Yej Lee
Yej is an award-winning app designer with multi-platform experience spanning iOS, Android, wearables, responsive web, and more.
Designing an e-commerce site is not just about building a website to sell products but designing a pleasant online shopping experience. This comprehensive guide walks us through the best practices.
Designing an e-commerce site is not just about building a website to sell products but designing a pleasant online shopping experience. This comprehensive guide walks us through the best practices.
Yej is an award-winning app designer with multi-platform experience spanning iOS, Android, wearables, responsive web, and more.
US e-commerce sales continue to reach new heights in 2018. Worldwide, e-commerce will continue to post solid gains to the tune of $2.3 trillion. But what makes one e-commerce web design triumph over another?
Several factors determine the overall success of an e-commerce website including product quality, brand recognition, shipping costs, return policies, trustworthiness, and customer service. However, thoughtful user experience design is also key to providing customers with a satisfying, friction-free experience. It will not only convert potential clicks into actual e-commerce transactions but make customers come back time and again.
Here is a comprehensive ecommerce web design guide to creating great e-commerce websites, complete with examples.
First and foremost, it is important to design a website that shoppers feel they can trust. Most shoppers are concerned about privacy and whether the site will protect their personal data by providing a secure transaction. If the website does not feel trustworthy, they will simply choose to shop elsewhere.
Here are some methods that will communicate trustworthiness:
Include an overview of the business:
Publish store policies and make sure they are not too difficult to find:
Write in plain language and avoid legal or internal policy jargon.
The look and feel of a website is the main driver of first impressions. Research concludes that people will determine whether they like a website or not in just 50 milliseconds.
Here are some essential ecommerce design tips:
Friction-free is the way to be. Navigation is about how easy it is for people to move around the website, find what they’re looking for and finally take action. The e-commerce shopping experience should be seamless so shoppers don’t drop off halfway through the process.
Here are some ecommerce website designing tips for easy navigation:
The top level of navigation should show the set of categories that the site offers. Group products into categories and subcategories that make sense. Category labels work best as single words that describe the range of products, so shoppers can scan through them and instantly understand what they represent. It’s best to user-test site navigation as much as possible for great e-commerce UX as it’s a key make-or-break feature of the site.
Simply put, if shoppers cannot find the product, they cannot buy the product—build a search function that helps them easily find what they are looking for:
The more choices given, the harder it is to choose. Help shoppers find the right products by implementing filters. It will help them narrow their choices and jump to their desired product range directly.
A “quick view” reduces the time it takes for shoppers to find the right product by eliminating unnecessary page loads. Typically, the product details are displayed in a modal window over the viewed page. Do not try to show all the product details, instead, include a link to the full product page to view complete details. Also, be sure to include a prominently positioned “Add to Cart” button as well as a “Save to Wishlist” functionality.
Shoppers always look for special offers, discounts, or best deals. Make exclusive offers visible so shoppers know about them. Even if the price differences aren’t that great, the psychological sense of saving some money creates an illusion of having an upper hand.
For outstanding e-commerce UX when shoppers successfully find the product they want, let them find out about the product. Design a product page that creates an experience that is as similar to an in-person shopping experience as much possible, by including lots of images, detailed descriptions and any other useful and related information about the product. Let’s take an in-depth look at what this means.
With e-commerce, shoppers cannot touch, feel, or try out the product. Instead, everything depends on what they see online. This is why providing product images that clearly exhibit all aspects of the product is critical. Here is a checklist for perfect product images:
Give shoppers detailed information about the product so they can make an informed purchase decision. Show availability, options for different sizes or colors, dimensions, a size chart, materials used, total cost, warranties, and more. The fewer remaining questions they have about a product, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
According to the scarcity principle, humans place a higher value on an object that is scarce, and a lower value on those that are abundant. Create a sense of urgency in the sales process by showing scarcity—display how many products are left, grey out sizes that are out of stock, or show sale deadlines. Scarcity will motivate potential buyers to take action.
Increasingly, companies are using advanced psychological research, and in order to drive more engagement and purchases, have turned what used to be an art into a science. Persuasive design in e-commerce is a very effective way to garner more purchases.
Display similar products that shoppers might also like that work well with the current product, or products, that others have purchased. This can be displayed on a product detail page or in the shopping cart and will help guide shoppers to the products that meet their needs, potentially encouraging them to continue shopping—a great way to cross-sell related products.
The shopping cart is essential as it is where shoppers review their selected products, make the final decision, and proceed to checkout. The primary goal of the shopping cart is to lead shoppers to checkout. Below are tips on designing a shopping cart that is user-friendly, and will encourage shoppers to purchase further.
A stylish and trendy design does not determine a successful e-commerce website nor does it necessarily provide great e-commerce UX. e-commerce success is only measured by the number of completed purchases. Here are a few ways to build a well-designed checkout page, which will contribute to a successful conversion:
Online shoppers expect frictionless experiences no matter what. When designing an e-commerce site, it is not just about building a website but creating an online shopping experience that will convert passive shoppers into paying customers.
Hopefully, this e-commerce website design guide will help you make essential design decisions in order to build great e-commerce UX that is professional, attractive, user-friendly, and makes shoppers come back for more time and again. Fast growth plus relatively low market share means that there is still enormous opportunity for new players to outpace traditional industry leaders.
E-commerce, aka online shopping, is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to buy goods or services directly from a seller over the Internet using a web browser.
A "Call to Action" stands for something on a website or in an app that induces customers to perform an action (usually beneficial for the business) such as signing up for a newsletter, getting more information, download sales material, or to complete an e-commerce purchase, etc.
E-commerce (aka online shopping) is the sale and purchase of services and goods over the Internet. It’s convenient, available 24/7, searchable, global (wide customer reach), cost-effective for sellers and customers, and doesn’t require much (if any) physical space.
A website's navigation structure refers to how the website is set up, i.e. how the individual subpages are linked to one another. When a website has a number of subpages, they must be linked to its homepage so that visitors can use the site’s navigation to browse the website’s content.
Customer conversion rates vary across industries. What’s good for one, may not be for another. However, the current average conversion rate of shoppers worldwide as of Q4 2016 is 2.95%.
Yej is an award-winning app designer with multi-platform experience spanning iOS, Android, wearables, responsive web, and more.
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