eCommerce UX: How Website Design Affects Conversion Rates?

Effortless and attractive website design is no longer an option in the ever-changing world of e-commerce; it’s a must. An eCommerce website’s design has a significant impact on customer retention and conversion rates. To succeed in this digital world, your website needs to be highly attractive and convincing. Here, we shall examine the connection between conversion rates and website design, and will also understand the importance of the product development strategy for eCommerce.

The Importance of Web Design in Website Development 

The appearance and user experience of an e-commerce website act as a virtual retail outlet for any business. We can say it is the first point of contact between potential customers and the items that any business offers. The way your website is designed will lead to the amount of profits or losses you get in your business. Website design is one of the most important factors in any e-commerce business. Let’s examine now why this is so crucial:

• First Impressions Matter: 

A site that’s attractive draws in visitors and develops an excellent impression within seconds. Users make the decision to leave the website or continue exploring in very little time. First impressions are usually carried out by the loading speed, catchy headlines, layout of the website, etc.

• User Experience (UX): 

The way a website is designed affects how users deal with it. A simple user interface may keep visitors interested and motivate them to buy something, whereas an uneasy and confusing website might irritate them and result in customer dissatisfaction.

• Trust and Confidence: 

To increase your customer base and retain them, you need to build a trustworthy brand for your business. Business gains credibility and trust when it has an eye-catching, expertly designed layout. More the faith in your website, the more will be the volume of transactions.

• Mobile Responsiveness: 

Your website needs to be adaptive to mobile phones because more people are using mobile devices. You need to deliver an easy experience for mobile consumers or you may lose a large number of important customers.

• Brand Identity: 

Your website is the brand identity for your business. Therefore, in order to create a good brand identity and showcase your business values; an interesting, interactive, and good website is very helpful.

After knowing the importance of web design to your business, we shall explore how your website design is having a connection with conversion rates.

Website Design and Conversion Rates

The conversion rate shows the performance of your business. It calculates the proportion of online visitors completing the intended task, which could be buying something, subscribing to an email, or asking for further details. Now, let us see how the conversion rates and website are connected:

• Navigation and Accessibility:

When your website is easy to navigate and explore, customers will automatically start exploring the website more and in the end make a buying decision. Use clear and concise labels for your navigation menu items, and make sure the menu is prominently located, often at the top of the page so that users can find the products or information they’re looking for with easily.

• Loading speed: 

Websites that are quick to load have more chances of conversion rates as people would not even think to go to another website and continue exploring your website to know about your products.

For speedier loading, you can keep smaller image sizes, better codes, and can also use content delivery networks.

• Call to Action Placement: 

Where you are placing the CTA such as subscribe to email, Buy now, or any other such keywords, decides the customer behavior. Proper placement of such CTA’s would lead to better customer conversions. Some of the proper places for CTA’s are at the top of the page, or either beside the products or maybe after the product description.

• A/B Testing: 

By using A/B testing to continuously optimize the design of your website, you might figure out which design aspects are most effective for your target market and line of products.

Use continuous A/B testing for better data-driven insights and hence can improve your performance afterward.

• Mobile Optimization:

If your website is not mobile-friendly then it may lead to a decrease in the conversion rates by a very high amount. As we all know the majority of customers access the website through mobile phones or tablets. A mobile-friendly website is therefore essential.

For mobile-friendly websites, you need to have easy touch buttons, simpler navigation tools, and content that gets adjusted to your screen. So that customers can easily browse and shop the products or services.

• Trust Signals: 

It is important to prominently display components such as secure payment icons, customer reviews, and trust badges. These visual cues can increase conversion rates by giving users a sense of confidence.

Some examples of trust signals/icons are SSL certificates, an About Us page, trustworthy payment gateways like PayPal, and badges from trustworthy organizations like McAfee, etc.

Product Development Strategy for eCommerce

Wonderfully designed websites aren’t the only thing that makes a retailer’s online store successful. A strategy for product development is also essential. It includes organizing, developing, and systematically enhancing your product line to satisfy consumer needs and industry fashions.

Now, let us see the ways in which product development strategy for ecommerce will bring change to your e-commerce website design and hence affect potential customer conversions.

• Product Presentation:

Your website’s design is significantly affected by the layout of the product’s pages, which should include clear, accessible specifications, written descriptions, and excellent images. You need to make sure that your products are interesting enough to be shown in your product development plan.

• Inventory Control: 

You need to efficiently manage your inventory because if any product is shown unavailable or sold out then customers may get annoyed and it may result in a bad image of your firm. Hence, timely and effective inventory control is needed.

• Product Categories: 

The way you navigate and arrange your categories on your website should be in accordance with your product development strategy. Your product lineup must live up to the promises presented on your website, and users should have no trouble finding products they are interested in buying.

• User Ratings and Reviews: 

We all go through the user reviews and comment sections to know what others believe about the product and services. Therefore, these two things are very much needed to build trust and confidence in your products and hence improve the sales results.

• Pricing and Discounts: 

Various discounts and offers are the most important factors in any product development strategy for ecommerce. Perfect placement of offers and price discounts at appropriate locations and times is essential for any e-commerce merchant.

Achieving a Balance: Design vs Functionality

A website needs to be visually appealing, but it also needs to combine utility and design.  The main objective of design should be to facilitate sales. The following advice can help you strike that balance:

• User-Centered Design: 

Give the user experience top priority while designing a design. It needs to be simple to use, mobile-friendly, and basic.

• Consistency :

Retain a uniform look and feel across your entire website. A consistent brand image is produced by using the same color schemes, fonts, and layouts.

• Performance: 

Make sure your website operates smoothly and loads rapidly. A wonderful design won’t make a difference if users are impatient with their slow-loading pages.

• Testing and Iteration: 

Test and refine your design frequently.

Conclusion

To stay profitable and competitive in this digital world, you need to have a website that has a wonderful user experience to satisfy your customers. The UX as well as product development strategy for ecommerce websites largely impacts the sales, conversions, and trust building of any business.

 

Author Detail:

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz  Technologies. His 12+ years of experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and SaaS applications.