User experience is what determines the success of your website and your business. If your website appeals to your target audience in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they will be sure to invest further in your business, and if not, they will be quick to skip to your competitors. So, all websites today focus on delivering a positive user experience to attract potential customers and retain them. But it is no easy feat. That’s why we are here today to help you streamline your website development journey and develop a website ready to capture your target market. With us, go through several tested and proven interactive ecommerce website design elements that will boost your conversion rate and take your business to the next level.
But before we get started, let’s look at why building an interactive ecommerce website is of the utmost importance.
Why Invest in an Interactive Ecommerce Website?
Your website design does affect customer behaviour. So, if conversions, customer retention, and brand growth are your goals, you must design and develop an interactive ecommerce website. It offers several advantages –
- Interactive elements like product recommendations and search customisations make the entire online shopping experience more engaging. If your website can keep your audience engaged, they will spend more time surfing through your website, and they will be more likely to make a purchase.
- Certain interactive design elements like live chat support and virtual try-ons can help deliver an improved user experience with zero hassles to website visitors. If your website can deliver a positive experience, it will help evoke a sense of trust in your brand.
- Tools like wish lists, product save features, and push notifications can help you retain customers. Such features incentivise your website visitors to come back and engage with your business.
- Product reviews, user-generated content, and social proof all come under interactive elements, and they help establish the credibility of your business.
Now that you know why you should invest in an interactive ecommerce website, let’s look at a few design elements that will help you build an interactive website.
12 Must-Have Elements of an Interactive Ecommerce Website
Clear Navigation
Let’s start with the basics – if your website visitors have difficulty finding what they need, it reduces their overall satisfaction and increases the bounce rate. So, you must choose a simple and intuitive layout for your website. With clear divisions using different categories, heading tags, headings and subheadings, strategically placed search bars and additional filter options, you can simplify the entire browsing experience for all visitors.
Responsive Design
With more and more people relying on smartphones for online shopping, building a responsive or mobile-friendly website is a non-negotiable. All website elements should adapt well to all screen sizes and resolutions, be it the basic layout, images, text or other graphics. Your website’s responsiveness can influence customer behaviour – users will quickly skip a website that doesn’t load well on their smartphones or tablets. So, ensure you check your website’s responsiveness before the launch.
High-Resolution Graphics
Your product images and videos can greatly influence your potential customer’s buying decision. If they don’t like what they are seeing, they will never invest in your products. Before clicking the “buy now” button, they would want to look at the product from all angles and see if it meets their requirements and expectations.
You can –
- Upload high-quality images
- Provide interactive videos of your products
- Offer zoom-in options
- Allow 360-degree product views
Strong Calls-to-Action (CTA)
Guide your potential customers’ buying decisions with strong CTAs.
When it comes to call-to-action buttons, you must –
- Choose your words wisely
- Use colours and fonts that stand out
- Ensure strategic placemnet of your CTAs
If your website visitors have a hard time finding out how to proceed with their purchase, it might make them rethink their decisions and bring down your conversion rate.
Product Reviews and Ratings
Product reviews and ratings can go a long way in turning your website visitors into customers. In an online store where you can’t do a quality check before ordering, reviews help your potential customers determine the quality of your products. If your product has good user reviews and ratings, it encourages a sense of trust and increases your conversion rate.
Fast Load Times
One cannot stress enough the importance of fast load times, especially in ecommerce shopping. Do you know that a website that loads in 1 second has a 5x higher conversion rate than websites with higher load times? The whole idea of an ecommerce business is to make shopping quick and easy. And if your website takes a lot of time to load, it can lead to car abandonment. From the first click on your product page to the final payment, it should all move quickly without any delays. To ensure fast laid times, optimise your images, minimise HTTP requests, reduce redirects, enable browser caching, etc.
Simple Checkout Process
The checkout is where the actual conversion happens. So, you must have a simple and streamlined checkout process; otherwise, it can lead to cart abandonment.
Here are a few features you can include to simplify the entire checkout process for your users –
- Include a guest checkout option to check out without having to log in.
- Add progress indicators like Shipping, Payment, and Review.
- Enable address autofill function.
- Offer payment flexibility by adding all popular payment options like credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
- Provide the customers with a clear order confirmation, summary, and delivery date.
All these features together can help you offer a convenient checkout experience to all your customers.
AI-powered chatbots and Live Support
Your website is live 24/7, so you should be available to answer customer queries at any time of the day. Rather than working beyond business hours, it is smart to use AI advancements in your favour and offer chatbot support to customers. These AI-powered chatbots can quickly resolve customer queries and direct users to relevant products.
You can also add a live support option to offer human-centric support to your customers. Chatbots can offer initial-level support, and if required, customers can opt for live support and get all the guidance they need.
Customer Accounts and Wishlists
Every ecommerce website should enable the creation of customer accounts. Once they log in, they can access their viewing history, past purchases, order status, cart, etc. Also, as sometimes your customers would simplify window shopping and want to save a liked product for later purchase, a Wishlist option can be handy. Whenever a past customer visits your website, they wouldn’t want to start from scratch, so customer accounts allow them to resume where they stopped, offering a convenient experience.
Social Media Integrations
Adding social media buttons to your website is an effective and no-cost marketing strategy. It enables simple and hassle-free sharing of your products. If customers like your product and wish to share it with their friends or family, they can do so with just a click. Also, adding your product links to your social media posts and stories can significantly increase website visits and impressions and, potentially, conversion rate.
Exit-Intent Pop-Ups and Retargeting
To add to the interactive element of your website, you can trigger a pop-up offering a discount or reminding users of items in their cart as they move to exit the page. It can also offer your potential customers a further incentive to complete their purchase.
Also, you can add retargeting notifications, reminding users about abandoned items when they return to the site. These simple elements can go a long way in keeping your new and past website visitors hooked and offer a positive user experience
Real-Time Stock Updates & Urgency Cues
- Enable notifications for products that are running low in stock; it will create a sense of urgency among users and influence their purchase decisions.
- If a product is out of stock, add a reminder option so the customers can receive a notification when the product is back in stock.
- Also, if you are running a limited-time offer or discount, you can add countdowns or timers to encourage faster conversions.
Build an Interactive Ecommerce Website with us at Make My Website
At Make My Website, we are a team of expert and experienced professionals dedicated to helping our clients build ecommerce websites that convert. We remain in sync with the latest advancements, employ innovative web design and development methods and build a website that could enhance the visibility of your business and boost your conversion rate. Having designed hundreds of ecommerce websites for clients of all kinds and scales, you can trust us to deliver to your expectations and help build a credible online presence. With us, increase your ecommerce sales in the most organic way possible.
If you are ready to sell your products online, it is time you connect with us. Partner with us and ensure your website is equipped with all interactive e-commerce web design elements and ready to capitalise on your products. Connect with us today and get started.
