Web Design Tips for creating a Successful Ecommerce Website
There are many ecommerce software platforms to build a site on, but a good ecommerce site is all about making sure the customer finds what they are looking for as fast as possible and making the journey to check out short. Customers don’t want to deal with a poorly designed website and having to go through a maze to find exactly what they want let along buy it. There is more to great ecommerce design than just making your website aesthetically pleasing. The following are some of the crucial design features you should consider if you want customers coming back for more.
Product filter options
Don’t make your customers scroll through hundreds of products to find what they need. It can be quite confusing and you may lose many customers because of this. You need to organize your comprehensive online catalogue into convenient categories and make these filter options available in the first page. The filter options are great when dealing with products such as clothes or shoes, filters include sizes, colors, brands and prices among others. This reduces the amount of time customers spend looking for what they want for a much faster purchase. You should provide a reversing option as well in case the customer makes a mistake in the category that they chose.
Easy to locate search bar
The search bar is the most frequently used feature of any ecommerce website. Many internet users often use the search bar to find something in a website as fast as possible. This is why the search bar needs to be in a very convenient and easy to find location. You should keep your search bar at the top of the page where users can spot it easily. Making the search bar convenient and easy to find also encourages the internet users to look around and probably buy more.
Quality photography
The use of quality photography cannot be stressed enough when it comes to ecommerce websites. Ecommerce is all about buying using the eyes. If the customer sees a poor quality photograph, they will automatically associate it with a poor quality product. You should get a professional photographer to take good pictures of the product under adequate lighting to customers can browse through the photos to make their purchases. Use more than one photo to show the product at different angles. You can create a feature that allows the customer to zoom into the picture or scroll through the photos at different angles to see the product better. For Banner images you there are also many high quality stock photo websites that can supply professional stock photos you can legally use on your own website for minimal fees.
Visible shopping cart
The shopping cart should be visible on every page on the website allowing online shoppers to add items to the cart they continue shopping. You can create an additional summary of all the items in the shopping cart and the current total in the corner of the page so the client can keep an eye on their list of items and spending. This convenient feature encourages return customers because they believe in the transparency of your ecommerce website.
Easy navigation
You should ask yourself what are the things you want your customer to do while browsing through your website. In many ecommerce sites, customers are expected to sign up, view and purchase items from the website. Therefore these three factors should be in the obvious layout of the page. If you have a large website with various pages, you can create a menu where you have listed the various products available, which can be further divided into other menu items when you hover over one. These are referred to as fly-out menus or supper menus. This helps to keep your page simple and uncluttered with your menu taking up minimum space.
Give your website a great personality
You should give your website a bit of personality to keep the page visitors interested. The color schemes and layout all depend on the kind of product or service you offer. For instance if you sell baby products, you can use fun icons like feeders or baby toys around your website to symbolize different things. It creates a fun shopping atmosphere for the user who visits your website.
Quick product reviews
Many people often want to read a product review to find out more about the product. However, the thought of having to load the product reviews in a new page and navigate back to move to the next product can be discouraging. You should provide quick product reviews next to the image with the option of viewing more without having to load a new page. The view more/less options makes it easy for your customer to quickly look through the product description and review.
Clean and uncluttered pages
Do not be afraid of using simple layouts or lots of white space. You want to maintain customer focus on the product. You can give detailed information without having to crowd the website with a lot of text. Have clear images of the products with a quick summary of information such as brand, availability, cost and size next to each product image. Spread out items in their own space. Displaying about ten items on a single page will not discourage buyers from looking for more products ion your website so don’t try to fit everything in a single page.
Keep the checkout process simple and quick
You don’t need to complicate things at the end of the entire process. Many customers often abandon their shopping carts at the checkout level because things get a little too complicated for their liking. Your check out page should be the simplest minimizing customer distraction from buying the products.
Avoid demanding a detailed sign up at the checkout but you can make it an option so that interest customers who are not in a hurry can fill out the forms online. Offer the payment process and request for basic information including credit card information, an email, passwords, contact information and address. Once the customer has purchased the product, you can then request them to sign up for regular service if they wish to buy from your website again.
