Investing in Your Ecommerce Web Design: Top Questions and Trends

September 30, 2021

61525bf7b4324211fa990989 Ecommerce Web Design Top Questions and Trends ecommerce web design

In less than two-tenths of a second—just over a blink of the eye—a potential customer forms a first impression of your brand’s web presence.

But, without an eye-catching ecommerce website designed for conversions, your hard-won visitors can just bounce, heading to one of the thousands of other stores out there.

In this post, we’ll share some insight into modern ecommerce web design as you work to grow your brand.

Here we’ll cover:

  • Some factors involved in designing an especially high-performing ecommerce site
  • What the impact of design can be on conversions, and
  • Four design trends your brand can consider today for your site.

#cta-visual-fe#<cta-title>Get the Exact Store Look You Want (With Unparalleled Site Speed)<cta-title>Customize every facet of your ecommerce site by going headless with Shogun Frontend. Learn more

What factors influence the ecommerce web design process?

The ecommerce web design process involves web teams, merchandisers, developers, and—often—digital agencies or conversion optimizers keeping a keen eye on many factors, including checkout experience, site performance, mobile optimization, the ability to access help, customer reviews, and much more.

Let’s dive in on a few of these elements:

Checkout experience

Above all, your site visitors need to experience a smooth purchase funnel or checkout experience. In fact, it’s been found that 65% of customers can be swayed to purchase with an easy-to-use checkout design.

Checkout is such a huge part of site design because 76% of customers simply abandon their carts, and you want to convert as much of your traffic as possible.

As John Surdakowski, the Founder of digital agency Avex says on designing intentional checkouts:

61525cadf999c64a2451468f John20Surdakowski20 ecommerce web design

John’s last tip on checkouts? Don’t overwhelm customers with too many fields. The checkout process should be as seamless as possible, so break each stage into smaller steps.

Embedded options for quick customer service

26% of Americans report that they’d be more likely to buy from an ecommerce shop if they could reach customer service easily. So the web design of your scaling store needs to carefully consider how you’ll make customer help easy to spot.

As Chris Lavoie of Gorgias shares:

61525cc236e75110e78bd79e Chris20Lavoie20 20Gorgias ecommerce web design

 

Ability to change your store’s design quickly

Something more brands are considering when it comes to design is how easy it is for the ecommerce team to run promotions and make changes to the site’s frontend. If you’re scaling, you want to make sure that you can quickly react to the market and run new promotions independently (without needing to code).

As Duncan Fairley of digital agency The Form Factory says of the ability to change your site design especially quickly:

61525cd13741892e4994cbd0 Duncan20Fairley20 20Form20Factory ecommerce web design

#cta-visual-fe#<cta-title>Get the Exact Store Look You Want (With Unparalleled Site Speed)<cta-title>Customize every facet of your ecommerce site by going headless with Shogun Frontend. Learn more

Social proof

Showcasing social proof is one way to let customers know you can be trusted. In fact, 54% of monthly online shoppers read reviews before purchasing. So, if you want visitors to trust you, work to show them you’re trustworthy with the help of current and past customers.

On this, Lindsay Kolinsky from Okendo advises you to add reviews, photos, and videos throughout your store to facilitate decision-making and increase sales. Beyond reviews on product detail pages, your homepage, category pages, the cart, and more, she advises:

61525ce5c709dd562c3738fc Lindsay20Kolinsky20 20Okendo ecommerce web design
61525d0354ba32683418996a ratings1 ecommerce web design

 

Throughout the rest of your store, you can use standalone star snippets to show the star rating next to any mention of the product throughout the site. Reviews and media carousels are also great ways to highlight UGC from your top-rated reviews on your homepage or any other landing pages.”

61525d1024387113949d2581 ratings2 ecommerce web design

 

What’s web design’s impact on ecommerce?

It can be tough to quantify exactly how website design can impact your ecommerce store, but one thing’s for sure—designing intentionally for customer experience and subsequent conversions is huge!

As it turns out, a whopping 50% of shoppers will abandon once loved brands over a single bad ecommerce experience. These bad experiences can be things like hard-to-follow checkouts, particularly annoying popups, or hard-to-find customer service options.

If you take the time to inspect your intentional shopping interactions, it can make a major difference in ensuring that half of your traffic is navigating your site as you intend.

As Jake Silverman, the Agency Partnerships Manager at Privy says: 

61525d245bad5ec2a5c0de37 Jake20Silverman20 20Privy ecommerce web design

 

4 web design trends to consider

Dramatic changes in web design have created opportunities for ecommerce shops to be creative. Below we’ve rounded up some ecommerce web design trends to help inspire a high-converting website that gets attention.

1) 3D websites could make for dynamic merchandising

In our research, we found this cool 3D website. On it, you can tour the room and click on items to learn more about them. Though originally developed for journalists, this tech could be used by ecommerce shops looking to create unique experiences.

61525d428d6f274d4168a842 3d websites ecommerce web design

 

For example, a furniture brand could showcase merchandise in a home that site visitors can view from any angle. Another creative option could be to showcase your brand’s physical pop-up shop online and let shoppers browse like they would in person.

While brands usually need to think twice about the tradeoffs of adding rich media to their sites like this—because of the speed and site performance hit—with Shogun Frontend you can add rich media and get the look you want without compromising performance.

This is because, with Shogun Frontend, your ecommerce site uses progressive web application (PWA) technology, so it doesn’t reload entire page content. This helps enable particularly memorable shopping interactions and gets you sub-second load times.

2) Dark mode can better showcase functionality

The more and more popular ‘dark mode’ refers to when a website uses black (or darker colors) for the background and white (or lighter colors) for the text.

When designed properly, dark mode websites are both striking and easy to use. They allow products to stand out more than traditional (white-background) websites as the product or info pops more on black than on white. This contrast could make it easier for your customers to navigate the site.

an example of dark mode in action
an example of dark mode in action

Many proponents of this website design trend think that it can showcase luxury or quality better than white-based websites. If your brand guidelines include dark backgrounds, you can potentially use this trend to create a website that stands apart from store competitors.

3) Blank space can help create especially striking websites

Minimalism has made its way onto the internet in the form of blank space on websites. This generally means using fewer images, videos, and GIFs. Blank space makes it easier to navigate, can create brand consistency, and inadvertently help with site speed as you’re not relying on too many massive, heavy visuals.

Because there is less on the site overall, what remains stands out to create a striking branding experience.

One site that uses blank space well is Peel. This brand uses minimalism and blank space to draw attention to the important features of their products—their belief in living intentionally, their two main products, and getting a discount.

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Notice how Peel has ample margins and limit their use of text and images.

 

Brands that want to embrace a minimalist trend should ensure their visuals fully convey the context of the use of their products. If you can get away with one less image, this leaves less for the store visitor to wade through. On the other hand, if a video is needed, then don’t leave it off for the sake of blank space, or your conversions could suffer.

4) Hand-drawn iconography can create creative branding

Hand-drawn icons and illustrations can often help you stand out versus relying on over-polished graphics. They offer creative branding opportunities for fun ecommerce businesses and maybe offer even more room for personality.

On this, Elisabetta Calabritto told 99 designs:

“A big trend next year will be hand-drawn icons. They’re more emotional, but on a positive note. This trend is connected to the fact that we need more positive stuff around, something that can brighten up the day.”

Hendrick’s Gin’s website is a prime example of hand-drawn branding. Throughout the site’s design, you’ll see hand-drawn details and occasional entire-screen-sized graphics. The use of this style adds playfulness to the brand, gives it a personality, and distinguishes them with a look.

61525deee9751b2172fe7d21 hand drawn201 ecommerce web design
We love how Hendrick’s Gin has created a brand around fun and light-hearted drawings.

#cta-paragraph-fe#Remember: Keep your brand voice in mind when looking to implement trends like this one. Adapt to and follow new trends if they fit the overall vibe you’re going for with your store.

Unleash your greatest ecommerce web designs via headless commerce

Small changes to your ecommerce website design can positively impact conversions. And as you scale your store, you may find your traditional ecommerce platform is limiting when it comes to what you can implement.

Many merchants are turning to headless commerce—using different technology to power their site’s frontend versus their backend tech as a way to unlock total creativity. Check out how you might use Shogun Frontend, our packaged frontend platform, to create a high-converting ecommerce website design that’s tailored to your vision, all while keeping your backend functions entirely intact.

 

#cta-visual-fe#<cta-title>Perfect Your Ecommerce Web Design<cta-title>Build an online store tailored to your brand with Shogun Frontend.Learn more

The Shogun Team

Shogun's team is full of whipsmart ecommerce experts, dedicated to making the process of building and customizing your Shopify store simpler, faster, and more intuitive.

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