There’s a saying that if it’s not online, it doesn’t exist. This proverb is becoming more relevant every day as online markets continue to dominate the world of shopping.
If you don’t currently have an e-commerce website, it may be preventing you from reaching your sales goals and realizing your full potential.
What Does An E-Commerce Website Design Include?
Simply put, it’s the process of creating an online store and selling digitally to your target buyers. Designing an e-commerce website involves planning, conceptualizing, and arranging your content and products for effective presentation on the web. It takes some professional skills of an ecommerce web design company to develop a perfect website.
The e-commerce push has already started as more and more businesses and shoppers turn to e-commerce stores for purchases. In 2020, Walmart’s online sales increased 97%. Amazon’s sales and revenue growth in the second quarter was 40%. Large businesses aren’t the only ones benefiting from consumers’ growing appetite for online shopping. Smaller retailers like Howard’s Storage World and B-Wear Sportswear are seeing double- and even triple-digit year-over-year e-commerce sales growth.
What do these three companies have in common? Their fresh and modern e-commerce website design is built and optimized for customer conversion.
So you, too, can join the growing number of retailers who are consistently meeting and surpassing their annual e-commerce goals.
Everything You Need To Build a Beautiful (And Powerful) Ecommerce Website
No matter what kind of ecommerce website you want to build, the first thing you need is an ecommerce platform that can help you create the best ecommerce store.
There are three main types of e-commerce platforms on the market.
- Open Source
- SaaS
- Headless Trade
Each offers a toolkit for creating an online store.
Page builders, checkout pages, payment gateway integrations, and more. The difference between these e-commerce platforms lies in the following layers.
- Adjustment
- Performance
- Built-In Functionality
- Flexibility
No matter which shop builder you want to start with, it’s important to make sure your top picks have the following features;
- Mobile Ready
Mobile responsiveness is critical to the success of your e-commerce website. More than 46% of consumers complete their entire checkout process (from research to purchase) on their smartphones, and 75% say they have abandoned websites that are not mobile-friendly. A responsive ecommerce platform can enable visitors from all kinds of devices to deliver the same great onsite experience, without any design limitations.
- Customization Options
“Beauty” is a very subjective rating. However, when it comes to web design, “looks good” usually means practical layouts, aesthetically pleasing typography and iconography, sharp graphics, and other on-site design elements that distinguish your store from others.
If your ecommerce platform lacks customization features and beautiful out-of-the-box templates, you’ll end up using the same forms as hundreds of other stores, leaving limited space to showcase your brand.
- User-Friendly Site Navigation
Navigation is a generic term for UI elements that users can use to access specific information on website. This includes header navigation menus, product category pages, filters, onsite search, and footers. Suppose your e-commerce platform limits your ability to create custom navigation paths. This results in a website that looks good but doesn’t work, and most customers won’t want to use it, resulting in low conversion rates.
Provide an engaging user experience.
Delight encourages consumers to complete their purchases before continuing shopping. What is it that ignites that sense of joy and takes your brand to the next level? The best marketing tools in the world are useless if your website leaves something to be desired.
- A Well-Thought-Out User Experience (UX)
UX plays an important role in ensuring that your website is not only functional, but also intuitive, reliable, user-friendly and easy to navigate. These factors add to the enjoyment of interacting with websites and make browsing more enjoyable.
Think higher conversions, repeat purchases, rave reviews and word of mouth. These are important and can mean the difference between a company’s growth and decline.
Differences between B2C and B2B E-Commerce Site Design
Designing a performant website requires understanding your target audience and how best to reach them. Both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce websites have the same purpose of selling. However, the means to do so is slightly different.
Brand awareness is paramount for B2C companies. A recognizable brand (keep this in mind when choosing a domain name) has a strong online presence = a higher share of the total available market. Lead generation is paramount for B2B companies. Niche markets and longer buying cycles require B2B brands to maintain a steady pipeline of qualified leads.
Let’s see what that means design-wise;
- Differences in Customer Intentions.
Both B2B and B2C purchases are triggered by needs. However, the underlying motivations behind these needs are different.
A B2B customer’s intentions are driven by business priorities and supported by other groups of people (stakeholders, team, company’s customers, end- users). Product research timelines are longer and the list of requirements to evaluate a product is more detailed as more people need to be satisfied. For this reason, B2B e-commerce sites convert top of the funnel (TOFU) and middle of the funnel (MOFU) visitors into leads and use blending to convert them from online services (email marketing) is focused on. , e-books, social media, online demos) and offline sales strategies (phone consultations, face-to-face demos, etc.).
- Purchase Process
More people are involved in B2B buying process, including end users and buyers/decision makers. An e-commerce website is a supporting tool that must inform, support, and demonstrate how your product meets all of your organisation’s needs through content, interactive on-site tools, and supporting marketing assets. Remember:
Your ultimate goal is lead generation, not immediate sales.
Most B2C consumers do constant product research and evaluation in the background. When they find a sizable deal, they’re almost ready to pick it up. With that in mind, B2C ecommerce sites need to facilitate discovery and foster that sense of urgency.
- User Experience
User experience is equally important to B2B and B2C buyers, but differences in intent and buying process must be considered. Nielsen Group identifies five key differences between UX requirements for B2B and B2C websites.
- B2B design must consider longer content to support longer decision-making and sales processes.
- All B2B content should appeal to two audiences: “voters” (decision makers) and end users.
- B2B product information should be longer and more comprehensive with a clear overview of integrations, capabilities and regulatory requirements.
- Both B2B and B2C customers are price sensitive. However, B2B pricing scenarios are more complex. Offer B2B buyers different price tiers, pay-as-you-go scenarios, or calculators to make decision making easier.
- Similar to B2C stores, B2B websites serve multiple customer segments of varying sizes, industries, and operating budgets. Therefore, B2B websites should design more diverse audience-based navigation to accommodate all audiences.
Conclusion
Building an e-commerce website has never been easier. It is no longer an overly technical and laborious process that has discouraged many large and small businesses from entering the online marketplace.
Good ecommerce website design is all about functionality and repetition. Start with the important pages and design a quick prototype. Test them in teams to create alliterations. Launch a new look and gather first-hand insights from your customers. Whether it’s conversion optimization, new product landing pages, or seasonal promotions, there’s always a lot of “design” work to do. If you are looking for software development services in London, get in touch with Sky Potentials.
