A major goal of an e-commerce website is to grab and retain attention of its users. Thousands of e-commerce sites are available in the Internet. Therefore, to attract interest of the visitors, you need to incorporate unique designs and user-friendly features in your e-commerce site. Additionally, you should consider the latest e-commerce web design trends and implement them, provided they suit the purposes of your website.

• Opt for big fonts and images

In the website design industry, big fonts, images, buttons, and logos have become the ‘IT’ thing these days. E-commerce sites are all about attracting attention and big design elements (such as fonts, images, and logos) can fulfill this goal perfectly. Therefore, while creating the site, opting for eye-catching images and bold titles can be a good idea.

However, in the midst of experimentation, do not forget to ensure that your site is easy to use and navigate.

• Opt for a minimalist look

The current trend in the website designing field is to opt for a sleek and minimalist look. You can achieve this look by playing with colors such as grey and white. However, if you want to choose bright and yet, sober colors, pick out blue or green.

To create a soothing effect, do not include more than 3 colors in the palette. If you want to spice up the site, opt for hues of the chosen colors. Additionally, use clean and neat designs. Avoid overloading your e-commerce site with unnecessary images or information, because they will distract the users.

• Retro is the buzzword currently

In the web design industry, retro has made a major come back. Retro-inspired pictures and creased paper structure can stimulate curiosity of the visitors. Of course, it may not always be easy to create the retro style. In such a situation, you can outsource the designing part or contact experienced web designers.

• Incorporate pixel-perfect elements

Many people these days explore websites via mobile devices. To simplify experience of these users, one should opt for pixel-perfect elements. Ensure that the buttons, toolbars, and menus appear amazing on iPads, as well as on high-resolution laptops.

To ascertain that your web page does not contain any blurry areas, zoom every element and check, while designing the site. It can be added here that software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator has simplified the process of creating perfect e-commerce web designs.

• Use sliders

Sliders have become a popular marketing technique these days. Slider breaks down the content into small paragraphs, thus encouraging visitors to browse it. Another advantage of slider is that it offers valuable information, without taking up excessive space.

• Video marketing can retain interest of visitors

Video marketing has become a popular choice amongst web designers, with almost every site incorporating informative videos. Many believe that videos retain interest of readers, because in the presence of another person, users do not feel bored.

We have discussed popular e-commerce web design trends of 2011. Despite the craze for latest trends, remember that an e-commerce website should give importance to usability. Consider the fact that if visitors do not find necessary information or experience poor navigation, they would simply close the link. For this reason, always include user-friendly features in your site.

Global marketing being the tune of the age, the objective of every company is to reach out to a broader spectrum of customers. But with people having no time to hop through different shops in this fast paced age, e-commerce website design is the solution that rules the market.

Staying in sync with the technological developments, people of today are more tech savvy. Banking on this fact, companies mostly depend on e-commerce websites to allow their targeted audience to indulge in the joy of online shopping. Just a few clicks and users can have their choice of branded products and services from the comfort of their home.

To help you benefit maximum, here we bring some tips and tricks of ecommerce website designing that are sure to make your design more effective and successful:

Promote Yourself: Know that to survive in this cutthroat competitive market of modern age you will definitely need to promote yourself. Allow your customers to know about your unique selling propositions that make you rise above the crowd of mediocrity. Promote your unique values and features such as low prices, fast shipping, best high quality products etc to provide your targeted customers with reasons to choose you over your rivals.

Feedback and Comments: Arrange for a feedback and comment section that not only provides more scope of interactivity to your customers but also helps build a personal association. Make sure to allow your targeted audience with more reasons to visit your company website again in future. You can also bank on customer recommendation to attract more customers.

Multiple Navigational Ways to Find Products: To drive more sales, make your website design easily navigational so that potential customers can look for products in different ways. Showcase the latest and interesting products on your company homepage to draw maximum exposure that will lead to better ROI at the end of the day. But for customers who know exactly what they are looking for, a search box can help them navigate to the product page directly.

Clean Approach: Do not opt for a complicated structure that may have your customers confused and baffled. It is always suggested that you maintain a clean and simple approach that helps customers understand and choose your services or products easily.

Running an online web store can help you to stay connected with potential customers even when you are not at your physical store. However, running a successful online business is not easy. As a new crop of ecommerce websites are coming to the internet, business owners are finding it overwhelmingly difficult to retain their positions. So, it is quite clear that if you wish to run an online business, you need to have a unique ecommerce website that can reflect the individuality of your business precisely. Here in this article, we are going to discuss some problems that can plague your ecommerce websites:

Hiding Contact Detail
This is almost a crime. If you are unwilling to reveal your contact details, visitors will never trust your website and that can have devastating impacts on your website. People like to interact with real person in case if they face any problems and therefore, you need to present your contact details precisely if you wish to win the trust of your visitors.

Incomplete Product Information
Online visitors conduct an extensive research before purchasing a particular product. They check all the details, its specifications, prices etc before making any crucial decision. So, if you want to increase conversion rate of your website, you need to furnish proper and full details of each product. By doing so, you will improve store shopping experience that will definitely have positive impacts on your online store.

Confusing Checkout Process
Almost half of the visitors eCommerce website receives leave the sites as soon as they reach the checkout page. It is the complexity of the checkout process that drives away such a huge number of visitors from your website. Now if you are adamant to turn the tide around you, you need to weed out unwanted complexities from the checkout page. Try to keep it simple as far as possible and do not test the patience of the visitors.

Rigid Payment Options
You should add flexibilities in the payment options in your ecommerce website. You should not restrict the payment option to MasterCard or Visa, because if you do so, you will not receive any order from PayPal account holders. Try to offer as many payment options as possible as it will act in favor of your online business.

Small Product Images
People like to have a feel of the product before buying it. Therefore, it has become imperative for an online web shop owner to add some standard size images of different products.

Compulsory Registration To Place An order
Do not force your visitors to get registered before being place an order since online shopper do not like to go through the complexities of sign up. You can make it optional.

Complex Navigation
This is the last thing that you should add in your ecommerce web design project. Try to place everything in perfect order otherwise; you are destined to lose some potential clients.

Why do people bump on an ecommerce website? The question is simple and so is the answer. People visit an ecommerce website to shop online and that all. That simply means, an ecommerce has to be simple in structure and design and there should be no visual gimmick. But website designers who are fully aware of this issue, often fall prey to the classic website design dilemma when they fail to keep their creative impulse in check and churn out a website that looks really impressive but eventually turns out to be a maze or something of that kind to visitors. That guarantees 100% failure as majority of visitors will bounce back when they find the navigation or the design is too complex to find anything at ease. Here in this article, we are going to share some useful ecommerce web design tips that can prove highly effective in increasing the conversion rate of your website.

Make Your Shopping Cart Visible: While purchasing products online, online shoppers always want to have the peace of mind that the items were clearly registered. So, it is imperative for you to place the cart along with the check-out information in a place that can be accessed by the users whenever they want. A readily available and clearly visible checkout data can ease the pains of the users who are in the habit of checking their balance whenever they add something in their shopping cart. It can smoother their journey from shopping to checkout and we believe you will do almost anything to ensure a perfect finish of this transition. Keep the visitors happy and satisfied since it is the bottom-line.

Use Auto Complete Function: This is a powerful tool that can help your visitors to find out their favorite products while they are typing on the search box rather than after typing. It is simple yet extremely useful feature that make it easy to find out what they are looking for. After all, everyone wants to have quick access and this feature can prove to be instrumental in this regard.

If the search query did not anything, this feature can provide the closest matches so that visitors can make a better decision quickly and decisively.

Clarify The Navigation Path: – Unless you have umpteen numbers of categories in your website, clarifying the navigation path can be a nerve-wracking task. Fly out menu is certainly one of those few options that you can have to let your visitors navigate to any page of your website at any time.

But remember one thing, you should not try your artistic skills while designing the Fly out menu of your website. Try to keep it as simple as possible. Alternatively, you can use breadcrumb navigation for the same purpose. By integrating breadcrumb navigation, you can help your visitors to trace their way back.

Add A Quick Product Review: Online shoppers do not have enough time to visit each product by clicking on them. They wish to have a quick preview option by virtue of which they can check out the details of different products without leaving the current page. This will definitely help them to sort out the best products without wasting much time and effort. A quick preview mode can go a long way to make your products visible and accessible to your targeted audience.

Do Not Make Your Product Page A Dumping Ground: Try to feature only those information that are useful. Do not try to exaggerate anything since it can have detrimental effects on the users’ loyalty and try not to use too many images since it can distract the attention of the visitors to certain extent. Try to maintain a hierarchy. Feature crucial images first and place the rest of the other elements thereafter.