The 3 Most Surprising e-Commerce Design Mistakes

The world’s commerce keeps moving online, and you may be joining the trend with an e-Commerce site of your own. E-Commerce is an awesome way to make some extra money on the side, or even to build a whole new career. In case of the latter, you can build a successful online store front and customer base. An e-Commerce site is more complicated than many other kinds of sites, and making everything run smoothly is key to turning clicks into purchases. Some of the keys are fairly obvious: keep your site design clean and easy to navigate, make your checkout process simple, and suggest good related products in order to build sales. There are many subtle mistakes to avoid, however; three of which we will consider for this post today.

Slow Sites Lose Sales

Every second a potential customer has to wait for your site to load, the more likely it is they will give up and go somewhere else. Sites which load quickly are much more likely to keep customers’ focus and interest. Some of the factors in website load speeds are beyond the scope of design, but smart design will keep load time in mind. Social media can be a great asset in building a customer base, but social media plugins can weigh down your site, requiring more time to load. Use such plugins wisely. If very few customers come from a particular social media site, you may want to drop its plugin. When considering ecommerce websites templates, take their use of social media plugins into account, and consider whether or not you will be able to control which ones are displayed.

Hidden Contact Information

There’s a joke that goes, “on the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog." Online interactions can hide a lot of personal details, and sometimes that’s okay. But when setting up an e-Commerce site, you need to have some professional transparency. People want to know that they’re dealing with real people on a reputable website, not handing over their credit card information to just anybody. Make sure that the contact information for your company is not too difficult to find. Include a clear link to it in your site navigation. That way, whether or not people use it straight away, they’ll know it’s available if they have any questions or need to make contact. It will help to give them confidence that you are a reputable seller.

Lack of Focus on the Products

When setting up any new website, including an e-Commerce site, a great part of your attention is on the site. You need to know how it works, what kinds of options are available, what will need to be customized. There are so many good e-Commerce templates available that it can be rather distracting just to consider all the great possibilities. It’s up to you to keep firmly in mind that this is a website to sell your products, not a showcase for flashy web design. When evaluating a template, ask yourself whether or not it keeps the focus squarely on your products. If you are adjusting your design, don’t get so focused on making the design work that you lose sight of how that design showcases what you’re selling.