Today, customers have thousands of e-commerce websites to surf and purchase products online. But due to lack of time, their attention span to each website lasts for only a few minutes. In such a scenario, an e-commerce retailer has to make sure that his web presence is impressive enough to grab the attention of the visitor within that short period of time.
Design plays a crucial role in determining whether an e-commerce platform can be a selling machine or not. But it’s not that easy to design a seamless e-commerce web experience. Let’s make this daunting task easier with uncovering the nine key ways to redesign your e-commerce portal for selling more products.
1. Make Your Web Portal Responsive To Mobile Devices
As per a study carried out by The State of Mobile Web in the US 2015, “56% of consumer traffic to the leading US e-commerce sites is now coming from mobile devices.” This is why it’s important to make your website responsive to mobile devices.
You should carefully choose a theme which is optimized for smartphones and can provide users with an amazing mobile experience. Also, it’s extremely essential for you to make sure your site performs smoothly on multiple platforms such as laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.
2. Keep It Simple, Clean, & Easy To Navigate
When designing your e-commerce website, it’s crucial to have a layout which is clean and organized. Arrange all elements properly so that customers don’t get confused when browsing through the different pages. Also, make sure to make it intuitive and interactive enough so that customers can navigate through effortlessly.
Always stay away from designing a cluttered interface that can annoy visitors. Ensure to integrate relevant information only and don’t provide too much information as it can be chaotic. For example, look at the website of Luxy Hair which is specifically designed to have a clear call to action with interesting videos and high-end images.
3. Integrate Quality & Visually Appealing Images
The pictures which you incorporate in your e-commerce portal have the potential to either make or break the customer experience. It’s necessary to add only high-end images which are visually attractive and fun to see.
Eliminate all pixelated and big images that can look weird. Rather explore platforms such as Pexels, Burst, Unsplash, etc. for getting high-quality images for free. Make sure all your images are customized to suit the screen and visitors will have no difficulty when viewing them.
4. Use Whitespace Smartly With Custom Fonts & Appealing Colors
In order to increase your sales for your e-commerce site, it’s mandatory to integrate design elements precisely. For example, you must strategically use white space to create a seamless visual hierarchy. Also, use custom fonts which can grab customers’ attention and relevant colors that resonate with your business.
There are several online platforms, such as “ThemeFores,” which lets you choose the best website theme in accordance with your specific requirements. “ThemeFores” allows one to explore multiple design templates or get it custom developed by a software development company. You should use the right type of text that can be easily read and comprehended by visitors.
Avoid using horizontal scrolling because customers find it complex and confusing. Use vertical scrolling and menu categories for highlighting the most significant substance. This will make users navigate effortlessly with no need to use the horizontal scrollbar.
When redesigning your e-commerce website for boosting sales, you can use a sales CRM tool such as “Benchpoint This” tool provides you with all the necessary customer related information such as shopping habits, shipping preference, and specific interests. You can use this information to identify the issues customers are facing with the existing design and tailor it to fill the gaps.
In addition, you can connect the call to action buttons of your e-commerce store with one of the best CRM tools of your choice. It will help you in streamlining the process of following up with prospects.
4. Always Stick To The Product First Approach
In order to convince customers to buy your products, it’s important to showcase them in a way that they look worth purchasing. Let customers find what they want effortlessly by providing them with easy search options and filters to ensure that all the elements are clearly visible.
Highlight your best sellers and include all the relevant details such as features, functionality, pricing, technical information, return policy, etc. so that buyers can easily make their final decision to purchase your product.
5. Make The Shopping Cart As Simple As Possible
Make the buying process clear, trustworthy, and clean for the customers. Otherwise, they abandon the shopping cart. Ensure that you are integrating the right payment platforms for making the checkout process much more streamlined. Also, it’s beneficial to follow other shopping carts best practices, such as optimizing the page for speed so that customers can place orders swiftly.
You should also make sure that your customers receive instant feedback when adding products to their carts. It’s advisable to add interesting pop-ups to motivate customers to buy more products. However, avoid using these pop-ups too frequently as it can annoy customers.
6. Minimize The Page Loading Time
According to a study, more than half of the total users would abandon the web page if the loading time took more than 3 seconds. This is why you should strive hard to optimize your e-commerce website so that it loads fast. It’s not easy by can be achieved by following the below tricks:
a. Don’t use picture formats that aren’t optimized for the web.
b. Keep away from integrating high-resolution images and make sure to resize them prior to uploading.
In addition, you can also use platforms like “Moz and Crazyegg” to reduce the loading time of your web pages. These platforms can easily make your e-commerce store faster so that customers can browse through without getting interrupted. Hire the right engineering team to ensure the page load issue is taken care of.
7. Make The Contact Information Easily Accessible
Customers might have some doubts about your products and it can be difficult to make your contact info easily accessible to all. For instance, look at the website of “Austin Bazaar.” This website placed their contact number in a highly visible section along with their hours of operation.
In addition, you should also provide the customer with comprehensive FAQs and information to offer details on your products and services. For example, you can add information on your delivery system, sizing charts, and returns and warranties to make things crystal clear for the customers.
8. Don’t Ignore Adding Customer Reviews
As per research, 61% of online shoppers go through customer reviews prior to purchasing a product. Reviews can be the magic wand to boost sales and driving conversions. Therefore, it’s important to showcase product reviews for proving your credibility.
It’s good to have excellent reviews, but in the case of bad ones, make sure to follow up as soon as possible. By replying quickly, it will help the unsatisfied customers believe that you consider them as the first priority and take quick actions in fixing their issues.
9. Keep Updating Your Design Frequently
You can’t keep the design of your e-commerce portal static always. Rather, put effort into updating it regularly in order to make it much more relevant. This is necessary to retain the interest of your customers and keep them involved with your business.
When updating, it’s equally important to check if our e-commerce website has typos. You can use platforms such as “Spell Check Plus” to examine the copy before finalizing and highlight errors in typing.
Remember to create a prototype of your e-commerce website before finalizing the ultimate design. A prototype is essential to testing the website’s feasibility and gathering initial feedback to improvise the end product.
With these tips, it will become easier to design an impeccable e-commerce store which can be your ultimate weapon to maximizing sales. Also, you can use these tricks to grab the attention of new prospects and converting them into permanent customers.
Author Bio:
Anubhuti Shrivastava is a content crafter at Arkenea, a software development firm helping entrepreneurs and businesses build successful web and mobile apps. She is passionate about writing articles on topics related to design and the software development industry.