Getting the right design for your e-commerce website
Getting the right design for your e-commerce website
Today, a website is considered one of the marks of credibility of a business. A business that does not have a website or one that uses free internet email addresses such as Yahoo and Gmail will find it hard to convince clients that it can deliver on a critical project.
But other than just adding legitimacy and being an information portal, the website today can be tool for transaction initiation thanks to ecommerce. Ecommerce functionality is what converts an ordinary website to a 24-hour shop. But simply integrating ecommerce capability onto a website is not of itself the panacea to seeing customer's buying products in droves. Getting the website design right is just as (if not more) important.
What are these key design functionalities? First, the website should be attractive and well organised driven by the customer's point of view. This involves everything from using the right colours to sticking to themes that are in harmony with the products sold. The importance of such ambience is to visually capture your audience's attention while at the same time convincing them that what they need or are looking for can be found on your website.
Use strategically positioned banner ads on your home page or along the sides of each page to bring attention to new products or a sale. You could use pop up or pop under ads for the same purpose. But on page advertising must be done cautiously and should follow a careful plan. Pop up ads can be particularly disruptive to visitors to your page and many people will not hesitate to leave a website for good if that happens.
There is also the possibility that the page visitor's browser has automatically blocked all pop ups meaning they will eventually not get the message you intended. If you must use pop ups, they should be less intrusive and have a brief clear message. They should also be kept to a minimum with the recommended being one pop up on the entire website.
An ecommerce website should have relevant and complete information that will be useful in helping the customer to make the decision of purchasing the product. Key details on the business such as company history, owner(s), senior-most managers and industry awards, should be available on the website. Providing such information helps win the trust of clients something that is crucial for an ecommerce site.
Ease of navigation is another fundamental consideration. Visitors to the site should not struggle to find what they are looking for. Incorporate drop down menus that drill as far as down as possible by using menu subsections. Remember that the object is to move the customer from interest to buy to completed purchase as soon as possible. Difficulty in finding information on the site will make even the most enthusiastic buyer lose interest.