Under used Ecommerce web design tactics you need to try

Online shopping is a great way to make your products and services available to a wide range of customers. Read on to find out about under used ecommerce web design tactics to improve your site and increase sales.

Answer your visitor’s questions

You don’t need all the information on one page, but try to think about the questions your users are most likely to ask, and make it as easy as possible for them to find the answers. Visitors should be able to find the information they need in as few clicks as possible.

For example, it’s easier for visitors to read all the information about delivery and returns on one page, rather than spreading it across lots of different pages for each different piece of information.

Remember, providing accessible information and answering questions could be the difference between a successful sale and a frustrated customer leaving your site.

Don’t clutter the page

Whilst you may want to present a lot of content on your ecommerce site, there is a limit to how much your visitors can take in at a time. If they are faced with a densely packed site with minimal spacing between elements, they may become overwhelmed, confused or annoyed and potentially leave your site.

An important ecommerce web design tactic is to give the elements on your site room to breathe by using well-considered spacing. This will not only make it easier for visitors to navigate your site, but can also improve the overall appearance of your site.

Avoid carousels and rotating sliders

Carousels and rotating sliders are popular choices for eCommerce sites, especially for the hero sections on homepages. However, they can actually be bad from a UX design perspective as they make it difficult for users to process all of the information on them. A case study by Jakob Nielsen suggests that automated carousels make it harder for users to find the very information that features on the carousel.

Often, the slides in the carousel move on far too quickly when in fact, they should only move on at the request of the user.

Showing a grid of messages in the hero is a great alternative to a carousel on your website. Dreams achieve this really well, as it allows them to show the visitor a variety of different messages including their latest offers and sales, and update to keep their customers informed.

Avoid tabs and accordions

When a user visits a page on your site, all the information should be easily visible and accessible to them. Hiding it in accordions and tabs will increase friction as your user has to manually access each hidden or collapsed section of text. This hidden information might as well not be on the page as users may not realise it is there and therefore ignore it.

Tabs can also cause friction as users have to flick back and forth between them to read the information. Instead of hiding text in tabs, stack all of the content on the page and create a tab style navigation at the top which uses anchor links to take users to the relevant section of content.

Not only do they frustrate users, but tabs and accordions reduce the SEO value of the pages on your site.

Avoid adding social media icons in the header

Whilst you might want to encourage your customers to interact with your brand on social media, the purpose of your eCommerce website is to create sales. Having your social media icons at the top of your website could end up being an unwelcome distraction.

If visitors want to find links to your social media accounts, they will find them. You don’t want to encourage visitors to leave your site as soon as they’ve arrived as they’ll likely get lost down a social media rabbit hole and forget about your site.

So, avoid adding your social media icons at the top of your site, and have them on a contact page or in the footer instead.

Ever more frequently, businesses are including links to their social media profiles in the footer and contact page on their site. As this becomes standard practice, users will come to expect the icons to be in the footer and contact pages and automatically look here, once they’ve seen the rest of the page.

Social proof as an ecommerce web design tactic

In an era where customers are becoming irritated by digital advertising, and installing ad-blockers on their digital devices, it is important for brands to look towards alternative methods to encourage sales.

Whilst traditional advertising is becoming less effective, reviews from genuine customers are becoming more popular. That’s what makes it an important ecommerce web design tactic according to a study by Trustpilot, over two thirds of respondents said that they would read customer reviews before making a purchase.

Increase trust in your brand, products and services by encouraging customers to leave honest reviews, ask questions and post their own photographs of your products. Nearly half of an Amazon product page is social proof, including reviews, customer photographs of the product, questions and answers. If potential customers can read genuine and realistic reviews and information about your product, they are more likely to trust you and your products/services, and therefore make a purchase.

Have you considered implementing any of these ecommerce web design tactics yet? They could improve the experience customers have on your site and increase your conversion rate.

Get in touch with the team at Factory Pattern today about upgrading and improving your site and get your sales and conversion rate increasing.