Web Design for eCommerce – Common Mistakes Killing Your Sales
Creating an online store is a laborious, complex task that requires attention to many nuances at all stages of development. No one is immune from mistakes that everyone can make due to inattention, forgetfulness, or ignorance. And this is normal because our fails are a great experience and an opportunity to improve our skills. That is why we decided today to talk about mistakes in web design for eCommerce and how to fix them to increase the performance of your online store and help you avoid conflicts with customers and managers in the future.
Types of Major Mistakes That No One is Immune From
The MotoCMS team is known not only for its outstanding website builder templates but also for its skilled professionals. They work on various client projects, multipurpose content creation, and custom designs. Our experts also regularly conduct many usability audits aimed at improving the functionality and ergonomics of the web resource. While working, we periodically encounter tasks of varying complexity, which allows us to identify specific patterns and mistakes in web design for eCommerce website, the elimination of which often solves most user problems.
Let’s look at them together and determine which ones you can avoid in advance, which need particular attention, and which can reduce the effectiveness of your online store. After reviewing the comments of our developers and analysts, I managed to identify four main risk groups in web design for eCommerce, which I have divided for your convenience:
- UI and design bugs
- Performance and adaptability issues
- Irrelevant content
- Difficulties with further promotion and management
Visual Bugs and Complex Interface
These ones are perhaps the most common problems of web design for eCommerce, as the sheer number of nuances and important interface details overwhelm both new online store owners and experienced developers alike. Creating a single full-fledged resource takes a lot of time and requires hundreds of checks and tests, which some creators neglect due to fatigue or inattention. In turn, users are dissatisfied because of “stupid mistakes” and sometimes even close the site, going to search for more convenient and ergonomic analogs.
Lack of Concept and Integrity of Site Structure
It is especially true for marketplaces that offer the broadest range of products that are difficult to structure correctly. Some try to make things easier by creating standalone web projects for individual product groups, but this sometimes makes things even worse. Someone creates separate content blocks, placing them in a chaotic order or as relevant. However, problems with the proper placement of eCommerce design elements and their structuring continue to spoil the user experience.
Alas, it is almost impossible to cope with this on your own, so we always recommend delegating structuring tasks to experienced web developers and marketers. Specialists will be able not only to create the correct sales logic but also offer a unique web design for eCommerce that will fully comply with this.
Navigation Troubles
These difficulties are often interrelated with the problems we described in the previous paragraph. However, long surfing on web pages in search of the necessary product can also occur in the presence of a holistic design. This difficulty can arise for several reasons:
- search bar missing or not working;
- incorrect filtering and sorting;
- problems with product tags and internal labels used for the catalog;
- chaotic data structuring in managerial databases working with the site;
- lack of internal links and CTA elements redirecting the user to the right place.
You can avoid most of these risks at the design stage of a web resource, and some of them you can fix with the help of smart assistants like the plugin for eCommerce website. So be vigilant and do not forget to test your online store from a developer’s standpoint and as an ordinary user.
Design Elements Do Not Fit Together
Anyone who has ever dealt with customized web design for eCommerce website knows that personalization offers not only the choice of colors and typography but also the size of elements, positioning, and display methods. Just a few mis-specified pixels or missing a checkmark in the selection bar can create many problems, like overlapping essential information blocks or buttons. I especially love sites with a sticky menu that keeps its size when zooming in on the page.
That is why it is very convenient when the customization of your web project is visual and happens in real-time. You can quickly fix a problem with incorrect placement or incorrect parameters and immediately test the update in different site versions.
Performance and Responsiveness Issues
Incorrect functionality and long loading of web pages are the pain of all site owners. However, this is especially critical for business resources and online stores, the success of which depends on the convenience of users and their desire to perform a targeted action – order a service or call back, purchase a product, etc. What should you pay special attention to and how to avoid falling sales in advance?
No Responsive Version
Reliable statistical resources note a sharp increase in online sales in recent years, including mobile commerce through smartphones or tablets. Many business resource owners like this trend and try to follow it. Still, for some reason, they regularly go to extremes – they focus only on specific versions of the site, forgetting about optimizing the rest. Indeed you have seen web design for eCommerce, which has significant problems with the interface of mobile versions or looks too “poor” in full-size one.
You cannot know where users will want to buy goods – from the full-size desktop version, the application, or the mobile device version. That’s why you need to ensure they have access to every possible way to interact with the site. Learn also how mobile content marketing differs from desktop one and how to make them complementary elements of your sales strategy.
Problems with Web Pages Loading
According to the Nielsen Norman Group research, a site visitor takes 10-20 seconds to decide on further exploring a web resource. They evaluate the design, the quality of media and text content, the value of your offers and services. In turn, the long loading of web pages reduces the amount of valuable time and the desire to stay here, respectively. Many site managers make excuses for problems with the CMS and the amount of full-length media content that slows loading speed. However, the right website engine and scheduled maintenance for optimization and acceleration can effortlessly minimize these problems – similar to upgrading to 128GB of internal memory after 16GB.
Irrelevant Content
Buying online is about the visual selection of goods based on studying the product’s media materials and textual characteristics. That’s why experienced MotoCMS eCommerce specialists repeatedly focus users’ attention on the high quality of content that site owners must take into account initially and maintain in the future:
- full-size photos for each product must be unique and clearly show the product from all angles;
- detailed and well-structured texts created by all the requirements of SEO copywriting optimized for people and Google;
- informative and relevant videos that perfectly complement product descriptions and showcase your services.
However, there are also a few subtle nuances that can affect the user experience.
Problems with “Selected Products”
The site block with selected products is one of the essential eCommerce website features that users pay attention to while exploring the assortment. Broken logic in the display of products can negatively affect customers’ first impressions and confuse them. For example, when goods from “Selected Products” are out of stock or “Buy with this product” offers unsuitable items. Imagine that you have chosen an expensive coffee machine, and the site offers you to buy another one instead of a set of Nespresso pods or espresso cups.
Difficulties with Order Placing
Of course, this is more about errors in the interface, but the site content is not limited to creating product characteristics. It extends to all filling, including descriptions of data fields, CTA elements, and contact forms. Developers of web design for eCommerce usually provide specific algorithms for validating user data and hints for them. However, the absence of this can become a cruel joke, and the user will refuse the order due to problems with entering a phone number, email, or specific extras, such as the name of the great-grandmother or the pet that you had in your youth.
Problems with Management and Promotion
Imagine the situation, you have a great online store with an attractive design, advanced functionality, and superb ergonomics, but no one visits it for some reason, and conversion rates tend to zero. What is the problem, and how to fix it? It turns out that there are many specialized tools responsible for website promotion in addition to the apparent SEO content optimization. For example, social networks, advertising campaigns, newsletters, and much more, which MotoCMS eCommerce experts regularly talk about in articles like ecommerce future in 2021 – what to expect and how to be on top.
Ignoring the need for user interaction tools is a critical mistake anyone can make in pursuing attractive design. Make sure you have strategies in place ahead of time so that you don’t miss out on implementing supporting tools while developing your web design for eCommerce website.
Don’t Forget About Feedback and Reviews
We told many times that the testimonials of your successful clients are the best advertisement for any commercial resource and a super practical tool that can and should be used in web design for eCommerce. However, feedback involves not only posting testimonials and product rankings but also providing ways to contact you, participate in a survey, or subscribe to your mailing list. Remember that nasty feeling when you spend hours looking for a service center number and cannot find the information you need.
Many people ignore feedback for fear of encountering negativity or customer issues. However, this is a must-have for successful and reliable online stores. Moreover, your wish to help the user usually improves your relationships and builds trust.
MotoCMS Ecommerce – Several Solutions to Shoot Most Troubles
Studying common mistakes in web design for eCommerce, MotoCMS always strives to satisfy our users with professional recommendations and solutions that automate troubleshooting processes. Of course, you can avoid most of the problems at the stage of planning and designing an online store. We offer a fantastic collection of eCommerce website templates to suit the needs of a variety of businesses and niches. You can explore them all or sort them into a specific category for more convenience. Each of the presented solutions was created following all the requirements of modern web design for eCommerce website. Therefore, it contains everything necessary for correct operation and customization.
Additional Ways for Optimizing Web Resources
However, we also offer ways to optimize web resources that are suitable for those who already have a working website and want to improve one:
- Website builder plugin for eCommerce is indispensable for converting standard web resources into functional online stores. In addition to adding sales tools and modules to the interface, this offers you a separate dashboard for managing products, orders, and the catalog as a whole. Plus, all the features of the eCommerce plugin are available in the admin panel of the online builder without the need to install and download third-party software.
- The Advanced Contact Form also extends the functionality of the website builder by giving owners access to an unlimited number of data fields and validation settings. It will also help set up automatic notifications and secure ReCAPTCHAs, which positively affect the security of the web resource and privacy policy.
- Page Speed Optimization is a comprehensive service for improving the performance of web resources and optimizing media data that affects the speed of work. Take advantage of this so that your visitors can enjoy interacting with your site and give maximum attention to its content.
Plus, MotoCMS boasts competent professionals involved in auditing, SEO optimization, and high-quality content creation. Our experts perfectly cope with tasks of any complexity, structuring data and developing effective site mappings for even the most confusing product catalogs. “We are striving to improve the ergonomics of the site, making it convenient and understandable for both visitors and managers” (c)
In Conclusion
Today we have analyzed the most popular mistakes in web design for eCommerce, the list of which can be continued in dozens of similar articles. The main message of each of them will remain unchanged, and I would like to voice it again. Do not be afraid to fail, and do not be shy about outright mistakes because all of them are fixable and ready to become the basis for your future success. Of course, it’s better when you can notice problems and fix them on time, manually, or by automating troubleshooting with MotoCMS eCommerce tools. However, your desire to improve the web resource and make the user experience more ergonomic is admirable, and you can be proud of it.
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