Digitisation has made the world a small market place. With the growth in the e-commerce vertical touching new heights, you can now buy and sell things you want from the place of your choosing by simply clicking on the mouse. More than half the world population now uses the internet, making it the most profitable market. However, it is not all that easy to climb the success ladder in the e-commerce business due to stiff competition.
If you want to do well in the e-commerce industry, you need to make sure that you do a lot of things right. And, one of the most important things that you need to concentrate on is the website design of your e-commerce platform. If your e-commerce website design is flawed, then it is difficult for you to climb the success ladder in the e-commerce industry.
You need to ensure that the design of your website is flawless because it is the face of your organisation. In case the quality of your website is poor, it is bound to disappoint your customers, which, in turn, will decrease your conversion rates. With so much competition in the e-commerce industry, you cannot survive if you don’t have an attractive, responsive, and flawless website design.
According to Statista, worldwide retail e-commerce sales amounted to 2.3 trillion US dollars in 2017, and the revenue is expected to touch 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2021.
The B2C e-commerce sales as a percentage of total retail sales in the United States in 2017 was 9% (Statista).
Online sales of physical goods in 2018 amounted to 504.6 billion US dollars which are projected to cross 735 billion US dollars in 2023 (Statista).
To climb the success ladder in the e-commerce business in 2019, the first thing that you need to do is avoid making these common e-commerce website design mistakes.
10 e-commerce website design mistakes you should avoid in 2019
A poor website design can adversely affect your e-commerce business. Customers these days have become smart, intelligent, impatient, and aware. And, if you don’t look after their interests well, they don’t think twice to shift to your competitor/s. After all, nothing is more important than offering a good user experience to all your customers. If your customers are not satisfied with you, they will stop doing business with you.
And, that is the reason why you cannot ignore your e-commerce website design. Good website design is the integration of function and appearance that leaves a lasting effect on your customers and prospects. But even today some businesses are not using user-friendly web designs, and the result is they are missing big time on revenue.
Here are top e-commerce website design mistakes you need to avoid if you want to beat the competition in the online arena:
1. Not making a responsive design – One of the biggest e-commerce website design mistakes is not to make your website design responsive. With the usage of mobile devices on the rise, if you don’t have a responsive web design, your customers will not do business with you. Responsive web design means that your website page should resize itself to fit the size of the screen of your customer’s device. Hence, your e-commerce page should fit the same way on all the mobile devices as it appears on the desktops and laptops. Also, if your website design is not responsive, it is difficult for you to climb the search engine rankings.
Therefore, make sure that your website design is responsive so that it does not frustrate your prospective customers.
2. Not paying attention to the load speed of your website – If your website takes too long to load, then it is a problem. Customers/ visitors don’t like websites that take too long to load. Moreover, search engines also have a special dislike for websites that take long to load. If your website takes more than 2 seconds to load, then you need to find out ways to improve the load speed of your website. Slow load speeds affect your rankings, conversions, and hence your overall revenues. A lot of things can hamper the load speed of your website like internet speed, hosting server, images on your website, etc. But one thing that can make a huge difference to the load speed of your website is the way your website is designed. It is while making the website that developers need to take care of the load speed.
Hence, you need to make sure that the load speed is taken into consideration from the start. You also need to ensure that your homepage loads much faster as compared to other pages because Google gives more importance to your index page.
3. Not having a trustworthy design – Trust is the backbone of e-commerce business. And, if you can’t instil trust among your buyers, they are unlikely to do business with you. One thing that can instil confidence and trust among your buyers is a trustworthy design. It is extremely important to have a trustworthy design.
You should hire a professional web designing company if you don’t have the necessary expertise in making a trustworthy design. Selecting the correct colour scheme for your online store, choosing the right animations, and design elements for your website are vital for making it trustworthy. You need to remember that your potential customers are smart enough to differentiate a trustworthy website from an untrustworthy one.
4 .Having an empty About page – The About page should have all the necessary information. It should provide information about your company, website, and your vision. Many e-commerce buyers are known to visit the About us page before proceeding further. If the About us page is incomplete or empty, then it is not possible to do well in the e-commerce business. Information on the About us page can instil confidence among your buyers.
Ensure that the About Us page has all the information that makes it look trustworthy. You should also put your contact information on every page. But make sure that the information is correct. Putting in multiple contact mediums like phone number, email, and fax is also helpful.
5. Having poor website navigation – Another e-commerce website design mistake is not to offer seamless website navigation. When it comes to the e-commerce business, offering your customers great website navigation is a must. Website navigation can directly affect your search engine rankings, and hence your traffic. If the navigation of your site is poor, it renders your high-quality content useless and can also increase the bounce rates. Hence, what you need to do is make sure that your website offers seamless navigation.
You should have a user-friendly navigation strategy to boost your conversion rates. Make sure that your product categories are very specific so that your customers find it easy to locate what they want. You can also include a recently added tab and a recently viewed product tab.
Not having a search option – If your e-commerce website does not have a search option, then it is a problem. Having a search feature on your e-commerce website can boost your conversion rates, and it also keeps your customers satisfied. With a search feature in place, your customers find it easy to locate the product of their choice quickly. And, if you don’t have a search feature in place, it can adversely affect your mobile conversions, search engine rankings, and organic traffic.
Always have a search option for your customers, and place it prominently on your e-commerce site. Having a search feature improves your customer’s user experience.
7.Having a complicated checkout design – Your e-commerce website should always have a simple checkout process. A complicated checkout process can frustrate your customers, and it can adversely affect your conversion rates.
Hence, your checkout process should always be simple. Showing the current information on your visitor’s shopping cart with complete fee and cost breakdown they need to pay is one way of simplifying your checkout design. Also, to avoid cart abandonment, make sure that the load speed of your checkout page is fast.
8 .Not paying attention to social media integration – Social media integration is a necessity these days because it helps build trust, boosts traffic, and improves your search engine rankings. Social media integration can help increase your sales as well. It is one of the most cost-effective ways of advertising your products. You can display your products on social media and insert a link to your e-commerce website to improve user engagement and increase sales.
Make sure that you prominently display your social buttons on your product pages to improve user engagement.
9. Unclear and confusing product descriptions – If you want to improve the user experience of your customers, you need to make sure that you don’t confuse your customers. The content you use to describe and explain the products on your e-commerce site is known as product description, and it is showcased in a manner that it appeals to the buyers. Your product description should not confuse your buyers; it needs to be clear and concise. If your product description is not clear and concise, it adversely affects your conversion rates.
If you want your conversion rates to increase, you should make sure that you have proper images and written text to describe your product. If that is not the case, your prospects can leave your site without buying anything from your e-commerce site.
10. Not having high-quality images – In the e-commerce industry, images play a crucial role. You, therefore, need to make sure that your website has high-quality images. That is the reason why you should hire a professional photographer so that they can pick high-quality images for your online store. To give your customers a clear insight of the products, you should make sure that you provide a magnifying feature inside your product page.
If you want a flawless e-commerce website design, you should get in touch with vStacks Software Solutions now. We have the necessary experience, expertise, and exposure to design a modern, trustworthy, responsive, and attractive website for your e-commerce platform. vStacks Software Solutions can also help you on the e-commerce hosting front.