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Most Common eCommerce Design Mistakes Killing Your Business

eCommerce design faults

Contrary to the popular belief of eCommerce stores being the most lucrative form of websites. Online stores actually struggle to beat the growing competition and more so, drive conversions.

This entire struggle becomes more cumbersome if your store isn’t well designed. You cannot go wrong with your eCommerce design, as it is one of the most important factors giving your store the competitive edge it needs.

There are certain design mistakes that can push businesses backwards. Moreover, these mistakes are often quite common that we either overlook or do not consider them that crucial.

Considering the boom in online retail business amid COVID, the grass is greener even according to the statistics. Consider this, according to Shopify Plus, until 2021, worldwide retail eCommerce sales will reach $4.9 trillion. In addition to this, 95% of shopping will be conducted through eCommerce channels by the year 2040.

Now these are some amazing forecasts that indicate the growing demand and supply in the coming years. Which is why, it is even more important to have your eCommerce store in the best shape; be it its design, functionality, and more.

So, what are those common eCommerce design mistakes that hurt your business gravely?

#1 Your Online Store is Not Mobile Responsive

In a world that is heavily reliant on smartphones; it won’t come as a surprise to know that more than 60% of searches are made through mobiles. Take yourself for example; with 5G technology taking over gradually, you immediately take your smartphone out to make a quick search about a product.

Not just smartphones, but any handheld device for the matter. This is why, it has become a necessity for eCommerce stores to have a mobile responsive design that adapts to all screens and still serves a great user experience.

Bonus: Google considers mobile responsiveness as one of the factors in ranking a site. So take that into account as well.

#2 Poor Navigation and Search

For any eCommerce site, especially one that is mobile responsive, there are so many categories that need to be displayed. How you design your navigational bar is going to make or break your site. Why? Because when someone visits an online store with a product in mind, they immediately search for the categories.

This is why, you need to be careful when devising your navigational bar. Keep it clean, simple, and easy. Remember, since you cannot cram everything in one home page, you store it strategically in the navigation bar.

The next best thing that you can do for your eCommerce site is invest in the search function – along with sorting and filter options. A well designed search function with smart sorting and filtering options improves a user’s experience by ten folds.

It makes the browsing faster and if everything goes well, a potential purchase is also possible. So make sure your navigation and search is designed to perfection.

#3 Not Having a Wishlist Option

Not everyone that visits your store is looking to make a purchase. A lot of the times it is browsing, stumbling on something they’d like at some point and then make a purchase.

However, if they do not have a wishlist where they can save the items they’d like to come back to, it poses an inconvenience. Since no one want to bookmark each product page. What’s the use of an eCommerce store then?

Lucky for you and anyone looking to have an eCommerce site designed. WooCommerce comes with a ton of useful plugins; WooCommerce Wishlist Plugin is your best bet. Next, you look for software companies in Houston that provide WooCommerce development services.

#4 A Complicated Checkout Process

Even as I write this, I am annoyed remembering some of my own experiences with long and complex checkout processes. What did I do? Bounced to another site that doesn’t waste my time.

So, having a checkout section that has too many steps or too many following screens is a hassle no one wants to go through. Not to mention those third party payment gateways that instill a sense of caution within.

So, best route is to enable customers to make payments within your site within a short span of time. Remember, time is money when it comes to eCommerce stores.

#5 Not Using the Standard eCommerce Design

Familiarity goes a long way. What is familiarity? eCommerce stores have a certain similar pattern; like the shopping cart icon is mostly on the top-right corner alongside the profile option and more.

It is advised to go for the standard layout and work around it. A design that anyone can understand when they first land on your page is a winner. Hence, following the usual grids and layout for your eCommerce store will enhance the user experience.

#6 No Related Product Suggestions

You must have seen yourself then when you log into an online store and look for a specific product, you also see related product suggestions to entice you. Well, that is a smart strategy to increase purchases as the buyer us more likely to add those related products to their cart.

So, you are losing a great cash flow if your eCommerce design doesn’t include this strategy. You can display related products at your WooCommerce store quite easily.

#7 Not Displaying Product Reviews

This is one of the shadiest things any eCommerce store can do to kill off their sales and business. It is important to have a web design that builds trust and showcases transparency.

It is the right of every buyer to be able to view reviews and make a learned decision for themselves. This will help retain customers as they would trust a store that has product reviews for them to go through and make the right selection.

#8 Using Low-Quality Product Images

Nothing screams ‘poor’ in eCommerce landscape than low quality product images. Humans are more receptive to images than text and when you are selling products online, their images are THE most important part. So, one of the surest ways of shooing away customers is not displaying high quality pictures with zoom option.

With the eCommerce world stepping into the time of augmented and virtual reality, the least any store can do is provide good trust-worthy visuals.

So, that’s a wrap! Be sure you are not making these biggest mistakes with your eCommerce store. If you are planning to get one developed from scratch, then go ahead and get yourself updated on the latest web development trends for 2020.

Muniza Ashraf

Muniza Ashraf is a software engineer turned technical writer with extensive experience in various niches, especially all-things-tech-related. If she isn’t writing, she is researching to bring information in the best way possible. Currently, she is associated with KoderLabs, a custom software development company in Dallas.

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