The challenge with successful ecommerce website design comes in the details. Most of us have abandoned an online shopping cart at one time or another, and that cart full of almost-purchased products is a real missed opportunity for the business in question. If you want to attract new customers from Calgary and beyond, your ecommerce site needs to be secure, easy to use, and convenient.
Emphasize Design offers everything you need for effective ecommerce website design. We combine your input with our expertise to design an ecommerce experience that fits with the core values of your business, and delivers excellent results.
Understanding the Elements of Effective ecommerce Websites
The first thing to realize about ecommerce is that you have a lot of competition for the shopper’s attention. In addition to being more appealing than competing businesses, you also have to be more important than the few (or few dozen) other pages the shopper has open in their browser. You have to beat the demands of the outside world and be more responsive than the competition. This means making your online store as clean and clutter-free as possible.
- Shoppers want information. When you’re talking about your products, you need to think like a customer. Provide detailed descriptions and vivid images taken from every angle to give shoppers a complete picture of the item they’re considering.
- Just make sure those detailed descriptions aren’t so long that the reader gets lost. You can fit lots of information into a concise description by simply sticking to the facts.
- While the user experience tends to be the big-ticket item for ecommerce, aesthetic appeal matters quite a bit, too. The colours, content, images, multimedia, and web design features of your online store should all be chosen with your target market in mind.
- The look and feel of your site establish the atmosphere of your ecommerce experience, and reflect on the quality of your business. When a shopper sees a clean, well-designed site, they’re more likely to trust your business.
- Mobile website design is vital to establishing an online presence for your Calgary business, and that extends to your ecommerce store. Responsive web design allows your site to scale seamlessly on screens of all sizes, so you can tap into the massive, growing group of people who prefer to browse on mobile devices.
Avoid Abandoned Shopping Carts by Simplifying Checkout
With an effective marketing funnel in place, you’re sure to draw your fair share of interested shoppers. The final challenge is getting them over the finish line, and that requires a smooth, simple checkout process. Make it as easy as possible to buy, and you’ll stand a much better chance of converting customers online.
- Make pricing clear and straightforward on your product pages. If a shopper sees one price quoted on the product page and finds a different price once they put an item into their shopping cart, there’s a good chance that shopping cart will be abandoned.
- There’s no getting around the fact that completing online purchases requires buyers to fill out forms, but you can work to make those forms as painless as possible. Ask only for the information you truly need, and don’t require shoppers to fill out long registration forms to make a purchase.
- Navigation is also very important. As the customer works through the checkout process, they should always know where they are, how to go back and change information, and how to reach the next step of the process.
- Provide clear links and a uniform visual appearance from one page to the next. If your checkout process has multiple steps, include a progress bar so shoppers always see how far along they are.
- Instructions should also be clear, and easy to find. Information about how to use a page should be featured on that page. Don’t make users click away from checkout to get instructions, if you can avoid it.
- If your ecommerce website is generating significant traffic or you find yourself losing customers at checkout, consider adding a live chat feature to provide help in real time. Live chat allows customers to find answers to their questions, without navigating away from the page that prompted their question.
In the end, developing your ecommerce website design isn’t so different from developing the customer experience at the physical location of your Calgary business. By providing clear pricing, assistance when needed, and a simple checkout process, you stand a great chance of earning new business online. Emphasize Design will be with you every step of the way to develop an ecommerce website that delivers consistent value for your business.