12 Ecommerce Website Design Principles To Boost Sales in 2020

upqode | Aug 13th, 2020

Getting good amount of sales from your Ecommerce website might be hard if you didn’t follow Ecommerce website design principles. Some website may not know they are struggling in online sales because of a lack of these. In this article, I am going to show you a complete list of eCommerce website design principles you should follow in 2020 to increase sales on your website fast.

In 2020, it has been estimated that worldwide there will be more than 2 billion online shoppers. However, even though the market is still estimated to grow exponentially, the competition for its customers will only grow fiercer. This is because you will need to entice and keep these customers from established giants and also from other sellers like you.

With more and more of different types of products being made available online, retail shops and even small business owners are beginning to use Ecommerce platforms. This is due to the fact that earning while having only a physical store is not as lucrative as it once was. Consumers now prefer to go online, pick out whatever they need, order it, and have it delivered to them instead of walking about to do it.

What are E-commerce Website Design Principles?

Your Ecommerce website design principles are a chance to make a good first impression. It affects how your customers see your company as they are clever enough to know what a high-quality website looks like.  It also affects the amount of time your users are going to spend on the website, if they buy or not, and if they come back.

Ecommerce website design principles are the fundamental design concepts that serve as a foundation when designing a successful e-commerce website. These are the principles you must keep in mind as you design your website. It’s for these reasons that your customers will see your site as a high-quality one.

When visiting an E-commerce website, a customer decides whether to stay or leave instantly just by looking at it. Therefore, even with a very good marketing strategy, it still becomes inescapable to package it all in an appealing and usable way. In a very competitive field, if you have great Ecommerce website design principles, then your e-commerce website design becomes your medium to keep your customers engaged while still displaying to them the value of your wares.

As brick-building stores become a thing of the past, your online store is becoming an increasingly important factor in your company’s success. However, finding the right e-commerce developer for your company can be difficult. Read descriptions of Top eCommerce Companies In The US, former clients and notable projects to find the best fit for your business.

Why is Ecommerce Design so Important?

As you begin to design or even redesign your website, you might begin to question how it impacts your audience and your business or maybe why does the design of your E-commerce website matters so much to the health and success of your business?

1. First Impressions

In e-commerce website design, customers need to be pleased by how it looks and operates because it is the very first aspect that anyone notices. People will judge your business within the first few seconds of seeing your website. What people see your site the very first time, what they think could affect if and how they patronize you today and tomorrow.

If your website looks unattractive or outdated, the users will have a negative impression of your business and this might cause them to go to a competitor’s page. The impression you give them can either get them to stay on your page and learn more about your business or leave your page and move to a competitor’s.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Many e-commerce website design principles and elements affect the way you put content on your website. These in turn affect how search engines index your website.

This is a very important aspect of your website design as your code needs to be SEO-friendly. If your website SEO fundamentals are not adequate, you’ll be fighting a visibility battle for your website from the beginning. The best way to ensure the best e-commerce website design principles and then visibility on search engines is to partner with a web design agency that knows what they are doing.

3. Information

The way your website is designed will determine the amount, the quality, and what type of information your customers will receive. The decision to purchase your product depends on the information a customer can get about it on your website. Your presentation of this information matters a lot.

4. Customer Service Impression

Your website gives people an impression of how they could be treated just by taking a glance at your website. If your website is appealing, modern, and inviting, people will get the impression that your business is up to date and welcoming. However, if it’s unattractive and outdated, it makes your business look like old news.

5. Buying Decisions

These are intense, complicated moments that every one of your customers will go through. If your website follows the best e-commerce design principles, your website design will affect how these decisions are made, how fast they’re made, and why they’re made.

6. Trust

Nobody trusts a poorly designed website. A poorly designed website or a website that has information that looks outdated does not kindle trust. The site might be viewed as shady.

A professional site conveys trust to your customers. It is important to cultivate trust with them so that they remain on your site. When customers remain on your site longer, more opportunities arose for a purchase to be made

7. Consistency

Using eCommerce website design principles is important because they help to create consistency. It is challenging to create a brand that will be recognized if your website is not consistent.

It also makes your website look unprofessional. If your website is not consistent, customers will move to a competitor’s site that looks professional. Building consistency, you will keep your customers longer and attract new ones.

12 Best Ecommerce Website Design Principles To Boost Sales

While working on a design for your e-commerce site or redesigning it, these are the best E-commerce website design principles that will help boost your sales this year

1. Unique Design Elements

This is one of the foremost important e-commerce website design principles that exist. Owing to the fierce competition that is in the market, you must have a way to stick out. This is necessary because it plays a role in the initial impression you make on any visitor to your site. 

An uncommon approach to the composition of your website will urge your users to persist in viewing your site and provide more opportunities for you to affect their buying decisions.

Unique design elements make buyers notice you among the competition, remember you, and visit your site again just to experience the interface again.

2. User Friendliness

The experience your customers get while shopping on your site should be seamless so that they don’t leave in the middle of the process. This implies that your website should be easy to navigate. Complexity hurts sales.

Your website should be carefully and strategically thought out. Your products should of necessity be grouped into categories and subcategories that are not confusing. They ought to be shown in a clean grid with sufficient labeling that makes it easy to read and scan.

Furthermore, your website has to be provided with sufficient details and pictures of the products for your buyers to understand the products well, without touching or seeing them in reality. The more realistic it is, the higher your chances of selling that product.

3. Emphasis on Security

Security is one of the backbones of Ecommerce website design principles, It is important to create a website that customers feel they can trust. Most online shoppers are anxious about their privacy and if your site will protect their data by providing a secure transaction. If your website ceases to feel trustworthy at any point in time, they will simply prefer to shop elsewhere.

To emphasize security, you would like to:

  • Share reviews of your products to convey to your shopper the satisfaction in others’ opinions and take away any concerns.
  • Pay attention to details like broken links and 404 errors
  • Use a secure server.
  • Get a recognized trust seal like Norton or McAfee, these assure potential customers of a secure transaction process.

4. Responsive Technology

Time is money and consumers are an impatient breed. All it takes is mere seconds to lose a purchase and a customer. This is often because the majority of people abandon and never return to a page that takes too long to load.

1 in 4 people abandon a web page that takes more than four seconds to load Ecommerce Website Design Principles

Having a non-responsive website will certainly affect your business and cause you to lose potential clients. So ensure you’re working with a very good, reliable web development agency and hosting company; because your success depends on their performance.

5. Target Market Knowledge

Who wants to consume your products? Are you missing out on a possible market segment that may help to enlarge revenue? Properly identify and know who your target audiences are and therefore the demographics they are in to be sure your website design feels right to them.

This is the initial step in building a bond of trust with your customers. Unlike face-to-face sales, there will be no salesperson to guide the customer through the sales funnel. That’s why it’s crucial to grasp the scope of your target market and establish trustworthiness through your eCommerce web design principles.

6. Search Column Feature

Be sure to incorporate a search feature on your site. Some people will come to you knowing exactly what it is that they want to buy and, if they can’t find it within seconds, are likely to abandon your site.

Going through various categories and searching for a distinct product might become a tedious task. This is often why you should also upgrade your search feature to possess these:

  • Auto-complete functionality; this is the functionality Google uses to complete your sentence before you have even finished typing it.
  • An Omnipresent search; your  search box should be present on every page and be visible, quickly recognizable and simple to use
  • Support every kind of query like product names, categories, their attributes, and also customer service related information.
  • Allow sorting and filtering of results

7. Effective Product Descriptions

The descriptions of your products influence buying decisions heavily. The higher the quality of the descriptive text, images, and even videos are, the better, and therefore the faster the customer will relate it to what he/she needs and successively affect their buying decisions. This is often not essentially an element of design, yet paying close attention to these details can increase your ROI in the future.

The more doubts you eliminate a product, the more likely they are to buy the product.

8. Layout Minimalism

This refers to minimalism within the design of your e-commerce website. Having a minimalist approach to the look of your website will remove elements that are not necessary from it. This is also a major eCommerce website design principle because it will in turn make your site faster to develop, use fewer resources, and respond much faster than cluttered eCommerce websites.

Always recognize that less is more. Don’t overwhelm your visitors with information and content. Proper white space improves readability and allows your content to stick out better.

9. Branding Consistency

Consistent branding throughout your site help your customers keep your brand in mind longer. It also helps them distinguish your site’s values and unique offerings from other competitors.

Many of the design elements and aesthetics should be identical on every page of your website, including the header, footer, and product grid.

For example, the text should follow the fundamentals of excellent typography. Your brand color palette should be established and strictly followed. The tone of the photography and also the text/descriptions should follow the tone of your brand’s identity.

This will also help in facilitating a very strong brand-customer relationship with your regular clients.

10. Call to Action Efficiency

Call to action efficiency refers to validating that the words used on all call to action buttons are catered towards the probable questions your customers have in mind and take them to precisely what they are seeking out. To enlarge the efficiency of your call-to-action buttons use contrasting colors like red to differentiate them from the color palette of the website. You might also need to use trigger words like “Join Now” and “Claim Your Discount” on them.

11. Beauty and Personality

Your potential customers may leave your website if they find the layout unattractive. Attractiveness may be a subjective thing, but just because an e-commerce website is straightforward, simple, and minimalistic doesn’t mean it should be lacking in terms of beauty and personality. Finding the right balance between aesthetics and usefulness is crucial.

In a situation where many websites are selling (practically) the same product, it might not be enough to provide customers with a competitive price. The most effective e-commerce website design captivates.

12. Checkout Design and Contact Information

An elegant checkout page while wanting to be stylish needs some mandatory things to complete purchases;

  • Offer various payment options: Different shoppers have different preferences when it involves making payments. Cater to as many payment options as possible
  • Keep it simple: Minimize the number of fields and processes to finish the purchase.
Checkout Design and Contact Information Ecommerce Website Design Principles
  • Make registration optional: Never force shoppers to make an account before shopping because this will drive the shoppers away. Give them a choice to register after they have finished purchasing, and highlight the profits of registration when asking them to register.
  • Use clear error indications: It is extremely frustrating when making a purchase is ineffective and you are unable to determine why. Rather than showing the errors after a form is submitted, make the error notifications come up in real-time directly above, or next to the item that needs the correction, so shoppers will notice them.
  • Contact Information: Ensure that you incorporate a live chat or contact number throughout the checkout process and also the website in total, so when shoppers have questions, they will quickly get answers instead of having to leave the website and go elsewhere.

Are eCommerce Website Design Principles Your Best Bet to Boost Sales?

Designing a successful eCommerce website with a remarkable user experience starts with understanding these eCommerce website design principles in their entirety and developing a blueprint that focuses on these principles. This is because no truly successful website realizes without a great deal of planning and research.

Shoppers visiting your site expect frictionless experiences unconditionally. When designing an eCommerce site, it is not only just primarily about building an eCommerce website but also providing an online shopping experience that will convert passive shoppers into paying customers.

You would want to partner with a team like UPQODE who understands these e-commerce website design principles to facilitate the designing your site easier and professional.

Filed under: Ecommerce

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