eCommerce websites are in great trend these days. If you are a person with a huge number of products to sell then eCommerce websites are what you need to reach your global audience. In this post I am going to discuss with you 20 superb tips about the usability and designing of eCommerce websites. Let us have a look.
Here are the 20 most important things you need to know about an eCommerce website design and must keep in mind if you are going to design your own eCommerce website.
- Use Simple Filters
Almost all the products have different sizes, colours, etc. The packing of the filters will be an option too. If your website is using simple and very clear system of filters using different parameters, even if the customer is very choosy, he too will enjoy shopping on your website.
- Keep your search line in sight
When you provide a search bar tool provide it under the main page. Such solutions can only come with years of experiences. When your user comes to your website and could not find what all is he looking for, he will start looking for search fields. This is very natural. So it is necessary that your search line should not be hidden. All this is equally relevant for web stores where the search bars work very effectively.
- Out of Stock and In stock Summary
The next thing that you need to work on the list of the usability tips. If we talk from the SEO perspective then you should remove the products from the website that are not in stock. This is not good because if things are not in stock and you are displaying it on your website the customer might like to purchase it but because it is not available it might leave a bad impression on your user and they might get shifted to the other eCommerce website.
- Images Of The Products
This is the most important thing that you need to do while designing an eCommerce website. There is no such eCommerce expert in the web world who can make their website work without adding the images on their website. People want to see the product first before they buy. In case of eCommerce website it is essential for you to see the products with your eyes because you cannot touch them and check them. Hence it is highly recommended to put in the product images on your website to make people fall for your website.
- Working with the Shopping cart
If we talk in general there are two types of shopping carts available online. The first is when your shopping cart appears all the time and the items are getting added where the second one only notifies you about adding another item. No matter what type of variant you prefer to use it is very important to place your shopping cart at the right place. It should be kept at the point where it becomes convenient for the user to look into the shopping cart. The most important thing is that do not make your customers think very hard for making a purchase from your website. To make your shopping cart button very attractive and useful you can add some little photos that you have in your cart.
- Bread Crumbs
Bread crumbs is a very useful, efficient and convenient navigating tool. They help users to navigate through the websites very easily, especially when they have landed from the normal search engine results. The best is move 2-3 steps earlier very quickly and then understand their category structure. There are variants of bread crumbs available when they route the user that they has just gone through. Both the variants of bread crumbs have pros and cons, and if they are to be inventive, you can combine them. However there are no such cases to be seen so far.
- Mega-Menu
Mega menu are a huge fly out menus that are divided into categories and sub categories list that overlays most of the pages. We can see all such menus and categories on large websites like eBay that sells almost everything. These kinds of solutions allow you simple kinds of navigation even if your catalog structure is highly complicated. Also these mega menus will not ask for much space if you want to roll them up. So if you think that your website has many options then you can think of this option.
- Final cost
One more rule says that it is important to show the final bill of the customer at the end of the shopping cart page. It is really outrageous that the extra charges that customers usually find on the last stage. It will put off the customer immediately. You can also set a single rate of the delivery for the complete territory or can offer the delivery free. Only make the necessary calculations to set up at the right scheme. In case you cannot afford all this, and then include the complete calculations of the delivery cost on the product page, so the price will automatically be calculated depending upon the location of the customer.
- Every pixel
It has been proved that every pixel works for the success of the website. When you plan to develop a new showcase page then you need to think over customer’s impressions as well as on their actions. They also look into their online stores and before designing anything like this always question yourself why this particular thing has to look like this only, why this page is more important than other variants and also how much it is going to contribute for your success and your customers satisfaction.
- SEO
SEO is considered as one of the key factors for success under the new era of technology and with the growth of ecommerce market. You have to manage with design of your website as well. Design of your website also matters into SEO. For example, search engines always accept and like right HTML coding using the correct types of hashtags.
- Stand Different From The Crowd
No matter what type of website are you dealing into, your eCommerce website needs to be original and unique. If not in everything then at least you have to make some of your elements unique. Inventing something new out of the blue is something difficult but if your website does not provide anything different from others why would people come to your website then? Original features of a website are something that every customer will always remember.
- Social Media
There is no doubt that Social Media is responsible for providing hundreds of fans to an organization. This thing cannot be neglected just because of SEO reasons. Placing social media icons on the side of the website is not an easy job. Such things do not attract many attentions. If they are highly small and are not visible, they are of no use. If a user is able to see great photographs and original descriptions describing your products even if they do not like your website you will still is benefited from it because more people will be able to find you and your store.
- Quick Product Overview
Quick product overview is a very convenient feature that offers customers a great way to scan the catalog and to look for the products they are interested in. Quick overview allows users to look at the product page without even have to leave the category page. Even if your user see the same products but in light box along with the darker background, not into a separate tab this will be considered as a quick overview. It would be better if you fill in the light box with something in between the full product page and the product card.
- Newsletter Subscription
This is the era of email marketing and it is going to be the same way for many more years now. When you want to have some potential buyers your email list is important. Place your subscription form, you never know when your users are looking at it; may be in the blog, may be in the news block, in some news items and sales categories etc. In case you have some high frequency of the new content publishing, you can think of launching various other newsletters. One you can frame for those who want to know first about all your deals and the other information will be about the new arrivals in your product range and the third is going to include some interesting and useful materials.
- Clean Product Pages
Even if you go to buy things in reality, you won’t ever go to a dirty shop. Same thing goes with the online stores. If your product pages are not clean and it is difficult to look into the pages with some useless elements stuffed in then always try to add only those things which will bring value to your website. You have to think about each and every page as a whole and avoid too much of differentiation.
- Testimonials
Testimonials are very important these days for all types of eCommerce websites. Generally they are placed on the product page of the eCommerce website. But if you are talking about the feedback related issues of the entire store then it will be good to place such blocks on the sidebar. Designing a specific only for testimonials is good but how many people are going to get there?
- Variations with the Product
The size and colour variations are important for the eCommerce websites and should be shown very prominently and clearly for the customers without having any explanations. When it comes to choosing from the product variations, try to make your experience a wonderful one for your customers. Graphic presentation is considered much better as compared to the words, this is the reason why colors should be marked with colors only and other characteristics should be marked with icons.
- Make Simple Checkout
Arranging your pages is your aim, where you can easily lead the user. When your user comes on the page, they should get stick to the page. Also remove your additional links and blocks. Do not force them to buy something other than their interest. The less the distractions on your checkout page, the more will be the chances that customer will make easy purchases.
- “Add to cart”
This is an obvious rule to shop the usability with the Add to Cart button. Add to cart button is your call to action, so it needs to be designed in a very beautiful manner. Design this button a little different from rest of the feel of your website to make it look different from other buttons present on your page. It should not be smaller in size as like of social media buttons. Make sure it gets attention of your customers easily.
- Contacts
Counting with all the UX tips that professionals usually mention is the way that your customers generally contact you. It is normal that many customers might want to get in touch with you having some questions in mind. The internet stores needs to have 8-800 number for free of charge calls. At least give it a try. Indicate your telephone number and email address and give your visitors a chance to visit your website with the help of some special contact form. Live chat i.e. a window that allow your users to have an instant chat can be a valuable addition to the contact options that your online store contains.
Author bio
Kristy Bernales is a creative designing head at Web Design Xperts, Melbourne. She completed her graduation in graphic designing and her major interests’ lies in web designing, logo designing, and animation. Writing is also a part of her hobby. You can catch her interesting posts on Facebook and Twitter.