How Web Design and User Experience Can Affect Your E-commerce Business
First impressions matter. It heavily forms the perceptions of clients especially when they visit your website for the first time. The online market is populated and one thing that can determine the experience of your potential clients is your web design. An excellently executed landing page, user experience (UX) and web design can influence traffic and conversions on your site.
Web design and user experience are elements that can make or mar your business. Great UX focuses on usability, accessibility, performance, and speed, which are critical to acquiring customers and driving sales. While building an e-commerce website is fundamental to sales improvement, there is yet more to know.
Let’s explore!
In this article, we take a look at how web design and UX can affect your e-commerce business.
- The clearer the navigational routes, the lower the bounce rate on your website.
Bear in mind that many other things compete for your customers’ attention when they go online. Having too many graphic designs here and there on your website may seem tempting; however, it leaves the clients and potential clients confused. If they sense the slightest difficulty navigating through the sections on your site, they would hit the back button and check out another website. To prevent this, you should prioritise organisation, resonant colour combinations, and readable fonts (especially for your Call To Actions).
Understand that while mystery is good for adventure, it is terrible for business. Clarity is important.
- The more responsive your web design is, the higher the chances of widening your sales net
In addition to a good design, you can make your site even more accessible by making it responsive to multiple devices. Web designers tend to prioritise PCs; however, statistics have shown that smartphones are the most used devices for internet surfing. You can widen your market and increase your chances of converting sales by optimising your site for computer and mobile usage.
Read More: How to Grow Your Social/ E-commerce Business from Zero to One
- The simpler the payment process, the easier for customers.
When customers arrive at your site to make a purchase, they should find it optimised for seamless payments. You may have convinced them to load the shopping cart, but that is not the end of the story — carts could also be abandoned.
Shopping cart abandonment is no strange phenomenon in the online marketplace. While there are many reasons for that, a long and complicated checkout process is one of the most common.
- The faster your website loads, the more appealing it is.
Think about this: there are two supermarkets in your neighbourhood. At the first one, you have to queue for 20 minutes at the checkout counter. At the other supermarket, there is no waiting time.
Would you visit the former?
We bet not.
One of the most important aspects of improving user experience is to increase load speed. Customers are easily frustrated by slow load speeds. If your site delays longer than necessary, customers will open a new tab and start window-shopping the nearest online store. Interestingly, even search engine bots dislike slow sites. Site speed is one of the factors search engines consider when ranking websites. So, with a slow site, you won’t even get many visitors, no matter the quality of the products in your store.
- The higher the quality of your web design and UX, the more boost your brand image gets
You can tell a professional brand simply by looking at the site’s interface. Beyond the products on your shelf, a website can also improve the perception of your brand. A clean-looking site will give your brand a look of professionalism. This could significantly impact your business as it builds customers’ trust and confidence. Once the customers trust you, it will be easier to patronise you.
Read More: How to Build Trust with Online Customers
- The more optimised your website is, the lower the operational cost
The other points in this article have focused on how websites can better satisfy customer needs and ultimately lead to sales. This point is a slight diversion. Before creating an e-commerce site, you must note exactly what you wish to achieve. With that in mind, you can carefully design the site from the start. A site optimised from the start would incur little to no cost regarding upgrades. You can channel the saved funds into other aspects of your business.
The e-commerce marketplace is a bubbling scene. Creating a standard e-commerce site allows you to reap handsomely from the online boom. However, building an e-commerce site will not automatically translate to higher sales turnover. The site must be visually appealing and optimised for users. With growing digitisation, customers require more interactive and user-friendly interfaces, and by ticking those boxes, you will enjoy more conversions from your website.
So, what next after locking in those customers and getting them to buy from your website?
Improve their shopping experience by partnering with GIGL for seamless e-commerce logistics.
