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Ecommerce has, for the most part, evolved far beyond the late 1990’s cliches of hair-wrenching, sanity-shattering slogs through yet another “clever” designer’s take on how shopping on the web should be.

Standards prevailed, usability won out, and we’re now free to spend our collective billions of pounds per year online.

That said… It can still get better. Online shopping is in, if not infancy, at least a toddler stage. The advances that brought us to where we are have made the process simpler and easier than ever, but some sites still haven’t caught on.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series that will provide you with some great tips for successful ecommerce design.

20 Rules For a Successful ecommerce Website

Image Demonstrating Points 1 through 3

1. Tell The User Where They Are
Showing users where they are in a website is crucial. As most ecommerce sites can be complex in terms of categories, sub-categories etc, having a breadcrumb trail is both functional (as this provides links to previous pages) but also gives a good visual representation of where the user has been, and how they have arrived on that page.

2. Removal of Narrowing Options
Allowing users to reset or clear selections means that they don’t have to use ‘back’ buttons to reset their selections. Particularly useful when a mistake has been made.

3. Sort Options
Sorting your products into different orders helps the user get to what they’re after much quicker. There are a number of options for these narrowing options so deciding on what best suits your products is a key objective to the success of your site.

Image Demonstrating Points 4 Through 7

4. Display Products
This sounds obvious, but in this we mean that the option should exist to show the user as many products on one page as possible, with the choice to limit down how many they can see at any one time. Referring back to point 3, in the image there is an option show ‘Display 3 items per page’. Unless there are hundreds of images/products then giving the user this option is highly recommended.

5. Refine Options
Refining the display of products in a category makes for an overall better user experience. Depending on what kind of products you sell, these options can help the user find what they are looking for more quickly whilst showing related products.

6. More Refining Options
In this example we have shown two refining options, by brand, and by price. This works for users have an idea of something they are after, and also have an idea of how much it costs or what they have to spend.

7. Display Cost Variables
Again, this may seem obvious, but here we are making the point of showing as much information as possible. Showing the user the price they pay is fundamental, but showing them what the RRP is, what they are saving, what the discount is, what the price exclusive of VAT is etc, gives the user all the information they need to make decisions.

Image Demonstrating Points 8 Through 9

8. Keep The Search Bar Constant
Keeping the search in a constant position creates familiarity in the user for them to return to this powerful feature at anytime throughout their time on your site. Even if other search boxes appear on the site, there should always be a constant search field visible from every page.

9. Search Options
For more experienced users, having search refining options gives them much more functionality and power over the information they get to see.

Image Demonstrating Point 10

10. Search Results
Displaying as many permitations of the search query offers up further options for the user to search by, and also highlights any mistakes made in the original search query. It is quite common to miss-spell a product name or keyword so showing the user what they typed in also very useful.

In the next part of this article we will be looking at more design and functionality features that we at neteffekt™ advise our clients to consider when we create ecommerce websites…Continue to Part Two>