What High-Converting eCommerce Websites Do Differently

Selling a good product is only one part of starting an eCommerce store. Website design is often overlooked but crucial, especially if you’re serious about building a long-term brand. Customers need to trust your site, and it’s also a key asset for branding.

However, making an eCommerce website that stands out is not easy. Many beginners make the same mistakes, such as overcomplicating the process or not picking the right template. As a result, they have to spend significant time fixing these errors later.

Today, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating a great eCommerce website. You’ll also find a handful of examples to give you some inspiration.

TL;DR:
Great eCommerce design builds trust, removes checkout friction, and guides users to buy - small layout and UX choices directly impact sales.

Before we look at some of the best eCommerce website design practices, it’s worth understanding the most important considerations. Below are four key elements to consider.

Building Trust With Your Audience

Trust is important in every industry, but it’s even more essential in eCommerce. You’re asking people to buy something they might not have tried in person yet, which can be challenging if you’re a small brand. Your website is the chance to make an excellent first impression.

All too often, eCommerce store owners think their product can excuse a badly designed website. The reality, however, is it won’t. If your site looks outdated, takes a while to load, and has poor navigation, you’ll miss out on a lot of sales.

Building trust also includes highlighting that your website is secure. To protect your audience, you must use secure socket layer (SSL) certificates and install the right plugins.

Accessibility

Building an accessible website is a legal requirement in many countries. Your website must still allow people with hearing and visual impairments to navigate it without problems.

It’s in your best interests to build an accessible site beyond the law, though. It improves the browsing experience for everyone, leading to more sales and higher profit margins.

Creating a Memorable Brand

You shouldn’t treat eCommerce customers as a one-and-done deal. Ideally, you should build a strong base of users who’ll spend their money with you multiple times in the future. eCommerce customer retention can get pretty complex, but creating a memorable brand is the best place to start.

Your brand should be consistent across all your online channels, not just your website. However, starting with your site is a good idea.

Removing Friction in the Shopping Process

Modern eCommerce sites must have a slick checkout process, making it easy for people to complete their purchases. If you ignore this, you’ll suffer in the long run.

Gone are the days when users needed to create accounts before buying. It’s also important to integrate the right eCommerce payment gateways and streamline how long it takes to add items to your shopping cart.

Now that we’ve covered some of the most important eCommerce website design considerations, let’s look at your specific actions to build a better site.

Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider

Your eCommerce website’s success will depend on the foundations you build, which starts with picking a reliable hosting provider. Unlimited bandwidth is non-negotiable, and you should look for free daily backups, too.

Since security in eCommerce is paramount, choosing a hosting provider with free malware scans is a very good idea. Moreover, you should consider services with free domain registration to streamline your costs a little.

Verpex offers all of the above for an affordable price if you’re unsure who to join. You’ll get a free one-click WordPress installation alongside free SSL certificates and cPanel.

Use a Customizable Template and Platform

Once you’ve chosen your hosting provider, it’s time to consider the next layer of website design. WordPress.org offers the most customization among platforms, and for this reason, we suggest picking it. It’s open-source and fully customizable.

You then need to select a theme. For eCommerce, you need something optimized for WooCommerce if you’re going to use WordPress. While several free options are available, buying a premium theme is very much worth it. For example, Kadence Pro has some of the best customization options for general and eCommerce sites.

Besides the design itself, you should find a theme optimized for speed. If you don’t have something that loads quickly, you’ll deter many users and could impact search engine visibility.

Simplify the Checkout Process

You can simplify the checkout process in many ways, such as:

• Offering guest checkout
• Letting users autofill their card details
• Reducing the number of steps involved

By doing each of these alone, you will make significant progress. From that point, you can iterate and make incremental enhancements over time.

Choose Contrasting Colors

High-contrast colors are essential for readability. If you don’t know where to start, you can make your website background black, beige, or light gray, and your text black. This will make it very easy for people to understand what they can see in front of them.

Picking colors that contrast is also wise for your branding. It’s much more eye-catching, which can help make your website memorable. Using color theory, such as orange and purple, can help significantly.

When choosing your colors, think about:

• What suits your brand
• The type of personality you wish to convey
• What your audience would find attractive

Prioritize Your Most Important Elements

Visual hierarchy is one of the most important elements of web design and is particularly essential for eCommerce websites. Besides high-contrast colors, it involves:

• Elements: Organize your elements based on their importance and choose the right sizes.

• Typography: Choose easy-to-read fonts and make sure they’re at least 16 pixels big.

• Visuals: Organize photos and videos in order of importance.

Keep things simple with your visual hierarchy. Use a good amount of white space so it’s easy for people to read and so everything can shift positions on mobile when needed. Getting your visual hierarchy right will take some time, so be patient and approach the process with an experimental mindset.

Make Navigation a Breeze

If users can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave your website and never return. Navigation should be a key priority throughout your site.

Your menus should clearly outline everything users might look for. Choose the right menu type for your site and device; dropdown menus are better on computers, while hamburger menus work on smartphones.

Add filters that users may need to find what they’re looking for. Consider including some of the most important elements at the bottom of your page as a reminder.

Optimize for Mobile First

According to Oberlo, 60.4% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Optimizing for smartphones and tablets is no longer optional, especially for eCommerce stores.

Start by optimizing your eCommerce website for mobile rather than beginning with desktop. This will involve prioritizing the most important elements and being a minimalist with what you include. Other key considerations are:

• Consider how your website will look in Light and Dark Mode.
• Understand how readers will interact with your site on mobile.
• Compress your images so they load faster on mobile.

Some themes let you hide elements on smartphones and tablets, simplifying the design process. You can also preview your site on all devices.

To ensure your website is optimized for mobile, use PageSpeed Insights – Google’s free speed test tool.

Use Original Imagery

Stock images are fine on some websites but aren’t a good idea in eCommerce. Potential buyers want to see how your product will help them, so it's vital that you create your own images.

Taking high-quality photos of your products is one of many ways to use photography in web design. While having a DSLR, mirrorless, or full-frame camera helps, you can take amazing pictures with your smartphone if you learn about lighting.

Consider using images that match your brand and editing them in that style. For example, if you sell vintage products, you can use film-style editing. Use an image compressor plugin to ensure your pictures keep their quality while being smaller in size.

Follow WCAG

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Following these rules is essential to make your eCommerce website more accessible.

You can find all of the guidelines here. If you operate in the US, you must also comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Start Simple and Build Later

As you begin designing your website, you’ll always find something new to tweak. However, this can get exhausting if you lack the resources.

Assuming you plan to be in this business for the long run, you don’t have to rush to get everything done. Start with the simplest aspects with bigger impacts, such as visual hierarchy, accessibility, and choosing the right provider. Then, you can build from your strong base.

To help you get some new ideas for your own online store, let’s now look at some examples of great eCommerce website design.

The Springboks Online Store

The Springboks Online Store is the official rugby shop for South Africa’s rugby team. It features the iconic gold and green colors while integrating them in a way that’s easy to read and navigate.

Finding what you need is also very straightforward. Everything is categorized, with images supporting what you’re looking for. Moreover, the site is transparent, clearly outlining whether shoppers need to pay tax.

Amundsen Sports

Outdoor and sportswear company Amundsen Sports has a minimalist website with beautiful imagery. Many of the pictures were taken in Norway, where the brand originated. The pictures have a clear editing style, making Amundsen’s brand instantly recognizable. Each product has multiple images of someone using it, giving the buyer a better idea of what to expect.

The website uses black text on a white background and white text when needed. Thanks to comprehensive categorization, it’s very easy to find what you need, with the option to choose different colors without clicking on a product.

Heymat

Doormat company Heymat has a simple website that provides quick access to the different types of mats it sells. The site’s copy is simple but effective, and a hamburger menu is visible when you scroll to the top of the screen.

You’ll find original imagery with the mats clearly shown in their recommended setting. Moreover, it’s easy to quickly shift the language.

Designing an effective eCommerce website takes time, but it’s worth investing your energy into. It's a good idea to start slow and build over the long run, and you can take inspiration from sites that already exist. Optimizing for accessibility is also essential.