The golden rule of owning a high selling e-commerce website is to satisfy customer from the product section of its checkout and delivery. The customers like to select the products and check out within minutes. So, you have to simplify the whole shopping process to indulge the customers.

A simple and flawless website design can help you to impress as well as satisfy the customers. Your designer knows best how to put product images on the site that attracts people and how to set up a checkout page with the simplest structure. The visual impact of a website does matter to indulge or demotivate a customer to buy a product. The decision-making process of the customers is complicated, but with a simple design, you can help them out and inspire to visit your site again and again.

Here are the 7 design elements that anyone can use to simplify an e-commerce website and increase conversion.

1. Attractive page Design

The first impression of your e-commerce site is extremely important. Your home may not contribute in conversion but it surely helps in customers’ engagement. The design of the home page matters in terms of alluring customers to dive deeper for products. Your home page should be simple yet rich with information like – new arrivals, exclusive collections, discounts, season special, festival special offer and so on. The captions of this page should be bold, large and attractive. The color of the page is also important. Your products should be highlighted boldly. It is found that the e-commerce sites with simple web design can boost conversion.

You may also want to add a clear Call to Action button wherever fits. Simplify the website menu to improve UX. You can also improve UX by offering clear directions. Responsive web design is also important to impress the users.

2. Live Chat Support

With live chat support and eCommerce customer support , one  can easily reduce customer bounce rate. How? In many cases, it is noticed that the customers are abandoning shopping cart even after clicking the “payment” option. The reason could be payment issue or any other technical issue. Whatever the reasons, when customers have doubt and there is no one to solve them, it can definitely cause shopping cart abandonment. At this point, live chat option can help the customers to sort out their queries or issues. Hence, the chat support could be used as an effective way for conversion.

3. Add larger Images

Images play a crucial role in customer conversion. On the home page try to add customize and large pictures of the exclusive items or the products available in discounts. The large and customized images featuring discounts can easily attract the customers. On the other hand, the product pictures in the gallery should be clear. Size and resolution of the product images are generally controlled by the website designers. The CMS platforms like Joomla, Magento, Drupal, and WordPress has specific image size and resolution that have to be followed. Hence, it is better to take expert’s help while uploading or assembling product images.

4. Customer Ratings and Reviews

Let the customers know your reputation as a seller. Always display the customer reviews and ratings. Almost all of the online customers look for good reviews before picking up a product. Since an online customer cannot try a dress or check any products, product review given by the other customers help them to make a decision quickly. Ratings, reviews, and testimonials are therefore always welcome. In fact, many e-seller ask for a product review from the customers after its completion of delivery. Gathering customer reviews and ratings can boost customer conversion significantly.

5. Make the Checkout process distraction free

Cart abandonment is one of the common issues faced by almost all e-seller site owners. If customers are selecting products and then moving forwards to pay bills but for any certain reason leaving the checkout page – it is very frustrating. In most of the similar cases, it is found that the complicated design of the checkout pages is causing the issue.

The journey of a customer from the selection of the item to review it and processing for payment should be a smooth process. Especially, the design of the checkout page should be clear and distraction free. Use a soothing color like beige or plain white to calm down the customers. Ask for minimum information. Asking for same information repeatedly or verification in every single step can irate the customers. So make the checkout page simple, distraction free and try to avail all type of payment systems (wallets, Paypal, online transaction and cash on delivery).

6. Offer coupons

Always try to lay out the offers and gift coupons. Coupons are the best thing to attract most of the customers. It can also save your day when your customers are trying to abandon the shopping cart. Whenever you found that the customers are leaving the shopping cart to abandon, you can offer them an extra 5% off on continuing the left shopping cart. This small step can reduce shopping cart abandonment significantly and contribute to customer satisfaction.

7. Gamify

Gamification is a new element to motivate the customers in the buying process. It is an interesting and effective process to connect with the customers psychologically. People aged from 7 to 70 have an attraction for video gaming. When you are using same gaming features in the e-commerce site, you are motivating the customers to complete their shopping quest. You can simply add an element like a progress bar that will fill up with water/sand/solid color with the completion of every step towards shopping. You can use such bars or animated icons to indicate customer status (level up with each shopping) and membership status (gold or platinum). Loyalty points, badges, and reviews can also be presented through gamification. You can also add silly games to your site. It will be entertaining and may improve user satisfaction rate.

Wrapping up

What customers want/like is a big question and you cannot find the answer without experiment. So, it is better if you start experimenting with the design and looks of your e-store. The engagement of the customers with each change can help to identify “which design” is appropriate for the site. It is advisable to work with the professional expert designers to achieve the best result.