Top Ecommerce Web Design Tips for Improving Your Sales
Life in the 21st century is hard to imagine without shopping online. It has become a habit for all of us. However, with such a huge competition, you should always keep your eyes on the ball. To stand out from thousands of competitors, sell more, and make customers loyal, we have prepared the top 8 UI/UX tips for your ecommerce web design product.
#1 Mobile-first approach
More than 52% of all website traffic worldwide was carried out through mobile devices in 2018. It means users shop more through mobile devices than by PCs.
The “mobile-first” is a site development approach that starts with the development of a lightweight and straightforward mobile version of the site. Then, developers create a functional resource for desktop computers.
Here is one of our e-commerce projects that shows mobile-first approach
What are the benefits of this approach?
1) Easy navigation
Developing a site using a mobile-first approach usually requires only a few items to be added to the menu due to the small space on mobile devices. As we know, the easier the navigation is, the simpler it is for a visitor to use your site or app. Since the screen has minimum elements, you need to think about the navigation through. As a result, users get an interface that is easy to work with.
2) Clear and understandable content
Thanks to this approach, everything that is displayed on the screen should be clear, concise, and honed. Since you have minimal space for developing a mobile version of the site, a user must very quickly find what they need. The small screen size requires thinking over which content is most important and using it without cluttering the interface.
3) Better visibility and reach of your site
Great visibility of your site is achieved due to the fact that Google sees whether the site has mobile optimization and can rank sites with such a layout higher than those that do not have one. Therefore, creating a mobile version of your site can lead to increased profits for your business.
Despite all benefits, there are some difficulties with this approach. Designing a website for a smartphone first, designers need to use vertical resolution, which is different from developing a computer layout with a vertical orientation. The sizeable horizontal screen is more flexible and multi-functional. Nevertheless, you need to focus on a small screen because your customers use it. Your goal is to create a simple and enjoyable experience for the users of mobile devices while offering the maximum possible experience to users of desktop computers.
#2 Minimalism
The days when complicated bright designs were in fashion are gone. Now users expect a minimal, calm design with convenient navigation and functionality, and they don’t pay attention to complex graphic design or wow effect elements.
Just look at how great Marc’s Jacobs minimalistic ecommerce website design look.
How to create a website or app with appealing minimal design? Here are some ideas for you.
Choose a white background
The multipurpose background color is always white, as your colored goods aren’t merged with it, and look holistically and harmoniously. The white color allows you to focus all the client’s attention on products that your site provides, without distraction.
One of the Gapsy Studio website design projects for ecommerce industry demonstrates this approach. As you can see, the products look organic and holistic on a white background.
Apply just several colors
Use a simple web design color schemes for ecommerce site. You don’t need too elaborate colors. The best solution would be to use monochrome colors (you take one color and change its brightness or saturation and get a palette of similar colors) or a similar scheme (use three adjacent colors with your primary one). Using these types of color palettes helps to highlight the most important information on a screen without being overwhelming.
Just look at how aesthetically beautiful one color scheme looks in our dribbble shot.
Use a few fonts
With the correct creation and use, fonts can attract a visitor and encourage them to make a purchase. Use one font, do not mix them together. To enhance the effect of the text or attract attention to it, you can make it bigger (or smaller), as well as make it bold or bright. It is very important to have a clear consistency between the fonts so that they look good both on a computer or phone screen.
#3 Effortless user journey
The more understandable and intuitive your design and site navigation is, the easier it will be for users to make a purchase, and the more users will be satisfied dealing with your site.
When a site or an app is launched, you can check user flow to find obstacles preventing users from purchasing using heatmaps, scroll maps, confetti maps, and many other tools. However, before the launch, it’s difficult to analyse the future design. In order to create a user-friendly, hurdle-free interface for your ecommerce web page design, use our UX tips below.
Employ three-tap rule
This rule implies that a user needs to undertake three clicks to find the product of interest. This is justified by the fact that users often remain unsatisfied if they do not receive the information, product, or service they need within three clicks. For ecommerce sites, you can employ such three-tap rule order: category — subcategory — and the actual product. It will make the user journey as short as possible.
Think the navigation out
Navigation of your ecommerce website should be intuitive. To make your users’ journey pleasant, use the following tips:
Horizontal filters
In recent years, more and more sites are using the horizontal panel. Although the horizontal filter panel is not suitable for each website, it significantly surpasses the side panel in terms of convenience and efficiency. Visual information is much easy to perceive. Besides, horizontal filters are always on a screen, so users don’t need to search for them.
Left side filtering is more difficult to reach, it takes users one additional action, and as a result, filters overlap the image on the main screen, which is also not very pleasant and user-friendly. A horizontal bar has one significant disadvantage ‒ the width of the screen limits it. In the horizontal filter, you can add more detailed ranked filters, like in the example below.
This photo shows a huge list of auxiliary filters that dropdown if you mouse on the accessories section.
Go-back button
You need to place the navigation elements in a way that they are always visible. This is especially important for a mobile layout of a site or app. It is necessary to think over where to place the BACK and HOME button so that they do not interfere with other elements.
Breadcrumbs
Create breadcrumbs for your product catalog, so it’s easy to navigate from one directory of products to another. The visitor can go back from this point or jump to the main category, thanks to this simple feature. Breadcrumbs don’t only make shopping and viewing of products much easier, but also improve your search result position, as Google sees this element and takes it into account when ranking. On the example below, you can see how different categories and subcategories are arranged in breadcrumbs.
If you already have an ecommerce product that doesn’t convert, consider UX audit. Find out what’s that and what benefits your business can get applying UX audit from our article.
#4 Intuitive design
When the design is intuitive, the user doesn’t even notice it. But when the design is not thought out, a user have to search for items they need for a long time, they can’t understand the logic of navigation, and simply cannot finish the purchase due to some obstacles. Intuitive design means that users know exactly how to use your product even if this is their first time on your site or app. Your site will be considered intuitive if users can focus on the required task and easily fulfill it without using any tips.
The intuitiveness and consistency of your site or app eliminate the confusion, users don’t waste time learning how to use it. Otherwise, they just go to the site where they don’t have to bother to think about what their next step should be.
#5 Simple search
A clear and simple search feature on your ecommerce website can improve your conversion rate, and make your customers satisfied. Your search feature should be effective and contain only the necessary filters since a quick and successful search increases the trust of your customers.
Let’s take a look at some ecommerce website design best practices for improving your site’s search and understand how to make it more targeted to your users.
Add more filters
Use widescreen filters if you want your customers to find what they need quickly.
Some websites make their filters visual for buyers. Here, for example, you can not just see the shades of lipstick, but also texture and the final look on lips.
Some websites that sell bags, for instance, offer visual fabric filters, that demonstrate how an item will look in leather or suede fabric.
Voice search
An excellent advantage of your ecommerce site will be the feature of voice search. According to statistics, 50% of buyers will use voice shopping by 2022. Though the voice search isn’t very trendy these days, it is easy to implement, and it can give you a good advantage over competitors.
Parameter search
Search by parameters is a way of searching products when a user can determine the necessary parameters of a required item (price range, minimal and maximal width, length, and so on) . A search by parameters makes user experience more pleasant and improves customer satisfaction.
Auto-suggestions
You can also add an auto-suggestion search so that users can enter the first letters in the search, and they will be given several possible options and suggestions. An automatic offer helps users quickly find the product they are looking for or find something completely different, but that may also interest them.
#6 Painless signup and checkout
Users don’t like extended multi-page signup or checkout processes. They don’t have enough patience. Simplify the registration and checkout processes using the ideas below.
Don’t ask to sign up until checkout
Do not force users to register on your ecommerce until they complete the order. If the registration window pops up immediately, it is very likely that visitors will go to a site where the registration isn’t required. Perhaps a person is just perusing, or comparing prices.
Use social sign up
Simplify the registration process with the help of social networks. Provide users with several registration options through different social networks, such as Facebook or Google account, for example. It is much faster and more convenient for users to register this way, than creating an account from scratch, entering all the data.
Enable guest checkout
According to statistics, there are many reasons for the high cart abandonment rate. One of them is the inability to purchase as a guest. What’s more, 21% of users abandon shopping carts if it is too long/complicated checkout process. That’s why it would be a good decision to allow new users to make purchases as a guest.
Add in-line form validation
In-line validation is a way to correct errors that a user may make during registration. An error message pops up next to each field if a user fills it incorrectly. This allows visitors to quickly complete the registration process without correcting errors several times after reloading the registration field page.
Use smart default
Make it easy for your users to gather the information that they have already contributed. Use smart defaults. If a user is already your client or subscriber, enable the information about email or phone number to be automatically filled in when users check out, so it’s faster and more convenientto complete a deal.
Show a progress bar
This feature allows your users to see how many steps they need to take to complete the registration process. Demonstrate how many steps it takes a user to register or check out, so they understand if they want to spend their time on it or not.
#7 Personalization
Personalize your ecommerce site or app so that users feel that they are being paid attention to, and their tastes are taken into account. Treat each visitor as an exclusive customer. But what kind of data to use to improve personalization?
Show recently viewed items
Add a recently viewed section where users can see what products they viewed when they last visited your website or app. People do not always immediately buy what they see. Maybe they need to think about it. This function allows visitors to remember what they viewed last time. A simple reminder can be very powerful. Use this trick if you want to increase your sales.
Add a wish list feature
Many users need some time before buying. Allow your customers to add products that they like to their favorites or a wish list so that they can come back later and view the collected goods.
Another powerful approach is to enable notifications connected with the wish list. For instance, a price on an item has decreased, or it’s on a sale. Send a notification to your customers to make your offer more attractive. And even if there’s no promotions or discounts, remind users about the product they selected but didn’t buy.
Just look how Sephora’s website wish list of features look like
Show recommendations based on previous purchases
Use the information about previous purchases or views of your users to offer them a product they might like. As statistic shows, 56% of online shoppers are more likely to return to a website that has product recommendations based on their previous purchases.
#8 Test design of your ecommerce product
Regularly test your website so that your visitors face no problems with its usage. Except for usability, functional, load, security, and performance testing, you’ll need to run the following must-have types of checks for ecommerce products:
Hallway testing
Hallway usability testing is a technique for target groups of your future ecommerce product to test the convenience of your navigation, location of icons, and the ease of use of your site or an app as a whole.
Creating a layout, you need to demonstrate a prototype to a person from your target audience and ask to perform several actions, like find a product, add an item to cart, or checkout. Thus, you can understand how convenient it is for common users to use your product.
Hallway testing helps you to get fast feedback on your prototypes and improve them. If a person is confused and doesn’t understand how to make a purchase, you need to change everything that prevented users from completing a task.
Mobile and browser compatibility testing
Your ecommerce product should be supported on both mobile and PCs. Browser compatibility testing is exactly what you need in this case. Many online tools can help you with this type of testing. For instance, use Browserstack, Browsershots, or CrossBrowserTesting. These tools allow you to test your site in more than one thousand browsers. Also, there’s a Perfecto Mobile tool, that you can use to run testing on different phone types to ensure the maximum compatibility of your site with various devices.
We hope these tips will help you to understand the specifics of an ecommerce website design better and possibly improve your existing ecommerce product.
Our design team provides professional web design services to help you create a convenient and modern ecommerce design.
Originally published at gapsystudio.com
