Last updated on February 27th, 2024
The success of an eCommerce site largely depends on how visitors and target customers are at ease while scrolling through its pages. Their user experience, from navigating the site for information to finishing the purchase, will determine if they will return to the site for more. That is where a unique e-commerce design matters the most.
A well-thought-out e-commerce website design considers its potential visitors’ aspirations. Its design aims to provide a memorable user experience critical to building a site’s brand identity.
Only such strategically designed websites can turn visitors into loyal customers. Furthermore, if the site design is unique and user-friendly, it can turn into a great tool to convert traffic from various channels, including Google Ads campaigns and SMM campaigns.
So, make sure that your eCommerce website design stands out from many of its competitors’ sites, besides being an excellent experience for the visitors.
Remember that your website’s design will make or break your dream of competing well against established and newly emerging e-commerce platforms. Therefore, build your website strategically by incorporating various design ideas to make it a useful platform for shoppers.
Here Are 21 Design Ideas For Your eCommerce Site To Boost Conversions
E-commerce websites differ in layout and design elements compared to regular sites. Therefore, ensure that such a website has all the essential features and design elements for a memorable user experience. Explore many eCommerce design ideas or tips and use them to build the best site to sell products online.
You Can Explore The Following Time-Tested Ideas For Your eCommerce Website
01. Immersive Web Animations
Immersive web animation uses website-animated content to create a more engaging and interactive user experience. This can include animations that respond to the user input, such as hover effects, or animations that create a sense of depth and movement, such as parallax scrolling.
Immersive web animations can be created using various technologies, including CSS, JavaScript, and WebGL. In 2023, eCommerce websites will widely use immersive web animations to provide a more interactive, dynamic, and engaging user experience.
02. Multidirectional Layouts
Users should be able to interact with the site when they shop for products. Multidirectional layouts comprise a design that lets elements flow in all directions rather than a single direction. With such a layout, eCommerce brands present their content and products more interactively and intuitively.
So, the design elements can flow horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to create a more dynamic and visually exciting web page for shoppers. For instance, a shopper can use this layout to compare products side-by-side and help visitors make more informed buying decisions.
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03. Consistent Branding and Tone
Buying is an emotional decision, and your brand’s visual language and consistency play a critical role in helping people choose you over the competition. According to Gerald Zaltman, a Harvard professor, about 95% of all shopping decisions are subconscious.
Remember that a brand’s logo is a visual representation of its identity. A well-designed logo can help an eCommerce business stand out and serve as a powerful tool for building brand recall and loyalty.
For eCommerce branding, a logo is the focal point of the website and one of the first things a customer notices. Incorporating the logo design in subtle ways across the website helps create a visual aid to build trust. You can use an online logo maker or a professional brand kit to help you build a consistent presence for your company.
While working on your eCommerce website design, make strategies in advance to determine your branding elements and tone of voice. Take this crucial step before hiring a professional sales and marketing firm such as Megaphone’s Will Varney.
04. Responsiveness
With the increasing use of smartphones for online shopping, your eCommerce site must be optimized for mobile devices and designed to be mobile-first. So, ensure your site is mobile-friendly and responds to small screens efficiently.
05. Product Images
Customers expect clear, detailed images of the products they are interested in. Therefore, ensure the product images on your website are of the highest quality and offer multiple perspectives to the shopper.
06. Make Search Intuitive
The ability to search for the desired products effortlessly is key to a lower bounce rate and higher conversion. Therefore, make product searching easier by incorporating a search bar prominently at the top of your website pages.
You should also include search features, like faceted search, product ranking, and semantic search. These measures will help elevate the user experience.
07. Creative Page Transitions
Page transitions are all about building a sense of fluidity or continuity for users when they journey between different site locations. So, page transactions ensure no abrupt stops for users when they search for products. The user is carried through the site without any hurdles and stops.
It would be great to have animated page transitions incorporate interactivity to create a more engaging UX. They usually highlight a page change or transition with effects as the page loads. Adding an extra layer of interactivity to the page can make the user journey more memorable and lively.
08. Clean and Simple Navigation Menu
The challenge for most eCommerce websites is to display multiple products and categories simultaneously. Therefore, experts recommend using a “mega menu” to present complex product categories and subcategories.
Create clear and concise labels for categories and subcategories. Add the essential navigational buttons, such as “My Account” or “Sign in,” at the top right corner of your website. Also, utilize filters, sorting functionality, and a consistent theme and design throughout to improve the user experience.
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09. Social Proof
People want to make sure whether or not the product is genuine before they make a buying design. This is where social proof as a design idea comes into the picture. In fact, social proof matters more in e-commerce than anywhere else.
Some examples of social proof include customer reviews and ratings, testimonials, the number of sales for a product, social media engagement, trust badges, and influencer endorsement. Incorporate these elements in your eCommerce site to build credibility with potential shoppers.
Moreover, you can also showcase your Instagram feed on an e-commerce platform such as Shopify as social proof. Using Shopify along with Instagram is an ideal strategy for eCommerce brands that have a social media business account.
10. Attractive Typography with Contrasting Colors
Select fonts that are easy to read and not too decorative for body text. The design should make clever use of contrast color for the text to ensure further readability. Using different font types, weights, and sizes, you can create a hierarchy of information, making the most valuable items or details stand out.
Additionally, make sure that fonts are in contrasting colors for quick visibility. Use colors that are in harmony with your logo and overall website design to ensure a cohesive look.
11. Simple and Clear Checkout Process
The checkout process should be as simple as possible, with minimal steps. Be upfront about additional costs, such as shipping and taxes, and ensure they are clearly visible. Enable users to checkout as guests and users trust signals such as security badges, money-back guarantees, etc., to improve credibility.
12. Use Wishlists
A wishlist is a feature on an eCommerce site that allows customers to save items they are interested in purchasing later. It will enable users to save items in their wish lists for later use. One can design a dedicated wishlist page where customers can view all their saved items with the ability to remove items or add them to the cart. Make sure that the wishlists are sharable.
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13. Returns and Exchanges
The ‘Returns and Exchanges’ page should be prominently placed on your site and include clear instructions on returning or exchanging a product. Empower customers by offering multiple options for returns and exchanges and providing them with a return shipping label. It is essential to be transparent about the conditions under which returns and exchanges are accepted.
14. Page Hybrids
Page hybrids are increasingly becoming popular in eCommerce design. Such a web page combines elements of both a category page and a product detail page. This design provides more information and options to the users on a single page rather than having to navigate multiple pages to find what they are looking for. This can include features such as product images, reviews, and related products, as well as the ability to purchase the product directly from the page.
15. AI and Chatbots
Leveraging AI and chatbots can make the customer journey seamless and help improve the conversion rate. For example, AI can analyze customer browsing and purchase history to provide personalized product recommendations.
Chatbots can be integrated to provide 24/7 customer service and answer commonly asked questions. Additionally, chatbots help improve the search, inventory management, and checkout process.
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16. The Storytelling Approach
Storytelling is all the rage in web design. In terms of eCommerce design, it refers to using a narrative or a story to create an emotional connection with the customers and showcase products or services meaningfully. Use storytelling to describe product features and benefits in a relatable way, right from how a piece of clothing was inspired by history.
17. Fun Page Filters
Unconventional page filters take traditional filtering systems to the next level by adding a creative twist. It breaks the monotony and provides a unique user experience by offering features like slides, toggle switches, and visual elements such as icons, illustrations and color coding to help users find what they are looking for.
18. Make ‘Add To Cart’ Visible
The quickest way to lose a customer is to make it easier to find any call-to-action buttons. So, ensure that your eCommerce site has an add-to-cart button at the right place. It must be visible and prominent on your website from the rest of the content. Use a contrasting color from the website that still fits the overall design.
19. Display Shipping Offers Prominently
People often visit online shopping sites for discounts and low-cost shipping offers. Therefore, promotions or shipping discounts must be prominently displayed on the site. Create these buttons in an eye-catching font to ensure the customer sees them.
20. Use Videos
Customers expect an eCommerce website to show product demo videos as they want to see how that product works. That helps immensely in making the right buying decision. Product Videos are one of the most effective ways to capture users’ attention and take them to the finish line.
While adding the videos to the site, ensure that the video thumbnail image is attractive and entices you to click on the video to play it.
21. Create Urgency
It is now a well-recognized fact that creating urgency for potential buyers helps boost conversion rates. Some design elements instantly capture the consumer’s attention and evoke a sense of urgency. To create urgency, you can mention the scarcity of products with low stock (only 1 left) or indicate time sensitivity, such as next-day shipping or limited-time offers. Fonts, colors, placement, and icons play their part in conveying this urgency.
Implementing these 21 design ideas will boost conversions on your eCommerce site and increase sales. But do not forget to test different design elements on your site and see what works best for your business.
Wrapping Up
E-commerce websites sell products, so their design layouts must stand out from other sites. Therefore, you must compare various design ideas to find the best option to yield the desired results. Such ideas include multidirectional layouts, immersive web animations, multiple product images, social proof, page hybrids, a clean and simple navigation menu, and the storyline approach.
