Today’s blog post comes to us from James Sharp of Glendale Designs, A Miva Merchant Developer Partner.
When it comes to web design for ecommerce, there are a lot of factors to consider. In the rush to develop their “dream site” many store owners make the mistake of choosing style over substance. Here are some things to keep in mind when planning the design of your ecommerce store.
Keep Your Core Functionality In Mind!
Don’t just concentrate on the latest modules and gadgets. Ensure that the base functionality and usability of your site works flawlessly and painlessly first, especially if you have a limited budget, like most of us. Add functionality ONLY if it will improve the “shopability” of your store and not because you think it’s “cool.”
Some of the core functionalities of your ecommerce site should be:
- Checkout Process
- Shopping Basket
- Account Setup / Registration
- Strong Site Search
- Excellent Product Images
- Unique and Informative Product Descriptions
Once that has been established, you can add things like:
- Product Reviews
- Social Networking Integration
- Gift Registries
- Reward Systems
- Etc.
In essence, start with the basics and do them well – then add ‘niceties’ and added user interactivity, as time and budget allows.
Good Design And Functionality Go Hand-In-Hand
The best functionality in the world may not help your bottom line! If your site “screams” with clashing colors, the latest flash animations, or looks like it could have been built in 1999, odds are your freshly acquired site visitor will leave as quickly as he got there – #FAIL!
A clean and inviting user interface that makes the shopping experience easier and maybe even fun is a must in order to be successful. A good UI design will complement and showcase your site’s functionality.
Complimentary colors can also add to the “feel good” buying momentum. Sure – you can add some “cool” stuff, but the average online retailer should concentrate on eye-pleasing design with lots of whitespace to enhance their products and their call to action. Often, less is more!
Unless your site sells snowboards or “Dora the Explorer,” you may want to stay away from bright, screaming colors and pesky animations.
Know Your Customer
Customers are people – so treat them as such!
In order to get to know your random site visitor better, you could run focus groups (crowd sourcing works well for this, if you can’t get an in-house group together) and give them simple assignments on your site, for instance:
- Find a certain product
- Create an account
- Purchase a product
- Use the Live chat feature
- Redeem a coupon
- Check order history
You will be amazed how much knowledge and insight a random site user can give you and how they point out the weaknesses and strengths of your site. This is an excellent way to determine what you should work on next to improve usability.
You can also run polls to get more information, ask questions like:
- Can you tell what the site sells right away?
- Can you easily find what you are looking for
- Do you find it easy to contact our live support?
- Does the site make you feel secure?
Provide A Mobile Version
In today’s world you simply can’t afford to not at least plan to have a mobile version of your store. It’s not as difficult as it sounds and doesn’t have to cost you the proverbial “arm and a leg,” as long as you keep it simple.
A study, conducted by Lightspeed Research for movie information web site and mobile app Flixster, finds 32% of smartphone owners research products, 27% compare prices and 25% read product reviews. 62% say they turn to their iPhones or Android phones when they first think about buying a product. The survey also finds 35% of smartphone owners’ research and purchase activity for big-ticket items is conducted on their mobile devices via Internet Retailer.
Last But Not Least: Avoid The Following In Your Ecommerce Store:
- Poor navigation
- Inadequate site search
- Poor product imagery and product information
- Hidden charges at checkout
- Weak or no branding
- Poor or no contact information and terms/conditions
Guest Contributor