E-commerce Website Design Best Practices

It’s common knowledge that most people judge an organization’s credibility based on the impression they get when they visit its website. That can be a problem if your website isn’t up to snuff because it only takes about 50 milliseconds for a typical person to form an opinion of a website, with the person’s opinion largely being driven by web design.

Because your site only has 0.05 seconds to make a good first impression on your visitors, it’s vital for you to focus on your website’s design. Following some best practices can help you ensure your design makes a desirable impression on everyone who navigates to your e-commerce website. 

Keep Things Simple

Too many e-commerce websites put too much on their individual pages, including their homepage. When there’s too much clutter on a given page, it will distract people from your call to action. You want your visitors to be able to find your CTA quickly, not minutes or even seconds after they land on your site.

You can apply the rule of thirds during the e-commerce website development process to make sure you keep things simple. When creating your site, use a grid with two horizontal and two vertical lines that are evenly spaced. The points at which those lines intersect are where you should put your CTA along with other important information. Design the rest of your page around those points, leaving plenty of white space between each design element.

Add a Search Bar

Have you ever gone to an e-commerce site that sells hundreds or thousands of products only to have to scroll through a bunch of them to find the specific item you originally wanted to buy? If so, you know firsthand how frustrating it can be to waste time looking at products you’re not interested in to find the specific thing you want.

You can avoid irritating people who already have at least a general idea of what they want to purchase by adding a search bar to your website. Make sure the search bar is ever-present on every page and that it will move with your visitors in the navigation bar as they scroll down a page.

Simplify the Checkout Process

You only need two things to process a transaction on an e-commerce site—a person’s billing information and shipping address. While you can encourage people to share more information like their email address by setting up an account, you shouldn’t force people to do so by making it a requirement. Instead, allow people to complete their transaction as a guest.

You should make sure your site accepts an array of payment types in addition to an assortment of credit and debit cards. You can expedite the checkout process by accepting payment types like PayPal, which will pre-fill a lot of information for people who use that payment option.

Find a Trusted Web Development Team for Your next E-commerce Site

At Northwest Media Collective Inc, we specialize in creating result-driven websites for e-commerce merchants. We have set up a multi-store function and customized a checkout/cart function for Beastly Swag. On Alder Creek’s e-commerce site, we conducted a full-scale integration of their POS system, importing hundreds of products for purchase online while maintaining inventory sync with their physical store. We understand the importance of a clean, easy to use the website, that customers will enjoy shopping on. 

Contact NW Media Collective Inc. to learn more about our e-commerce website development services now!