One of the most important factors of a website is its design, and this could not apply more to eCommerce websites. It is imperative that the design and experience of your online store outshine all your competitors – because we all know there is a pool of them out there. If you are looking to increase sales and gain trust to build a family of loyal customers, then keep reading.
How can you make a kick-ass eCommerce website with improved design?
I Want To See You Again
As the phrase goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”, your website needs to wow from the first glance, so make your first impression count!
If a user hits your site and isn’t wowed within the first 30 seconds, then they are moving on to their next potential site. Competition is everywhere.
Keep it clean. Imagine walking into a real store and seeing a mess everywhere, you would walk out. Your online store needs to be neat, of high quality, and pleasing to the eye. Low-quality images and illegible fonts will throw them off right away. A clean, professional and consistent style will keep you in the game.
User Experience
UX Design is one of the most important aspects to keep in mind when designing an eCommerce website.
There needs to be an entirely fluid journey throughout the entire sales funnel, from the second the user enters your website, right down to when they click to purchase. It is the bane of our lives scrolling through a website to find what we want.
It needs to be clear as day – literally, whatever they are looking for needs to be thrown right in front of them without having to search for it. This can be done through impeccable and simple navigation, clear CTAs taking the customer through the entire journey smoothly, and clear links to information pages such as ‘contact us’ and FAQs.
Mobile responsiveness also falls under user experience, because no one wants to go shopping online via their mobile, only to not be able to click that bloody ‘Add to Cart’ button – we’ve all been there at some point, so we all know what a pain in the a** it is! As the screen will be smaller, ensure all CTAs are large enough and utilize a burger menu and icons to save space.
Keep your site up to date
Nothing worse than asking for a pair of sneakers and the sales rep comes back, no size sorry. You ask for your next favourite, the same thing…
Keep your store up to date. With the powerful eCommerce engines out there such as WooCommerce that allows you to manage everything from within your websites such as stock, varieties, shipping, taxes and all.
If it’s out of stock, take it off the site. If you cannot ship to a certain region or country, don’t offer them the ability to check out. Simple stuff, huge difference in user experience.
The perfect colour palette
This all ties in with your overall brand identity – which needs to be flawless throughout all platforms. The colour palette is extremely important when it comes to your brand and eCommerce website.
Ensure that your colours are complementary and trigger your user to take action. With eCommerce websites, your product is centre stage. Nothing should rob from the product being the centre of attention. Keep your colour palette complimenting your products and if you can, use a secondary brand colour that can be used for your call to action and draw the user’s focus where they need to be throughout the sales process and funnel.
Here are the meanings of some common branding colours.
- Red: A powerful colour. It conveys energy, passion and proactiveness
- Blue: Evokes feelings of trust, professionalism and security
- Purple: Luxurious and royal. Conveys sophistication, exclusivity and elegance
- Black: Powerful. Sense of authority and respectability
- Green: Freshness, harmony, wealth
- Orange: Bold and attention-grabbing. Great for CTAs
All in all, always keep your target audience in mind when building your eCommerce website. You want to not only offer them an experience of a lifetime but be able to trigger an emotion, a feeling that they will want to take action and also return as a loyal customer.
The award-winning team at Awove knows exactly what to do when it comes to building eCommerce websites. Let us work our magic.
