Creating your e-commerce site can be complicated. You need to consider so many things, from website performance up to user engagement.

It is one thing to build a simple website. But designing a great e-commerce site has its own challenges.

First of all, e-commerce sites are designed to accept orders and facilitate sales. Hence, you need to incorporate elements that can compel site visitors to take action. You also have to make it obvious.

Otherwise, generating sales can be cumbersome. And without sales, your site loses its purpose.

If you are looking for web design tips on designing your e-commerce site, you are in the right place. We will share with you ten factors you should consider when building an e-commerce website.

Running a Great E-commerce Site

With regards to making an e-commerce website stand out from the rest of the competition, there are no hard and fast rules. However, there are common denominators that you should take into consideration.

Clean and Simple Design

The success of your online store primarily depends on the website design. Do you know that 48% of people will determine whether a business is credible or not based on its design?

A busy design will eventually lose its spark over time. But a minimalistic one with suitable color schemes and elegant typography will make it more appealing in the long run.

Placing plenty of elements on the web page also distracts the user from your store's primary focus. Getting rid of these unnecessary elements draws the visitors' attention to things that matter most.

A minimalistic site design also loads a lot quicker, decreasing your bounce rates and engaging more visitors. So, if you want to optimize your ecommerce store for conversions, the most important thing you need to do is keep it simple. Then, focus on closing sales.

A clean and simple website design will always stand out.

Furthermore, to save time and money on your end, you need to select a popular WordPress hosting service, like WPhost, to begin with.

User-Friendly Navigation

Many e-commerce brands spend vast sums of money to draw visitors to their websites. Therefore, as a brand, you must guide site visitors in making a purchase.

Your site navigation should also allow shoppers to look for products quickly. An excellent site navigation will enable you to enhance user experience, bringing in more sales and revenue in the long run.

Meanwhile, poor site navigation annoys users and causes you to have higher bounce rates.

Listed below are quick tips on how you can improve your website's navigation:

  • Primary navigation menu: Go with the most common design and navigation conventions to make it easy for users. Ideally, you should place your site's navigation menu on the left side or top of the page.
  • Product categories: You should organize your product listings into categories, subcategories, and labels.
  • Search bar: Place a search bar on every top page of your e-commerce site. This helps users to find the products they want instantly.

Mobile-Friendly Design

Over 50% of the worldwide online traffic comes from mobile devices.

Moreover, 61% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product from a mobile-friendly site. Thus, a mobile-friendly e-commerce site can help boost website traffic retention and conversion.

One of the best practices is to use a responsive web design. That's because responsive websites can easily adjust their screen, depending on the person that's viewed them.

As a result, your site will work perfectly, working well with all types of devices.

High-Quality Product Images

As cliche as it sounds, a picture is worth a thousand words, especially if you're an e-commerce store.

The thing is, product images allow visitors to create an excellent first impression of your product. This can either attract them or turn them away.

Unlike brick and mortar stores, most customers couldn't touch, feel, see, or try on the items they bought online. That's why they would use product photos as their guide on whether they should buy your product or not.

That said, you will need high-quality product photos. Better yet, showcase a product from different angles and upload a video of how it is used. Doing so can boost a customer's confidence that they know what they are buying.

For one, more than 30% of customers would want to check out multiple product photos first before making a purchase. They may also want a 360-degree photo or video which shows off the product's most essential features.

Doing so makes it easier for your customers to visualize the product as their own and build an emotional connection with it. That's why you must invest in high-quality photos so that you can adequately showcase your products.

Most online shoppers will want to know how the product looks in real life.

Proper Product Showcase and Descriptions

Ideally, your product descriptions should offer relevant and valuable information about the product.

It should also cover the most important benefits of the product, along with its features.

When web visitors like your product, chances are, they want to learn more about how the product will help them. So, make sure that your product descriptions will effectively convey the value your products provide.

Guest Check Out

Approximately 35% of users abandon their shopping carts if required to make an account before purchasing.

While creating an account is easy, many users often find it cumbersome.

Many of them are also a bit reluctant to provide their personal information until they know that they can trust your site altogether.

Allowing your customers to place their online orders without making an account significantly reduces cart abandonment.

After they're happy with your store in their first couple of orders, you can prompt them later on to make a personal account which they probably will.

Easy Checkout Process

Making it easy for your customers to pick a product and add it to their cart is one thing. But making it easy for them to checkout and pay is another.

The easier the process is, the more motivation your customers will have to make a repeat purchase in the future. Therefore, don't add too many pages during checkout.

As much as possible, keep the process on a single page so it won't be overwhelming for your customers.

Multiple Payment Options

When it comes to e-commerce web design, you should also allow multiple payment options.

A variety of users rely on various payment methods which are available to them. Some have their favorite payment method that they rely on. So more often than not, they're more reluctant to try out other options.

There's also a chance that they will exit the sales funnel because they couldn't search for the right payment option. Provide the most common payment options on your e-commerce site.

Adequate Security and Support

If customers don't trust your site, it's less likely that they will buy from you.

Having insufficient security on your site will also expose your site to plenty of legal and financial risks.

Here are some handy security tips to keep in mind:

  • Purchase a Secure Sockets Layer or SSL certificate so that your site can securely transmit data.
  • Utilize an address verification system and credit card verification value during checkout.
  • Come up with secure passwords for your site and regularly update them.

Detailed Shipping and Return Information

Providing detailed shipping and return policy also makes shoppers feel more comfortable in transacting with you. As a result, you get to boost your conversions and sales.

That said, make sure these policies are easy to find. The footer of your site can be a great place to place links to this information.

Conclusion

The secret to e-commerce business success is making it easy for customers to transact with you. Hence, you should take the user interface and customer experience into consideration from the beginning.

And you can do that by implementing the web design tips listed above. Good luck!