What Makes an Effective e-Commerce Website

Over the years, there is a steady increase in online selling. More and more businesses are adding an e-commerce website to their physical store to sell products online.  An effective e-commerce website should have certain features and functionalities for better user experience and to increase sales. Here are some things to keep in mind prior to designing an online store.

Identify your customers

Understanding the Demographics of the target customer is an important aspect of site design. Numerous variables like age gender, education qualification, location are analyzed to know the shopper and learn their behavior. This data plays a paramount role in designing the product pages, structuring the layout and defining the check out process.

Mobile friendly

There is an increasing number of online shoppers from mobile devices rather than from desktop or laptop. The e-commerce site should be a responsive website keeping mobile users in mind. All functionalities of the e-commerce site should be tested on mobile devices to ensure they are functioning properly.

Every second count

A site that loads faster is the most preferred by end-users. A delay of more than two seconds in loading time increases the bounce rate. The site should be optimized to reduce the loading time. Site speed is directly proportional to the conversion rate.

Easy to navigate

The site should be designed and structured well to facilitate easy navigation around the products and categories. The design should be in line with end-user searches. The design team and the client should discuss how the products should be categorized.  The site layout should be based on product categories.  The categories should be clickable and there should be filters to allow advance searches.

Policies

Utmost importance should be given to list policy information about product return and exchange at a prominent place on the website. The policy should be easy to find and listed in layman terms for easy understanding.

Secure

To gain customer trust, an e-commerce website needs to be secure. Keeping customer information and their shopping preferences confidential and providing secure payment gateway are some ways to gain trust.

Seamless checkout

Customers tend to leave the site if they face hurdles during a checkout. The site should provide all functionalities for a seamless checkout experience. The checkout screen should clearly show the items in the cart and should allow editing till the last minute of checkout. The site should remember customer information and prefill information wherever required. For the first time quick shoppers, the site should allow check out as a guest.

Design matters

It is incredibly important that an e-commerce website design should be visually appealing and engaging to the users. Simple design elements and clutter-free design is essential to make a first impression.

Product images

The product images should be good enough to make an impression on the buyer. A gallery of images can be added for each product. The image size should be optimized without compromising on quality to reduce the load time. Some products are best explained through a video.

Product descriptions

Clear product description and specification helps to avoid return due to incorrect purchase.

Payment

The e-commerce website should provide secure payment options and make it seamless for customers to complete a transaction. Customers expect all possible payment options like credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, and digital payment platform.

Testing

Do ample user testing to ensure that the site functions as required. Test the site across all devices and all browsers.

Each business is unique. We listen to your needs and understand your business.  Our developers have experience in various e-commerce platforms like Magento and Shopify. We have expertise in designing exceptional e-commerce websites for different markets.

If you are looking for e-commerce website design services get in touch with us today.