We all know how complex it is to run an e-commerce operation from end to end. From technology to support, from commercial strategy to inventory management, from campaign creativity to market study. Beyond all of those fundamental points, there is a deciding factor in the purchase that is often underestimated. We are talking about interface design.
That is right. Interface design matters a great deal to the sales success of an online operation. It is what makes the store more attractive, intuitive, and pleasant, and it gives the user a better experience.
There are many other reasons to pay more attention to design. A few of them follow.
01“The first impression is the one that stays”
What holds in offline life holds for online operations too. It is essential to land a positive impact on visitors the moment they arrive. A lot of effort went into getting them to the site. Here are a few points of attention so the store does not lose conversion because of interface problems.
02Load time
Have you had that poor experience of opening a site that never finished loading, or took too long to show the information you wanted? That problem can make a visitor give up on buying, and it has several possible causes. A common one is the weight of the images.
They can be background images, that incredibly heavy .png banner on the home page, thousands of product images with no optimization. In short, images that, with solid optimization work from a design professional, will help the site’s page speed and, as a result, its ranking with Google.
03User experience
You know the feeling of not knowing where to look when you open an e-commerce site? Too many points competing for attention, several buttons to click, loud colors everywhere, text with no hierarchy, and a great deal of confusion. The list of problems is long, and it can be prevented with special attention to the interface design of the page.
Betting on a clean design is always a strong option. Keeping the site visually pleasant, direct, and concise, without an excess of information, color, and text, will bring better conversion results. In these cases, less is more.
04Mobile first. And we do mean first.
It is no secret that mobile phones took over the online world and that most people shop on their mobile devices. Data from the 44th edition of Webshoppers, produced by Ebit|Nielsen, shows that in the first half of 2021, 56% of online orders were placed on a phone. That only reinforces that the store needs to be conceived for mobile devices at its core, and then adapted later.
Easy, light, fluid, effective navigation makes all the difference for the page. For that, optimization of UI (User Interface) elements in the e-commerce is indispensable.
Support from a multidisciplinary operations team that includes interface designers and CRO specialists secures a better experience for the customer, covering technology and functionality as well as conversion optimization for the business.
Romar Junior holds a degree in Advertising from PUC-PR and is currently a Marketing Analyst at DIGITAL HUB.
Article originally published on E-Commerce Brasil.
