There are a few basics that you should try and stick to when designing a website for an ecommerce store. Sellr allows you to easily address and implement the most important features for an online store website that is designed to help you sell more.

 

Essentially there are a few simple points to look at when designing your online store. So let's start at the very beginning and focus on your homepage.

 

What is a Homepage?

 

Your homepage is the first contact you have with your potential customer, think of it as your shop window of a bricks and mortar shop. You need it to look enticing enough to encourage the window shopper to come inside, engage with you and browse. On average it takes a visitor just 3 seconds to make a choice to proceed or leave. Therefore it is important to make informed choices with the look and feel of your design.

An ecommerce homepage that really hits the target normally has the following elements:

• A simple layout with an easy to find menu with clear product categories

• Great imagery of products and main sellers with enticing offers

• Obvious showcase of recommended products and trending items

• An Enter and/or exit pop-up to encourage revisits and customer retention.

 

This is not an exhaustive list, but it's a good idea to base the layout and design on these principles.

 

The Horse Artist’s homepage immediately presents the viewer with the product, and features a scrolling gallery to showcase the items available to customers. It also features a live chat facility, pop-up sign-up windows and promotes a payment gateway feature. All of these elements presented in the first 3 seconds of arrival are a great way to encourage a sale. 

 

 

Source: The Horse Artist

 

How to organise your product category page.

 

Relevant categories are essential for organising your products into a logical place to make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for. Most online shoppers have limited attention for finding a product and will want instant success when shopping, especially if they are browsing on mobile devices. So make your items easy to find by organising your products into categories, and subcategories if you need to.

Not only will organising your products aid user experience, search engines will also be able to find your products easier. Ensure that your category pages have a descriptive and SEO optimised URL.

 

 

Optimise your product pages.

 

The products you offer should be presented in an organised and clean way for a successful ecommerce experience. If your listings look unorganised and dull, your conversations will never increase. To make great looking product pages make sure to consider the following points:

• Take high-quality product photos and keep the design uniformed i.e with similar backgrounds and lighting.

• Include detailed item descriptions as well as the product name, variations (in size or colour etc) and pricing structure.

• Include customer reviews.

• Offer related products (upselling and cross-selling items) and bundled products (e.g buy item A and get item B for half price).

Once you have the basics in place you can add extra features such as back in stock alerts or abandoned basket emails. Always refer to a quick checklist to optimise your website for ecommerce.

 

Make your checkout page as slick as possible.

 

According to Baymard Institute, many factors can prompt a customer to abandon their shopping cart:

 

Source: Baymard Institute

 

Noone likes surprise extra costs at the checkout and will most likely go somewhere else, just out of principle, if you suddenly spring extra fees on them. Customers also like the option of buying as a ‘guest’ and will most likely go through with the payment, if they are not forced into opening an account in order to get to the checkout page.

 

Why have an about us page?

 

You would be surprised to learn that a well written about us page can encourage consumer confidence, so don’t overlook yours. It is a chance to explain your story, introduce your team and the products you are offering. Avoid selling pitches here, just tell your story with a short written piece and some poignant visuals of your team, premises and products. Voltexsafety have a great ‘About Us’ page which tells why they do what they do and their journey so far.

 

 

Source: Voltex Safety

 

Why an on-site search engine is important.

 

A search facility is highly important for any size ecommerce business. At every step of the way you have to consider making your customer journey as simple as you possibly can. Have as few clicks as possible for a customer to make a purchase. An on-site search engine will speed up the customer journey and allow them to make a purchase quicker and easier. 

 

 

Include an email newsletter sign up form.

 

Encourage sign ups to your newsletters in order to drive repeat traffic to your website and thus promote conversions. In order to build your email list, include a pop up on entry form, and include perks such as free delivery or percentage off your first order.

 

 

 

What are the Legal requirements for running an online store?

 

Before launching your ecommerce website, you must ensure that you have met all the legal requirements of the appropriate data privacy laws. If using cookies for example, you must gain the permission of your visitor. Data privacy laws govern the way in which we can use, process, and store personal data, and vary country to country, so check what laws you need to abide by.

Fundamentally you will need to ensure compliance by setting up these three things:

1. Privacy policy

2. Terms and conditions 

3. Disclaimers

Any legal issues that may arise can be prevented by ensuring these are clearly shown on your website, normally in the footer.

 

What is good ecommerce website design?

 

In conclusion, creating an ecommerce website is easier than ever. With complete hosted solutions such as Sellr, it is no longer only available to those with large budgets or extreme technical skills. Large and small companies can compete on an even playing field.

 

Great ecommerce website design is all about function and ease of use. Create a great homepage, make sure your categories are all logical and your products are in the correct categories. Make sure to use keywords in product descriptions and page titles to aid with SEO and search facilities. Don’t forget your legal info pages.

 

Test your site prior to launch, go ahead and buy something from yourself to check its working as you intend and that you can find individual products that you envisage a customer to be looking for. 

 

Sellr does all the hard work for you.

You can simply choose design blocks to build your website exactly how you want it to look. All that you have to do is to provide the product images and information. The back end management system allows you to adapt and change your business as it grows, and you never have the worry of having to rely on outsourced help to make those changes for you.

 

Have fun setting up your store and enjoy tweaking it as you grow.

 

Sellr will make the process a more enjoyable one for you whilst providing you with all the tools you need to make a success of your ecommerce journey.