4 Web Design Tips for a Successful E-commerce Website
Launching an e-commerce business in today’s business climate is always going to be challenging. However, if you start things on the right foot with a thoughtful and well-designed website, you will maximise your chances of success. The following web design tips will help you to make your e-commerce website the best it can be and give your business it’s the best shot at success.
Consider the User
No matter what industry your business operates in, or whether it operates online or offline, the user experience is of fundamental importance. For an e-commerce website, ensuring a smooth user experience is even more important because it’s so easy for a potential customer to abandon their virtual shopping cart and head to one of your competitors.
Web design should be an iterative process. This means that you are continually building upon your design, improving it and adding to it. Every step of the process, you need to be thinking about what the experience of using your website is like for a customer. Any changes that you make to your website should be made with respect to the user experience; it should never be an afterthought.
If you don’t have any experience in web design at all, then you all want to hire a professional web design Belfast business. Hiring someone with experience will definitely help here.
Don’t Overcomplicate Things
The array of features that a modern website might possess is quite staggering. However, just because a website can do something it does not necessarily mean that it should. In fact, you will often find that adding unnecessary features to your website detracts from the overall design, making things more difficult for users, and leading to headaches for you as the website administrator.
If you already have an e-commerce website and you are struggling to get things off the ground, you might want to consider whether simplification could be the answer. Simplifying the design of your website, removing unnecessary features and information, leads to a cleaner more streamlined experience for the user.
Enable Your Users to View Their Cart
You might think of this as being a standard feature, but you’d be surprised how many websites still won’t let you view your cart before you go to the checkout. Enabling your users to do this isn’t just better from a user experience perspective; this is, in fact, one of the most important aspects of e-commerce web design.
It is now accepted wisdom that making this visible at all times, preferably at the top of the page, leads to an increase in conversion rates. As long as the icon is something instantly recognisable and the shopping cart is the obvious go-to here, you will find that this one small button makes a huge difference to the user experience.
Make Your Pricing Clear and Honest
When it comes to e-commerce, honesty is definitely the best policy. If your business gains a reputation as one that tries to sneak unclear or hidden fees and other charges passed the customers, you will find that they leave you in their droves. Make sure that the pricing for all of your products and services is both clear and honest so that someone visiting your website with a specific product in mind can get all the information they need at a glance.
Good e-commerce web design is built upon two Pillars. The first is the user experience, the second is the information that it provides. If you get both of these aspects right, your conversion rates will shoot up.
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