How important is ‘good design’ in an e-commerce store?

[anonuk]

I’ve been looking at a lot of websites lately to try and get inspiration for our new website and I have to say that a lot of websites just look dull, many only looking mildly presentable due to the images used rather than the design itself.

It led me to thinking about this question. Do you think you’d get more sales having a really nice design over a standard ‘template feel’? Do you think the average customer even cares what the website looks like as long as they can buy the products they need?

 

[fisicx]

A lot depends on your marketing plan. If you generate leads from Instagram a simple design can work. If you are selling high end goods then design is more important.

But your content is key. The right images and descriptions and an uncomplicated checkout process is the best way to get more sales.

 

[John Toomey]

You hit the nail on the head in your last sentence. Focus on user experience and whether they can find the product alongside whether the site's imagery and content is selling the benefits. One thing that people don't do, in their rush to get their site live, is test it with the type of people who will buy from them. Also, listen to their feedback because they will give you a good indication about what is wrong. Finally, make the end-to-end process as simple as possible.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Like to guys have said, design is important but the 'customer experience' is key. The site needs to:

Function properly and appear professional (especially on mobile)
Be able to take the customer on a logical, effortless journey
Get them the answers they are looking for
To keep them engaged, making them want stay for longer

Yes, it's a trade-off sometimes when it come to design vs content. Luxury brands tend to go for a minimal look and feel but that often leads to less engagement because there's nothing for customers to get their teeth into. It really depends on the product.

Ultimately, your homepage should be the 'wow' page. Its a shop window into your world. It is NOT a sales page. This is where many e-commerce stores go wrong. They try to throw the kitchen sink at the homepage with products galore, in the hope somebody clicks on something. This just ends up with a 'paradox of choice' where people leave due to overwhelm.

The homepage is the hook to bring people in. It only needs 4-5 key messages and it also needs to create trust and confidence. This is where imagery is key. If your imagery is poor then people will leave.

The product pages are where you need to ensure you tick the boxes in customer's heads. Layout and design are key here because you need to get across a mix of sexy (features/benefits) and unsexy (shipping/ returns) information in a clean way that doesn't cause the user to feel like it's a chore.

And then of course the checkout. This needs to be designed in a way that makes it quick and effortlessly, whether on desktop or mobile.

All-in-all, design should be used to improve the users experience and remove barriers to a purchase. Keep that in mind and you'll be in a good place.

Hope that helps.

Matt

 

[Paul Norman]

Neither Amazon, nor Ebay, are particularly pleasing on the eye. At least, that is my subjective opinion.

I reckon functionality, and reputation, beat pretty.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Be able to take the customer on a logical, effortless journey

Everyone keeps saying that. I wonder why every site I've tried to buy from recently demands log in passwords. Passwords really slow down the experience and have prevented me several times from making repeat purchases.

I don't need a password to go into a B&M shop.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Neither Amazon, nor Ebay, are particularly pleasing on the eye. At least, that is my subjective opinion.

I reckon functionality, and reputation, beat pretty.

Agreed. But I would argue that Amazon and Ebay built trust from the start of the internet and design isn't as important to them. People know what they get and how it works. Amazon's One-click-checkout is masterfully designed though (and dangerous)

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Everyone keeps saying that. I wonder why every site I've tried to buy from recently demands log in passwords. Passwords really slow down the experience and have prevented me several times from making repeat purchases.

I don't need a password to go into a B&M shop.

Again, agreed. They only do that because they want your data and to spam you with offers for own brand Turkish Delight and garden shears.

Many of these large businesses haven't the first clue about e-commerce, customers or anything else. The web managers have never run their own stores so they don't understand how peopler shop, where improvements can be made, and how a smooth journey will massively improve conversion. They simply focus on merchandising or offers and rely on their agency to tell them what happened that week.

Being smaller enables you to view things in more detail, test page layouts and really understand what people want.

 

[Larry Fong]

A fairly presentable and navigating friendly site is pretty ok. How you can drive sufficient and relevant traffic to your site and how you design the conversion mechanism are far more important! I found many fascinating websites but unable to make any sales, what are wastes?

 

[DontAsk]

Passwords really slow down the experience and have prevented me several times from making repeat purchases.

If you don't have a password, how do you (securely) recall your stored details for your repeat purchase?

It takes a lot longer to enter all your address details again, than it does to enter a password.

If you are worried about your details being stored, a lot of sites have a guest checkout if you really don't want to register and "create an account". You have to realise, however, that you have still "created an account" on their system and they will still be storing your details, regardless. You just can't get to recall them for a repeat purchase.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

If you don't have a password, how do you (securely) recall your stored details for your repeat purchase?

Name (No one else has my name at my address)
Postcode
Email address ( No one on the planet has the same email address as me.)

I recently tried to make a repeat purchase of some winter trousers. One week after buying the first pair their website did not respond to my password. I went through the change password routine and after 7 attempts I am still waiting for an email to enable me to change it,

 

[BV222]

The more attractive and functional the better, imo. Try themeforest.com, if you haven't already.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Neither Amazon, nor Ebay, are particularly pleasing on the eye. At least, that is my subjective opinion.

I reckon functionality, and reputation, beat pretty.

Yet people will insist on ignoring this obvious fact. Getting people to the checkout stage with as few hurdles as possible is the key.

No, I don't want to give you my email address for a 10% discount.
I don't want to find my reading glasses in order to find the tiny x that removes that annoying box.
I don't want ro have to fill in a page of details before I have actually committed to buying anything.
I don't care for your social media pages and I certainly don't want to download your blinking app.

Do you want my money or what?

 

[fisicx]

The more attractive and functional the better, imo. Try themeforest.com, if you haven't already.

Awful bloated and ineffective. Themeforest is the pits.

 

[Fagin2021]

If you are worried about your details being stored, a lot of sites have a guest checkout if you really don't want to register and "create an account". You have to realise, however, that you have still "created an account" on their system and they will still be storing your details, regardless. You just can't get to recall them for a repeat purchase.

I much prefer sites with an option to 'check out as a guest' - especially for those sites where I haven't made a purchase for a year or so and can't remember the email address and/or password I last used.

 

[discocill]

It's pretty difficult to overestimate the design of an e-commerce website. Picture yourself as a potential client. What will draw your attention and induce you to buy anything? A well-design webpage with a user-friendly interface or something obnoxious or simply poorly designed? I bet you'd choose the first option if we leave out other factors.
Especially, a good design is important for less-known websites. When you only have a few positive reviews the only thing that will attract customers is how well the website is designed IMO.
I think that design is very important when it comes to e-commerce websites. I'm open to your replies and opinions.

 

[DontAsk]

Just like a B&M store, reputation (has to be earned), products (stand out from the crowd with something different), quality (subjective, depends on price point), service (hit the ground running with this one) are absolutely key.

 

[UKSBD]

Yet people will insist on ignoring this obvious fact. Getting people to the checkout stage with as few hurdles as possible is the key.

No, I don't want to give you my email address for a 10% discount.
I don't want to find my reading glasses in order to find the tiny x that removes that annoying box.
I don't want ro have to fill in a page of details before I have actually committed to buying anything.
I don't care for your social media pages and I certainly don't want to download your blinking app.

Do you want my money or what?

Probably not if it is just a cheap one off product

 

[gpietersz]

What will draw your attention and induce you to buy anything? A well-design webpage with a user-friendly interface or something obnoxious or simply poorly designed? I bet you'd choose the first option if we leave out other factors.

So if we leave out all the factors that are most important to a customer, like price, having the product they want in stock, having any product information they need to make a decision and so on, then design really matters.

I hought three Billy bookshelves from Ikea last week, plus some other things. Their website is awful, but I had two already and I know they are solid, look OK and are cheap.

Most of what I buy from smaller ecommerce sites is because they are specialists with stuff that is easier to find/buy from them. Again, I do not care about the design, I want to find the product I need at a reasonable price. It tends to be pretty specific - e.g. "Raspberry Pi 4 case with a heatsink" to take a real example that comes to mind.

I think I am fairly typical.

You also need to separate "good visual design" from "good user interface design". Very often, boring and look like everyone else makes it easier for people to figure out how your site works, so they can find what they want (and, hopefully, buy it). A "template feel" is quite likely to be a good thing.

 

[fisicx]

Amazon is pretty ugly and they seems to do ok.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

It led me to thinking about this question. Do you think you’d get more sales having a really nice design over a standard ‘template feel’?

The most important question is can a customer enter the website and complete their objective easily? It could be finding information (informational visit), finding a specific page or function (navigational visit) or buying a product (transactional visit), or a combination of these

Once the central functionality and usability of a website works, beautification work can begin if it's relevant and benefits the customer but as @fisicx mentioned, website themes you'd typically find on Themeforest can be a poisoned challice that look the part but in practice don't actually help the customer where a simple theme would

Do you think the average customer even cares what the website looks like as long as they can buy the products they need?

That very much depends on the type of search, because for example if a visitor's looking for a list of all the numbers between 1 and 100 then it really doesn't matter what the site looks like as long as they can access the list

Whereas if a visitor's buying an electric chainsaw for their garden, and sharing their credit card information with the site, they need to be able to trust the website and a badly designed website is a warning sign that other aspects of the service might also be unprofessional

 

[gpietersz]

@SEO Developer "can the customer enter the website and completer their objective" is the critical requirement. Its also the most ignored.

I think a critical part of this is mindset. A design that will get your customers to buy is not the same as a design that your customers say they like. It is even less a design that you like, or your friends like or your employees or boss or peers like. One client told me that he did not want to change his slow loading design because "everyone in the industry likes it". People in the industry are not your customers!

I am not so convinced that good design inspiring trust. A lot of people claim it, but some people also
claim ugly sites are more trusted. I would want evidence. It is definitely true that designs do not always have the impact people want - lots of people have "we improved the design and sales collapsed" type stories. If you want to be sure, A/B test.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

@SEO Developer "can the customer enter the website and completer their objective" is the critical requirement. Its also the most ignored.

Checkout design is perhaps the biggest one in that respect and 10 years ago Crazy Egg published a useful analysis of checkout design, many of the recommendations are still valid todayhttps://www.crazyegg.com/blog/examples-ecommerce-checkout/

I am not so convinced that good design inspiring trust. A lot of people claim it, but some people also claim ugly sites are more trusted. I would want evidence.

Can you give 3 examples of ugly sites that people trust? I'm just asking to understand what is meant by ugly because Ugliness is subjective - is plainness ugly? I would say plain designs are interesting and beautiful, others would say plain designs are boring and ugly so perhaps it's a case of better the devil you know (Amazon springs to mind)

If you want to be sure, A/B test.

Excellent point

 

[japancool]

Can you give 3 examples of ugly sites that people trust?

https://www.lingscars.com/

 

[gpietersz]

Can you give 3 examples of ugly sites that people trust?

Here is another: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

With your own example of Amazon, that gives us two. Maybe somone can suggest a third.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

Here is another: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

How do they get away with it? It's simply horrendous!

Barber throws his scissors on floor and storms out the shop

 

[gpietersz]

@SEO Developer I have seen the Crazyegg post before, and I am not convinced by that either. Its what they think is good practice, but they do not explain why or tell you what (if any) evidence they have that it works.

Take the FB like button on the bucket. really a good idea? Is there evidence buttons ahve a significant impact on sharing or will people just copy the URL and share regardless of the button? Maybe a prompt in an email might be better. If you look at the screenshot the example has 15 likes for a product from a pretty large retailer. Not impressive.

 

[gpietersz]

How do they get away with it? It's simply horrendous!

Because the users are only interested in the content, not the appearance.

Usability is excellent. You can find what you want very easily.

From a user's point of view the only thing that is a bit rubbish is that a lot of the actual content is in large PDFs when you find it. It would be better to have the alternative of reading it as HTML (with good navigation) and maybe ebook or similar downloads for mobile devices. Most people who would bother to read it care enough to live with that.

 

[johndon68]

https://www.lingscars.com/

Had my last two cars through that site. It is, undoubtedly, an ugly site but the customer service has been superb.

 

[fisicx]

How do they get away with it? It's simply horrendous!

Barber throws his scissors on floor and storms out the shop

Because if doesn’t need to be pretty. It’s a placeholder.

 

[gpietersz]

@fisicx what do you mean placeholder? its got a lot of high value content. The HTML part of it is mostly an index of the PDFs though.

 

[fisicx]

That’s my point. It’s just a container for the content. If you are the sort of people that would work with BH you wouldn’t even be looking at the website.

I did a load of testing a while back and stripped everything out of a website. It was plain and boring but had great content and good navigation. Conversions went up. Ever since then I’ve focused on usability. Will do more for your business than adding bling to anything.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I would say it has to be good if your buying the product on line but I will turn this thread on its head !
We dont sell products and we provide urgent same day courier services .
If you look at our site it is not the best but it is one of the best SEOed courier sites in the country !
Why do we not make our site better ?
because our customer will spend just 1 minute on the site and they just want the phone number
They just want to know that person on the end of the phone can get there consignment from A To B as soon as possible at the point that quality of the site is irrelevant

Horses for courses