tips for designing a functional e-commerce website
author: Penny Hunt, 12 December 2024
website design tips for a functional e-commerce site
Designing a functional website is the most crucial step toward success when launching an eCommerce business. The design process isn’t often a walk in the park, but when accomplished, it can be the deciding factor to your online business’s success.
You have to choose the right platform for hosting your website and perform some market research and analysis, among other considerations, to pull a successful web design. Below, we’ll look at some of the most effective tips you can employ for designing a functional eCommerce website.
choose the right e-commerce platform
There are several eCommerce platforms that you can consider when hosting your website. They offer an easier way to launch and run a successful website than hosting it yourself, as you won’t need to worry about some security risks and high costs.
As seen in this comparison, Magento and WooCommerce are the most commonly paired eCommerce platform options. These two offer some of the most reliable features an open-source eCommerce platform can offer, although you must upgrade from the free plan to enjoy even better performance.
Choose a platform that aligns with your business needs so you don’t disappoint your customer’s expectations. Go through the platform’s features to see how to optimise them for your business’s success.
carry out market research and analysis
You can do a lot of prior research to understand your industry’s performance trends before you launch your website. With the help of research and analytics tools like Ahrefs, you can benchmark competitor websites to understand their gaps and strengths. A good analysis could mean checking what competitors in your niche are doing and developing better ways of doing what they already do. You can do this by checking their:
● Website
● Product Presentation
● Marketing & Branding Techniques
● Customer Service
● Product Range
● Pricing Strategy and more
Ultimately, this research should help you understand market conditions and approach web design from an informed perspective.
take time building your product pages
Product pages are where the business will happen, so you should not rush designing them. Take your time to understand what needs to be where, and how to encourage cross-selling and upselling within different product pages.
Think of all the thoughts that could run through a buyer’s mind when going through the pages and try to make things as clear as possible. Add social proof, multiple images, and as much information as necessary to help your shoppers decide what they want without leaving the page.
set up payment options
The more payment options you have in mind, the better for your customers. However, you must enhance website security for all payment options you offer. Make it easier for them to choose between currencies that work best for them, especially if you’re targeting a global customer base. When customers find a reliable payment wallet among the listed options on your website, they’re most likely to buy and reduce cart abandonment rates.
ensure a quick checkout process
If you force customers to create an account during the checkout stage before completing their purchase, they’ll leave. Regardless of how smooth the entire buying process has been, if the checkout process is bumpy, it can negate whatever excellent experience they’ve had. You can quicken or streamline the process by:
● Offering guest checkout: Visitors can make purchases without creating an account.
● Using fewer checkout steps: Aim for a single-page checkout if possible and minimize requirements here.
● Displaying transparent costs: Let the customers know if there are any additional costs like taxes and display them.
conclusion
Designing a successful eCommerce website can be demanding, and the cost can be as high as you want to customise it. The most important decision to make when designing your website is the platform on which you’ll host it. Once you understand how the platform’s features can help optimise your website’s performance, you will easily achieve the rest of the tips on this list.