Posted by on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 4:21 pm.
Understanding how ecommerce website design has evolved can prove fundamental in predicting its course in the future. I will be looking into influential choices and developments in ecommerce website design.
Marketing Makes Money
Marketing is a strategy, which has been refined over the last 1000 years, but only defined, in the past 100. Although marketing techniques can be traced back many hundreds of years, it is only with the age of information that we really began to embark on modern marketing strategies and techniques, as we know them today. The development of modern marketing began with the introduction of print, and rocketed through the introduction of radio, television, and more recently the Internet and wireless connectivity.
Applying methods of encouraging people to buy your product, for retail in particular, is made up of brand awareness, advertising strategies, and most importantly the sales messages conveyed to the customer. So it’s no surprise that ecommerce website design strategies are heading in the same direction.
Don’t break the Mold!
We are undoubtedly in the midst of an ecommerce revolution, which continues to grow and shows no sign of retreat.
Ecommerce, when it first came to surface in the mid 90s had instantaneously ignited the .com boom, and was essentially having the ability make a purchase over the Internet.
Just in the same way that as broadband speeds increased, website design has started to replicate the format of more traditional graphic design, website design will begin to follow that of TV advertising. More video interaction with users, better quality video and in large, sales messages that have been given as much time and attention as those which would appear on television. I could certainly see a time when a sites homepage is more like a TV advert that a header with text underneath it.
Ecommerce Website Design Techniques
Here are some important concepts that can help boost your ecommerce success rates and ultimately make you more money. Obviously, marketing alone will not sell your product, but a well marketed ‘bad product’ will make more money than a ‘great product’, badly marketed.
Marketing direction
cross selling and up selling: It’s a proven method to encouraging the user to buy either more of a particular product or cross-selling related products. Once a user has made the decision to buy from your store, it will be much easier to convince them to add more products to the order. When we look how the larger retail outlets cross sell on the web, we can see that they do it in a similar way to how they would traditionally.
Website Design
Site design is hugely important in ecommerce and having a design to represent the environment that your target audience would indeed shop in, can have a great effect on the perceived comfort zone of the user and ultimately will accurately represent the product base your are selling.
Usability and functionality
Usability and functionality are the key to keeping your customers on your site. Clunky hard to navigate category sections, and slow page loads will increase the likelihood of your potential customer leaving. The faster the user can find products the more they’ll continue to search. Elements such as Ajax database connections, providing on-the-fly search, on a character-by-character basis means users can often narrow their search for a single product to potentially a handful of possibilities after only 2 or 3 keystrokes. This drastic reduction from having to type in a complete key phrase will enhance the user experience giving them more time to browse the contents of your online shop.
Communication
In a world of freely available information people have come to not just demand, but expect communication. No longer is it possible for an ecommerce outfit to hide behind an email address and make available no obvious telephone number. Customers want customer service. Businesses who deem this service of considerable importance will start to reap the benefits. Recently Spotify streaming music service has highlighted the importance of having a good communication infrastructure with their users, by openly inviting people to voice their opinions about the Spotify service. This allows them allows them to hand pick genuine user responses to signify both sides of a particular situation.
Don’t be afraid to be different!
Although marketing techniques spanning across the all vehicles of information are now seemingly mirroring traditional methods, we mustn’t forget that marketing in it’s very nature should capture innovation and imagination.
Channel
on January 8th, 2010 Says:
I can see that you are are genuinely passionate about this! I am trying to build my own website and you’ve helped me with some great information.