3 Pillars of a Successful E-Commerce Store Design

eCommerce Store Design

It's never again an issue of whether organizations should add a web store to their offering, yet how. The short answer is a strong online business system.

In 2017, we charged Sapio Research to lead an overview of more than 300 organizations around the globe to discover how they were moving toward their advanced change and online business methodology. 52% of respondents said that their own web store is their most significant channel. By and large, those with web stores saw a 22% expansion in income on account of this business channel alone.

This year, we found that B2B purchasers in 2019 still organize and favor online channels, however, organizations' internet business systems are substandard with clients' desires.

But how do you create a foolproof e-commerce strategy and get a successful eCommerce store design and running? How do you do it well, while spending minimal time, money and effort?

For us, it all comes down to 3 pillars of success.

# 1: Get Your ERP and Content Data In Order

87% of organizations we studied accept that getting the correct information in one framework is one of the most genuine difficulties B2B organizations face in their advanced change.

I'm not catching it's meaning to have the right information? Most importantly, you need to guarantee that your ERP (backend) information is forward-thinking. The most significant classes to concentrate on are:

-- Prices

-- Discounts

-- Customers

-- Products

On the off chance that you go for an incorporated web store choice, the entirety of the data in your ERP will be utilized in your web store. That implies it should be present and it should be finished — you don't need your customers to see obsolete or erroneous information.

# 2: Put the Right Person in Charge

In 2017, Sapio Research asked respondents which challenges they thought businesses implementing a digital transformation project face.

-- 41% said legacy technology that prevents digitization

-- 39% said organizational resistance to change was a major challenge

-- 38% said that disconnected sales channels was an obstacle

These challenges are varied, and it’s important that the key e-commerce owners in your organization have the knowledge, expertise and people skills to tackle them head-on. Today, these challenges remain an obstacle, so it’s important not to “set-it-and-forget-it” when it comes to implementing fixes.

# 3: Make a Concrete Business Plan

There’s an old Japanese saying that says vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a nightmare.

In other words, you need a concrete plan.

Saying that you simply need a concrete business plan may seem a little vague. That’s why we’ve put together six steps to follow to ensure you have a good, solid business plan that will help set you up for online sales success.

1) Set Goals

2) Determine Your KPIs

3) Define Your Target Market and Customers

4) Customer Communication

5) Create a Roadmap

6) The More You Know, the More You Grow

Launching or upgrading your web store is a big undertaking, and it’s one that will also yield big results if you tackle it with the right plan. We’re confident that these three pillars will give you a solid foundation for your journey to eCommerce SEO...

If you’re just getting started with your plan, it can be really helpful to learn SEO Tips more about what other businesses are doing and what customers want from their online experience.

Best Practices to Improve E-commerce Conversion Rate of Your Store

Often, beginning, and even experienced, entrepreneurs face the problem of their e-stores simply not generating a sufficient number of sales. They have enough traffic, their website position on search engines is high, and budgets for contextual advertising are impressive. Yet, still there lacks a copious amount of orders. If you are experiencing the same problem, or if you have just created your own online store and want to avoid such obstacles in the future, then this article is sure to be useful to you.

To increase your conversion rate (CR), you need to have proper website usability, visual attractiveness, simplicity in making orders, and availability of various payment and delivery methods. Let’s find out what a good conversion rate is for an e-commerce store features and whether it is important to adhere to this standard.

The Average Conversion Rates In the E-commerce

Conversion rates vary by industry, geography, type of device and other factors. As for e-commerce websites, rates around 1% to 2% are considered optimum. Take a look at the pic below to see whether your e-store matches your industry’s average CR.

Even though conversion rates between 1% and 2% are normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your shop is succeeding. To estimate the performance of your online business, consider other indicators in your analysis such as KPI, bounce rate, and average order value (AOV). Truly, the only thing that is important is to achieve a conversion rate that allows you to make a profit. This becomes possible if you consistently work on improving e-commerce conversion rates.

How Do E-commerce Stores Increase Their Conversions?

There are virtually hundreds of ways for how to improve the e-commerce conversion rate. Whether it’s good news or bad, nobody knows what exactly will work for your e-store. Simply changing the color of the CTA button probably won’t help you much. However, a more complex approach is likely to improve things. To help you, we have prepared interesting cases for increasing conversion rates that have worked for other businesses.

1) Improve Website Navigation to Make It Clear

For every business owner, their website looks intuitively understandable. However, from the customer’s point of view, similar product categories or an unclear allocation of the checkout button can be confusing. To improve the purchase process, you can use analytics (e.g. Google Analytics, Mixpanel, KissMetrics) to see how visitors move through the site, how many categories they sifted through before finding the right one, and whether they found what they searched for or instead just closed the page.

PrintGlobe proves that improving website navigation can give you an 18.5% increase in conversion rates. After various tests, they identified that showing products in a grid view combined with a navigation pane and carousel option at the top of the page allows buyers to shop the most effectively.

2) Create High-Quality Descriptions of Your Products, and Don’t Forget About Storytelling!

If you think people don’t read text on websites, you’re probably wrong. People just need a reason to read your text. An investigation conducted by BizReport shows that product pages containing detailed information are more important than reviews and prices.

Extend the description section on your website to tell more about your product. The main points to consider when writing the text for the product description section are:

1. Make the text easy to read

2. Write short sentences – 15-25 words

3. Predict potential questions and try to answer them in the description

4. Tell your website’s visitors about the benefits of your product

5. Use simple, everyday language

6. Include keywords in the text, but don’t overstuff them

Don’t be boring. Create a story around your product! Storytelling is a very powerful tool since it can attract the reader’s attention to your products and your brand.

A stellar example of storytelling comes from the guys at SignificantObjects.com. They purchased products from thrift stores for a very low cost and composed stories about them to create an imitation of history. Then, these products were placed on eBay. In the end, these guys sold $128 in goods for $3,612. Storytelling helped SignificantObject to increase the value of their products by 2800%.

3) Use Large, High-Quality Product Images

You can increase sales on your online store just by changing the quality of your website’s images. Even though the product description is important, providing large, high-quality images might be even better. More than 67% of customers say that high-quality photos are essential for the purchasing process. Let us introduce a striking example – Ties.com. At Ties.com, products are displayed from different angles and the images are zoomable.

Another way to engage customers and make them craving for your product is to add videos. This practice helps not only showcase the product visually and in a comprehensive manner. It also allows you to empower your marketing opportunities via sending sales & special offers or personalized videos to bring back abandoned cart users.

Moreover, viewing a video, potential customers get the feeling of real interaction with your product or service. Thus, they want it.

Remember, you can implement different types of videos: sales and offers, e-commerce listing and abandoned cart videos, and so on. All of them are a part of the e-commerce video marketing strategy which you should develop to increase sales.

4) Offer Easily Accessible Online Customer Service

Software Advice did research to find out communication preferences for online shopping. The result is that almost half of the website visitors prefer to use live chat instead of phone. This means that 50% of website visitors may be displeased with the customer experience on your site if you don’t provide an online means of communication.

Even if you have included all the characteristics of a product, there will always be customers who need to clarify details. This is usually because they doubt whether your product will suit their specific needs. Thus, it is a good option to provide online chat to the website. Further, the response time should be as short as possible and you should be prepared to answer the following likely questions:

– Is the product in stock?

– Does it have complex technical characteristics?

– Can you help me understand how to use it?

In these and other cases, online chat will help maintain a shopper on the site and lead them to make a purchase.

Let’s take a look at how it works. Virgin Atlantic had a 23%-increase in its conversion rate after implementing live chat. Also, users who initiated chat spent 15% more per order.

Another case shows us that Total Gym, a company selling gyms, has seen a 39% increase in sales after implementing their chat service.

5) Offer Freebies: Low Prices, Specials, and Promotions

Your customers like discounts. E-tailing Group states that 47% of online shoppers only like to buy products with a discount. 62% of them claimed they always look for the section with sales and special prices.

Sometimes, people buy goods because they are at a discount, not because they really need them. To entice these shoppers, you can launch an ad with discounts, add a banner to the homepage, and display promotional products in a recommended products section. Also, be sure to set a deadline, after which the discount burns. The closer it gets, the more willingly visitors will buy goods.

Be sure to think carefully about the amount of the discount. You won’t impress anyone with a 5% discount on already-cheap goods. However, a 30%-off offer on every product on your website will increase your conversion dramatically. For example, Macys.com has various discounts, and some of them even reach 50-70%. This is a solid option to drive sales. Just be confident about your price strategy.

Originally Published at www.whidegroup.com

11 Creative Ideas To Make an Impact On Your eCommerce Store Design

eCommerce Store Design

These days, we do just about everything online—and that includes shopping. Which is why there’s never been a better time to be in eCommerce.

In 2018, if you’re selling anything—whether that’s sneakers, salad dressing, or something in between—you need to hop on board the eCommerce website train. An eCommerce site offers you the chance to build your brand, connect with more customers, and sell more products—but only if you’ve got the right website design.

Web design is critical when creating an eCommerce website. Good eCommerce web design is all about using the right colors, fonts, images, words, and graphics to convince visitors to make a purchase. Your eCommerce Store design should attract potential customers, provide great user experience and present your shop in the best light.

So, not only does your site have to look good and feel on-brand, but it also needs to drive your website visitors to take action and, you know… buy your products. But how, exactly, do you do that? How do you design the kind of eCommerce site that will have products flying off your virtual shelves?

Here are the top 11 eCommerce web design tips to help you take your shop to the next level:

1. Keep it simple

One of the top rules you should keep in mind during the eCommerce design process is “KISS”—keep it simple, silly!

When it comes to designing an eCommerce website, simple is always better. The more elements you have on the page (Colors! Banner Ads! ALL THE POP-UPS!), the more it takes away from the entire point of the website—closing a sale.

You don’t need a ton of bells and whistles on your eCommerce website—all they do is act as a distraction. Keep your design clear, clean, and simple—and keep the focus on the sale.

2. Make branding a priority

When it comes to shopping online, people want to buy from established brands—not faceless eCommerce sites that look like a front for trying to steal your credit card information.

If you want to build the trust you need to drive serious sales with your eCommerce business, you need to put some serious thought into your branding. Your branding is like the DNA of your eCommerce business; it’s who you are as a company, what you’re about, and how you’re different from your competitors—and it plays a huge part in building a connection with your audience and driving sales.

If you want to get the most from your eCommerce design, take the time to define your brand—and then infuse that branding into your design. If you’re not sure who you are as a brand, that’s ok! You’re just going to want to do a little business soul-searching before you get designing. Ask yourself questions like:

• If my brand was a person, who would it be?
• If I had to describe my brand in three words, what would they be?
• What makes my brand different from other eCommerce shops out there?
• What do we do better than anyone else on the market?

Once you know who you are, you can work it into the branding of your eCommerce site. And that branding? It’ll help build trust with your audience—and drive serious sales in the process.

3. Think like a website visitor

If you want your eCommerce website design to connect with your audience, you need to think like your audience. Ultimately, there are just a few things your potential customers want in an eCommerce experience—a site that’s easy to navigate, well-designed, and makes the process of shopping easy, straightforward, and hassle-free.

And if you want your eCommerce shop to succeed, you’d better give them those things.

During the design process, put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. What kind of layout is going to be easiest for them to navigate? How can you organize your products in a way that makes sense for the end-user? How can you simplify the checkout process?

When you think like your customer, you can anticipate what they want from your eCommerce store—and then design your site in order to meet those needs.

4. Use color to your advantage

Choosing the colors for your eCommerce site is about more than just saying “Well, red is my favorite color, so…let’s make all the things red!” Color is an extremely powerful tool—and if you understand the psychology behind color, you can use it to your advantage (and drive some serious sales in the process).

Different colors can inspire different feelings, emotions, and actions from people—so, if you want your eCommerce site to convert, you need to use those color inspirations to your advantage.

So, for example, if you want people to make a purchase, make the purchase button stand out with a bright color like red. According to color psychology, red inspires feelings of excitement and passion, which are driving factors behind spending—and studies show that making a button red can increase conversions by a whopping 34%.

Or, if you want to up your credibility, incorporate blue into your web design. Blue is not only a universally loved color, but it’s also been shown to increase feelings of trust, making it a go-to in the business world (there’s a reason the color blue appears in more than half of all logos).

The point is, color is one of the most powerful tools in your design toolbox—and if you know how to use it, it can have a huge impact on your eCommerce design.

5. Use high-quality images

In the world of web design, it’s common knowledge that images increase conversions (for example, one recent case study showed that incorporating more relevant images into a website design increased conversions by over 40%). And that’s even truer when it comes to eCommerce.

No one is going to buy a product sight unseen. If you want people to buy your products, you need to show them what they’re buying via high-quality product images.

Are You Looking For eCommerce Web Design Services?

Getting professional images of all your products (and having images of your product from multiple different angles) goes a long way in building confidence and trust in your customers. If they feel confident that they know what they’re buying, they’re more likely to make a purchase. But if there are no images of the product they want to buy (or just a single, low-quality image), they’re going to feel more hesitant to make the purchase—and your conversions are going to tank as a result.

Do yourself a favor and have plenty of high-quality images of whatever you’re selling on your eCommerce site. Your conversions will thank you.

6. Make your content scannable

You can spend days crafting long descriptions for the products on your eCommerce site, but we’ve got news for you—no one is going to read it.

Research shows that most website visitors only read about 20% of the text on any given web page. Instead of reading content word for word, they simply scan the text looking for key information—so, if you want to get your point across (and drive sales in the process), you need to make your content scannable.

Break up your content—whether that’s product descriptions, blog posts, or an “about us” page—into an easy-to-scan format. Keep sentences and paragraphs short, use bolding to call attention to key information, and use bulleted lists to break up large blocks of texts.

The easier to scan your content, the more likely your audience will absorb your key messaging—and the more likely you’ll be able to make a sale.

7. Make it look professional

The basis of an eCommerce site is that you are asking your website visitors to purchase something from you. And, as a result, you’re asking them to turn over sensitive information, like their credit card information. Which they’re not going to feel comfortable doing if your website doesn’t look profesh.

Investing in a professional website is a must if you want to build trust with your customers—and developing that trust is a must if you want your eCommerce store to succeed.

What do we mean by professional? Your website shouldn’t have any typos or misspellings. Your font, color palette, and footer design should be consistent from page to page. All your product links and buttons should work. Your photos shouldn’t look like you snapped them on an old iPhone 5 and your overall site design shouldn’t look like you swiped it from Geocities circa 1997.

The point is, if you want your customers to take you seriously, you need to show them you take yourself seriously—and the only way to do that is with professional web design.

8. Use social proof

Another way to build that oh-so-important trust? Social proof.

When you’re designing your eCommerce site, look for ways to show your potential customers the positive feedback you’ve gotten from your existing customers. Add a rating section where people can rate your products (and then get as many 5 star reviews as you can). Add a testimonials section where you feature customer photos with a quote or two about what a great experience they had working with you. Ask customers to review your products—and what they like about them—and then add them to your blog.

The more your website visitors see that other people have had a positive experience shopping on your site (whether that’s through reviews or testimonials) the more trustworthy you’ll appear—and the more your conversions will go up as a result.

9. Make categories easy to navigate

Nothing—and we mean nothing—will kill a sale faster than clunky product pages. If your website visitors have to click around ten different menus before they find the product they’re looking for, they’re going to hightail it out of there fast—and click their way right to a competitor’s site.

Make your product categories and product pages easy to navigate. Make it easy for your customers to search for products and to filter products by things like color, size, or product type. The easier you make your categories and pages to navigate, the easier it will be for your customers to find what they’re looking for—and the easier it will be for them to make a purchase.

10. Make checkout a breeze

Remember how we said nothing kills a sale faster than clunky product pages? Well, a clunky checkout is definitely a close second.

If your checkout process is a pain in the you-know-what, you’re going to lose customers. If you want people to buy from you, you need to make the process of buying as simple, straightforward, and pain-free as possible.

Make your checkout page design clean, simple, and easy to navigate. Give your customers the option to register for your site or to check out as a guest. Make everything about the process crystal clear: what information you need to process the purchase (and where they need to enter it), the different shipping options available (and how much they cost), and what to do in case there’s a problem with their order or they need to do a return. Once the purchase is complete, direct your customers to a confirmation page so they know everything went through.

In a nutshell, if you want people to buy from you, make the checkout process as easy as possible.

11. Make it responsive

It’s official—mobile has surpassed desktop as the most popular way to surf the interwebs... And that includes shopping.

We’ll keep this short—if you want to capture the customers who want to shop on their phones or tablets, you need to make sure your website design is fully responsive. 

Otherwise, you might not convince those valuable mobile visitors that your site is where they want to make a purchase.

Originally Published At 99designs.com

Beautiful eCommerce Store Design Inspiration for You Business

Designing a blog, or a personal website is one thing. You still need to worry about general design aspects, usability and website functionality, but not as much as you would when it comes to designing an eCommerce website.

An eCommerce Store Design needs to resemble a real physical store. That means everything should flow naturally; everything should be accessible and easy to navigate. Over the course of the last couple of years, creating a spectacular eCommerce store has become less of a problem. Here at Colorlib, we have covered eCommerce extensively: best eCommerce themes for WooCommerce users, and a free collection of the best eCommerce themes for WordPress that have been built with Bootstrap. Furthermore, there is a selection of eCommerce PSD templates to give you the freedom to code your own design from scratch, using a pre-inspired design.

Although very important by itself, only having great quality product photos isn’t going to do the full trick. You need to make sure that customers browsing your store are able to refine and explore their options for productions through a seamless form submission, much like a digital catalog. Design your store so that the search bar is never hidden and is always clearly presented; people love to search for things they get new ideas for. You should also always mention the availability of items; checking out and getting an ‘out of stock’ message can be very frustrating for some.

Ask yourself what is the reason behind doing it, and what benefit it will bring to the design. Don’t forget to incorporate good practices of search engine optimization. We could go on for hours, but instead, today, we will outline some of the most inspirational, well-designed, and appealing web designs from popular eCommerce stores.

Mahabis

Mahabis originates from London, a famous world location for fashion, and modern clothing design. Londoners love to express themselves through their physical appearances, and it’s brands like Mahabis that keep this movement alive. The values of Mahabis are beauty, simplicity, and functionality. 80% of world’s operating countries have customers for Mahabis clothing catalog; and the website that they operate from plays a big role in that achievement. Their flagship products is comfortable and modern slippers that are being manufactured in countries like Portugal. The features of the store allow anyone to explore different colors sets, and learn in-depth of what makes these slippers so unique and so admired all over the world.

OBEY Clothing

The Obey Clothing line has managed to capture the attention of a large population of millennials, coming out around the time when most were in their early ages. Since the inception of the line, it has grown into this massive movement of creative artists and street art fans that serve the skateboarding and punk-rock scene. OBEY is for those who love to express themselves uniquely and passionately. The Obey online store isn’t a complex design. It’s a minimalistic approach towards putting the product in the eyes of consumer, and concluding a sale effortlessly. The same couldn’t be told about physical OBEY locations, which tend to be more lively and hip. The black on white design here works really well. Lastly, in the checkout page, you have a few selection of sizes and colors; the checkout button is fairly straightforward.


Read Original Post at https://colorlib.com/

The Ways to Give Your Online Store a Facelift

To stay competitive and relevant, retailers need to actively monitor the latest trends in ecommerce software and other offerings that will keep shoppers visiting their websites and making purchases. The eCommerce Marketplace is growing more competitive as consumer interest in online shopping increases around the globe. Tried and true methods for success from past years may now be outdated, but online retailers can make changes to revamp their ecommerce stores and make them more appealing to the modern consumer. Here are a few of the latest trends in online shopping and how online merchants can take advantage of them.

eCommerce Facelift

It's all about the experience
 
With so many ecommerce websites these days, standing out from the crowd is crucial, and giving users a unique experience can help. Ventureburn reported that the design of a website can make or break a sale, but that takes into account more than just the way it looks. The site should be laid out in a logical way that makes it easy for consumers to browse through your inventory, select items and get to the point of sale. Not only will this interface help improve brand awareness and keep customers coming back for more, but it can bolster sales, as many consumers will be willing to pay more for the option to customize their items.

Add a personal touch to every sale
 
Going online to make a purchase may be almost mindless to some shoppers by now, but The Week suggested a way for ecommerce merchants to mix things up. eCommerce Personalization is one of the major trends of 2014, as more and more retailers are giving their patrons the ability to customize their items. This not only makes the shopping experience more interactive and enjoyable, but it leaves the shopper with a product that was actually designed just for them.

Customers love a little variety
 
Cornering a niche market by selling a select set of items can be successful, but offering an array of products has many advantages as well. Ventureburn pointed to a December 2013 study called the Effective Measure Report, which revealed that nearly half of shoppers would buy more if an online store had more quality products to choose from. This strategy can work no matter what you're selling. Luxury shops that specialize in jewelry, for instance, could expand their offerings to include other accessories that customers buying their main products might also like to purchase.

Read Original Post at https://www.retailpro.com

Significance and Importance of eCommerce Blog Design

If you’re new to the world of eCommerce, you’re likely hustling to learn about product sourcing, inventory management, marketing automation, running ads, and customer service optimization. Fortunately, the web is loaded with knowledge from prepared specialists with demonstrated achievement. Let’s look at 14 top eCommerce blogs to check out on your way to running a successful online store. 

eCommerce Blog Design

Launched an eCommerce Store and you expect it to earn a fortune for you without including the blog? Truly speaking, that would be an unrealistic expectation.

Consumers have become smart these days. They don’t buy a product without having complete information about it. Your blog can educate your customers about your products and brand.

This isn't the main reason of including a blog segment on your eCommerce site, There are different reasons too which are referenced below

Read More...

Essential Elements of eCommerce Website Design

I have a friend who runs a successful e-Commerce Store Design business. He started off with just two small online stores a few years ago. When I asked him how he managed to climb so high in his trade, he responded saying that he was doing the exact same thing he was supposed to if he had opened a small flower shop near my house.

eCommerce Store Design

Presently, you should ponder – what does that need to with a bloom shop?

Positively, that was anything but an unmistakable answer and I truly needed to know the mystery.

This is what he uncovered.

His mystery was that he didn't trouble much concentrating on the online status of his business. Rather, he was doing his best to fulfill the customer's requests and make them return for additional.

Read More...