As most of our connections and transactions now occur via the internet, it is no surprise that a lot of new and growing businesses have turned towards setting up a way to showcase their products and services online to provide promising results and profits.
These are known as ‘eCommerce businesses’ and they are very simple yet extremely effective as a method for selling a product or service over the internet.
As such, they can turn a mediocre business into a powerhouse with huge potential for creating massive profits through online sales.
According to Shopify, independent freelancers, small firms, and large conglomerates each profit from eCommerce.
This allows them to sell goods and services at a very large scale that would not otherwise be possible offline.
eCommerce businesses are all around us when we browse the web and it would be very surprising if you haven’t used one yourself, such as Amazon and eBay.
These two examples are now some of the largest businesses in the world, and they both operate through the basic principle of providing an online platform to display and sell a product or a service to a consumer.
However, you don’t have to be the next Jeff Bezos to set up, organise, and maintain a successful eCommerce business and show off and sell your products or services online.
This article will detail some of the most recommended web design practices that you can use for your emerging eCommerce business that will help give your new business that professional feel and give you the ideal platform to showcase your products or services to potential consumers.
Table of Contents
- Where to Start
- eCommerce Website Templates
- Be a Minimalist: Keep Things Simple
Contents
Where to Start
There are many avenues for you to get started in the realm of eCommerce, with the best course of action being to take the first step towards setting up your own website to display your product or service.
This can be very quick and very easy to do if you utilise one of a number of online providers that can help you create your perfect website.
A website is the cornerstone of an eCommerce business, in that it will never be able to operate without one.
Without a website, an eCommerce business will simply cease to exist as there will be no platform for the business to showcase their products or services, complete transactions, and fulfill orders placed by a potential consumer.
Therefore, in order to take the first steps to set up an eCommerce business, it is fundamental that you start with creating a professional and eye-catching website to act as the pedestal for your product or service.
Once the website has been created, it couldn’t be easier to start selling over the internet and making a profit.
eCommerce Website Templates
One of the quickest, easiest, and relatively inexpensive ways to create a professional-looking website for your eCommerce business is to search through and choose an eCommerce website template offered by a number of different sites.
An eCommerce website template is usually a readymade model that has been designed by a third party and is available for immediate purchase.
The costs of these eCommerce website templates can vary, with simple designs costing less and the more complex designs costing a bit more than the average.
There are plenty of options out there catering to any sort of business and for a lot of affordable prices.
eCommerce website templates are a worthy investment as they will allow a new eCommerce business to hit the ground running.
They give their new website a professional look and an encouraging experience for potential consumers browsing through the available products or services.
Many of these designs will include sophisticated settings and features that will make it a breeze for a consumer to navigate through the website.
They can help to improve their overall experience with the business and act as further encouragement to return to the website over and over again.
According to Brenda Barron writing for envato tuts+, one thing to keep in mind when choosing an effective eCommerce website template is to find “a responsive and mobile-friendly design.”
With a lot of people now conducting their lives through their mobile devices, finding a website template with a design that is suited to be viewed on phone screens as well as conventional laptops and desktops is certainly sound advice.
Your website has the potential to reach a wider audience by limiting restrictions on how people can view your products. In addition, if a template is mobile-friendly this will create further positive associations with the website as it appears to have an extra level of style and refinement.
Making use of an eCommerce website template is a great way to get your new eCommerce business started up quickly and effectively, allowing you to get your products or services out there so you can start making sales.
Be a Minimalist: Keep Things Simple
Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that can be made when designing a website for an eCommerce business is making it unnecessarily complex.
Although it is appealing to make a website appear advanced, making things too complex can make the overall experience of visiting the website confusing and unenjoyable as it is hard to navigate through the various pages of products and information.
HubSpot claims that one of the best web design practices for newly emerging eCommerce businesses is to keep things simple by removing “unnecessary design elements” as these only serve to “overwhelm visitors.”
This effectively means eliminating the needless features and only keeping what is essential so that it makes the appearance of the website far easier to take in, navigate, and ultimately utilise for consumers looking to make a purchase.
Image credit: Hubspot
Of course, you don’t want to make the web design too simple either as it may detract from the professionalism that is also crucial for success, so be careful in finding the right balance.
Keeping a simple yet effective web design for your eCommerce business also links back to earlier points on keeping a mobile-friendly interface.
Visitors to the website and potential buyers of a product can effectively navigate their way through the site on their mobile devices with ease because of its simple and minimalist design.
By using this web design practice, eCommerce businesses can keep things clear and easy to use by anyone visiting the site, increasing the potential for visitors to making a purchase.
The easier it is for them to view the products or services available on the website, the more likely they are to add products to their cart or basket and ultimately make a purchase at the checkout.
There are also plenty of eCommerce platforms where new businesses can sign up, create an account, and start selling their products or services through that platform.
They are abundant and easy to find just by making a quick search on the web.
This is another great way of keeping things consumer-friendly, as many potential buyers could already be familiar with these platforms and know exactly how to make efficient purchases.
Also, an added bonus is that if an eCommerce business takes this route and decides, later on, to change to a different platform offering a similar service, it is possible to transfer existing content, orders, customers, and other important data to another website where they wish to sell their products.
An eCommerce business can do this through a shopping cart migration service such as LitExtension, a service which currently supports over one hundred eCommerce platforms.
Additionally, being a minimalist in your web design will make it far more straightforward for adding new products or services whenever they appear.
Keeping things simple in your web design is not just beneficial for visitors and consumers but makes maintaining the website an almost effortless task.
Image credit: Bashooka
If you have a new product that you would like to display and sell on your website, a simple but sophisticated web design will allow you to add this product with greater ease.
A minimal yet stylish and professional web design will also allow for the most important information to be conveyed to a visitor and potential consumer with greater effect.
A sale, new deals and offers, a new product, and even just a general update can be very eye catching with a simple web design.
By taking on a simple and clean web design, an eCommerce business can make changes and updates to the website with little to no difficulty at all.
Sometimes when making changes to a website with an unnecessarily complicated web design, even the slightest edit to a page can have a negative effect on the entire website, making it a real chore to fix.
An eCommerce business adopting a simple yet very professional web design can easily remedy any major or minor mistakes very quickly.
The more complex the website is to navigate, the harder it will be to change or rectify a mistake which could potentially have knock-on effects that could negatively impact the entire running of the website.
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