6 Big Commerce Design Tips For Big Results

These days, we do just about everything online—and that includes shopping. Which is why there’s never been a better time to be in ecommerce.

Nowadays, if you’re selling anything—whether that’s sneakers, salad dressing, or something in between—you need to hop on board the ecommerce website train. An ecommerce site offers you the chance to build your brand, connect with more customers, and sell more products—but only if you’ve got the right website design.

Web design is critical when creating an ecommerce website. Good ecommerce web design is all about using the right colors, fonts, images, words and graphics to convince visitors to make a purchase. Your ecommerce website design should attract potential customers, provide great user experience and present your shop in the best light.

So, not only does your site have to look good and feel on-brand, but it also needs to drive your website visitors to take action and, you know… buy your products. But how, exactly, do you do that? How do you design the kind of ecommerce site that will have products flying off your virtual shelves?

1. Keep it Simple

One of the top rules you should keep in mind during the ecommerce design process is “KISS”—keep it simple, silly!

When it comes to designing an ecommerce website, simple is always better . The more elements you have on the page, the more it takes away from the entire point of the website—closing a sale.

You don’t need a ton of bells and whistles on your ecommerce website—all they do is act as distraction. Keep your design clear, clean, and simple—and keep the focus on the sale.

2. Make Branding a Priority

When it comes to shopping online, people want to buy from established brands—not faceless ecommerce sites that look like a front for trying to steal your credit card information.

If you want to build the trust you need to drive serious sales with your ecommerce business, you need to put some serious thought into your branding. Your branding is like the DNA of your ecommerce business; it’s who you are as a company, what you’re about, and how you’re different from your competitors—and it plays a huge part in building a connection with your audience and driving sales.

If you want to get the most from your ecommerce design, take the time to define your brand—and then infuse that branding into your design. If you’re not sure who you are as a brand, that’s ok! You’re just going to want to do a little business soul-searching before you get designing. Ask yourself questions like:

• If my brand was a person, who would it be?
• If I had to describe my brand in three words, what would they be?
• What makes my brand different from other ecommerce shops out there?
• What do we do better than anyone else on the market?

Once you know who you are, you can work it into the branding of your ecommerce site. And that branding? It’ll help build trust with your audience—and drive serious sales in the process.

3. Think Like a Website Visitor

If you want your ecommerce website design to connect with your audience, you need to think like your audience. Ultimately, there are just a few things your potential customers want in an ecommerce experience—a site that’s easy to navigate, well-designed, and makes the process of shopping easy, straightforward, and hassle-free.

During the design process, put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. What kind of layout is going to be easiest for them to navigate? How can you organize your products in a way that makes sense for the end user? How can you simplify the checkout process? When you think like your customer, you can anticipate what they want from your ecommerce store—and then design your site in order to meet those needs.

4. Make it Look Professional

The basis of an ecommerce site is that you are asking your website visitors to purchase something from you. And, as a result, you’re asking them to turn over sensitive information, like their credit card information. Which they’re not going to feel comfortable doing if your website doesn’t look profesh.

Investing in a professional website is a must if you want to build trust with your customers—and developing that trust is a must if you want your ecommerce store to succeed.

What do we mean by professional? Your website shouldn’t have any typos or misspellings. Your font, color palette, and footer design should be consistent from page to page. All your product links and buttons should work. Your photos shouldn’t look like you snapped them on an old iPhone 5 and your overall site design shouldn’t look like you swiped it from Geocities circa 1997.

The point is, if you want your customers to take you seriously, you need to show them you take yourself seriously—and the only way to do that is with a professional web design.

5. Use Social Proof

Another way to build that oh-so-important trust? Social proof.

When you’re designing your ecommerce site, look for ways to show your potential customers the positive feedback you’ve gotten from your existing customers. Add a ratings section where people can rate your products (and then get as many 5 star reviews as you can). Add a testimonials section where you feature customer photos with a quote or two about what a great experience they had working with you. Ask customers to review your products—and what they like about them—and then add them to your blog.

The more your website visitors see that other people have had a positive experience shopping on your site (whether that’s through reviews or testimonials) the more trustworthy you’ll appear—and the more your conversions will go up as a result.

6. Make it responsive

It’s official— mobile has surpassed desktop as the most popular way to surf the interwebs . And that includes shopping.

We’ll keep this short—if you want to capture the customers who want to shop on their phones or tablets, you need to make sure your website design is fully responsive. Otherwise you might not convince those valuable mobile visitors that your site is where they want to make a purchase.