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For a lot of Irish businesses, a website is the first point of contact between buyer and seller. More and more of us do our shopping online now for a variety of goods and services. This means that having a website that’s both visually enticing and easy to use is key to attracting customers. eCommerce websites can offer your business a new platform to conduct trade. Suddenly, customers are easier to reach. Depending on your industry, users can purchase your products or services directly from your website. This can be vital to ensure you don’t lose out on custom or fall behind competitors who are already offering this as an option.
The pandemic made this more obvious than ever. Covid-19 hit every business hard. All across Ireland, business owners had to adapt to a new way of selling. Suddenly, the emphasis was on selling online. Just having a website isn’t enough though. People expect good service with little delay, so if your website is difficult to navigate or slow, you could find yourself losing out on customers. This is why a good eCommerce website design is so important. But it isn’t always easy to make a good website. We’ve compiled a list of factors and considerations that make for an effective e-commerce website.
When it comes to designing an e-commerce website, simple is always better. This is pretty much the case across the board for all sites. The more distractions you have on the page (Colors! Banner Ads! ALL THE POP-UPS!), the more it takes away from the entire point of the website—closing a sale.
You don’t need a ton of bells and whistles on your e-commerce website. Keep your design clear, clean, and simple and help guide your customer to the end point.
A recent article by the Baymard Institute shows that 25% of e-commerce websites still don’t have product images of sufficient quality. This leads to customers abandoning the page and the site. We don’t want to have to scrutinize pixelated photos. Low-quality photos spoil the impression made by the products. Also, people feel that low-quality photos signify that a store doesn’t care about making an effort to sell, so they are likely to go search for another one that respects them more.
People want to buy from established brands—not faceless e-commerce sites that look like a front for trying to steal your credit card information.
Building trust drives serious sales so you need to put some serious thought into your branding. Your branding is like the DNA of your e-commerce business; it’s who you are as a company, what you’re about, and how you’re different from your competitors—and it plays a huge part in building a connection with your audience and driving sales.
Not sure who you are as a brand? That’s ok! Just ask yourself questions like:
Convenience is the main reason why people shop online. The idea of UX design is to create websites that make life easier for consumers. A smooth experience takes them to the most important step — a purchase or other targeted action.
To make the process as easy as possible, consider these conventions:
Put some time into the colour scheme. Choosing the colours for your eCommerce site is about more than just saying “Well, red is my favourite colour, so…let’s make all the things red!” First, try to understand the psychology behind colour. Colour is an extremely powerful tool. If you can use it to your advantage you’ll drive some serious sales.
Different colours can inspire different feelings, emotions, and actions from people—so, if you want your e-commerce site to convert, you need to use those colour inspirations to your advantage.
For example, if you want to up your credibility, incorporate blue into your web design. Blue has been shown to increase feelings of trust, making it a go-to in the business world (there’s a reason the colour blue appears in more than half of all logos).
The point is, colour is one of the most powerful tools in your design toolbox—and if you know how to use it, it can have a huge impact on your e-commerce design.
It’s official—mobile has surpassed desktop as the most popular way to surf the interwebs… And that includes shopping.
We’ll keep this short—if you want to capture the customers who want to shop on their phones or tablets, you need to make sure your website design is fully responsive. Otherwise, you might not convince those valuable mobile visitors that your site is where they want to make a purchase.
Hopefully, now you have a better idea of the best ideas and practices for eCommerce websites. Designing an eCommerce website can be tricky—but now that you know the top web design tips for eCommerce, you have everything you need to design a site that not only looks amazing but converts like crazy.
So what are you waiting for? Get in touch now to learn about our website building service. We’re happy to give out quotes on your projects. If you’re still not convinced, see examples of our work on our case studies page.
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Galway’s Most Creative Agency. Providers of exciting digital services like web design, photography and video.