A few posts have caught my attention this week on designing and building an effective ecommerce website. Most of shopping cart sites are poorly done. They're uninviting and try to get as many products as they can on every page, including the home page.
Quoting Steven Snell in one of the posts I'll link to below
Quote:
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Many e-commerce websites tend to get very cluttered and suffer from not being user friendly.
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When it comes to small business ecommerce sites, most look to me like default ZenCart of osCommerce sites and suffer from sameness.
9 Characteristics of Well-Designed E-Commerce Websites shows examples of sites that do ecommerce well and from those and other sites lists characteristics that make them effective.
1. Ease of Navigation
2. The Design Does Not Overpower the Products
3. Easy Checkout
4. Branded
5. The Design Style Matches the Products
6. Showcases the Most Popular Products
7. Promotes Related Products
8. Effective, Accurate Product Photos
9. Effective Site-Wide Search
You can find details and examples of sites doing each in the post. If you run an ecommerce site you should ask yourself how many of the above does your site do well.
Getting back to the typical cluttered shopping cart site have a look at some sites that go the opposite way and lean toward a cleaner and more minimalist design. They are much more inviting than the typical.
20 Inspirational, Clean E-Commerce Website Designs
Designers take a look at these sites and use them as inspiration for your next product. Site owners look at them and ask yourself if you would prefer to shop on these sites or yours.
Also have a look at
35 Inspirational Shopping Cart Page Designs that focus on the page that customers see after they have made their selection and before they enter the checkout process. Again compare these cart pages to your own or use them as inspiration for your next project.
Have you seen great examples of ecommerce sites? Are there sites you shop at more and if so why? Do those sites do some or all of the things on the list above well?