the online shopping experience as close to shopping off-line stores as possible.

Bright Colors

You can see that most of the best online store designs focus on bright colors to stand out from the competition and make your brand unique. Fresh colors attract users and are pleasing to the eye.

Elements of Minimalism

The main advantage of minimalist design is that it is simple. The user can focus directly on the product. For example, sites often use clear and simple navigation with a minimum of words and clear planning for ease of use.

Bold Fonts

Make fonts big! Large fonts are important in design because they attract the user’s attention and speak louder than pictures or videos. Font size is an extremely powerful tool. Think like your customer and use it to your advantage.

#4. Implement Responsive Design

The share of mobile traffic is growing annually. Striking data: over 50% of Internet users use their mobile devices to browse sites.  

Mobile applications are a very popular way to consume information on the go. Therefore, the adaptive version of the website should be so convenient that the user, holding one hand on the handrail in the subway, could easily order food delivery with the other hand.

When making more thoughtful purchases, it is important for the user to get all the necessary information with his smartphone: see a large photo, product full description, and characteristics, watch a video review, read reviews, product rating, use filters, pay for the purchase, and arrange delivery. They often choose on mobile, and design and buy on the desktop. Therefore, the desktop and mobile versions of the website should be equivalent in terms of convenience, information, and functionality.

Track the traffic distribution across devices on your project. Remember that if the conversion and output rate from mobile is much lower than desktop, this is a reason to check usability. The interface may not be convenient for smartphone users.

If mobile traffic is higher, then it makes sense to apply the mobile-first approach when designing the interface. The difference is that with the classic approach, the convenience of using the desktop version is considered first, and then it is adapted to mobile. And when using the mobile-first approach, the mobile version of the interface is developed first, and then scaled to higher resolutions.

#5. Website development

80% of online customers consider new technologies and innovations are improving their buying experience. And 70% of those don’t complete the payment process and close their shopping carts mainly due to complicated payment procedure which requires many additional steps.

It’s essential to add popular payment options like PayPal and popular payment methods in each country your potential buyers originate from to encourage them to proceed further in their payments plus adding a secure gateway (third-party responsible for taking the money from the customer and send it to your business bank account) to ensure more security in money transfers.

Single page checkout is another excellent element. Here, buyers can fill in their billing, shipping, and payment details, streamlining the transaction process.

#6. Mind on Your Product Categories 

The simplest way for your online shop customers to find a way around your website is to use product categories. Right after landing on your eCommerce homepage, buyers should find a simple, straightforward navigational menu, which guides them through thousands of products. Make it easy for your customers to filter products by things like size, color or type, etc. No drama in finding the item they are looking for. Make constant improvement in the search and navigation website elements. 

In addition, well-designed categories impact SEO and help to index your information. Moreover, an efficiently designed product categories layout improves the visual impression of the presented items.

Next, you should prioritize product ratings and reviews, as these found to be the second most important attribute of online shopping (Statista).

#7. Strengthen Customer Experience

Even though you’ve studied dozens of eCommerce design best practices, people’s path to purchase varies, even within categories and products. Help customers cross the finish line seamlessly. Analyze your (new) online buyers’ path to purchase and provide them with simple (but not boring) and human-centered UX design to create a fascinating experience. Make the user journey short:

• people want to save energy and focus on other things,
• some customers are not skilled enough,
• others are busy and need to save time. 

Say more with fewer clicks. Make your platform stand out from the great number of other stores.

Final Thoughts

You’ve got a great product, settled fair prices, and started working on the idea of selling your products online. UX design for eCommerce is something that factors in heavily to your brand exposure and success. 

How to encourage your web page visitors to shop on your online platform? Northell professionals are always here to assist your eCommerce website design needs and offer your customers exactly what they need and expect. 

Contact us, describe your business objectives, and use the best eCommerce website design services out there! Hop on board!