Online shopping has become a daily routine — more and more people are purchasing stuff on the web. Naturally, e-shop owners wish to make their business attractive, yet extremely functional for customers. And, the latest web design trends often play a role in a venture’s success or failure. We’ve passed a milestone of 6 months and already seen the coolest trends in web design this year. Is there any sense to make predictions for 2018? Absolutely!
As far as web design in ecommerce is concerned, the needs of an e-shop oftentimes don’t correspond to what’s in at the moment. Speaking of sales and retail, things like gimmicky typography, extensive decorations or, on the contrary, minimalism don’t look as cool as they may seem. The most important things one should be thinking about when designing an online store are sales and conversions. Remember that, if abused, trends may turn out to be a proper mess and not play into your hands. So, let’s take a look at the currently popular web design trends and think if they have the slightest chance to survival in 2018.
Choose Functionality Over Looks
Make functionality the top priority, and choose it over trendy elements which may often seem inconvenient to use. This doesn’t mean that your online store has to look old-fashioned: including a few modern touches here and there won’t hurt at all. In this respect, it’s useful to pay attention to ready-made solutions compatible with different online commerce engines. Of course, you can always start with a combo of WordPress CMS and pre-made business WordPress templates, throw in a WooCommerce module and start an e-shop of your own!
Thank goodness, there are plenty of solutions for online commerce available online! For instance, Magento and PrestaShop platforms are popular among shop owners for extreme flexibility and a number of customization modules. Designing an online store all by yourself? Then, casting a glance at various Magento extensions available online will help you select the best functionality range for your business.
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Hidden navigation panels with pop-ups may serve as a great example of a user-friendly ‘trends plus functionality’ combo. Not only does it make a web store comfortable in use as a mobile app. It also helps to put the best products into the limelight. When no design elements hinder the overall look of a website, promoting certain goods or services becomes more visually attractive. Since, we’ve established that functionality is king, it’s definitely going to be on trend in 2018.
As Personalized As Possible
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Bet, you want your shopping experience as adjusted to your customer needs as possible. Nothing wrong with that. But what is personalization, really? The most common example is a ‘hello’ message or a personalized shopping cart that keeps the memory of goods you’ve looked through, but didn’t purchase. Or this can be an automated ‘shop assistant’ offering you the products you might like in a newsletter.
Thanks to PrestaShop modules like ‘Size Assistant’ or ‘Pre-Order and Waiting List’, the process of shopping becomes something unforgettable and unique.
In terms of web design in online commerce, pay attention to boxes as design elements. Using boxes serves multiple purposes — from adding aesthetic appeal to highlighting specific content or linking to it. On the other hand, boxes are meant to be visuals. If used for online commerce, they can look like pop-ups with calls to action or pictures. Besides, boxes help to jazz up the overall look of an online store with artistic layering and make a simplistic design look more perplexed. Remember, a few years ago material design style cards were trending? Well, now boxes came to replace them. In a nutshell, no matter the functionality you mean for boxed elements, they will be trending in 2018 web design.
Think About Information Structure
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Unlike common web design projects aiming to create brief and clear messaging strategy, online commerce projects sometimes make information overkill their main focus. Shopping is often about comparing products and learning the details prior to buying. Putting as much information on product pages as possible is the way to go when you’re designing for sales.
And still, remember about balance and structure.
How do you achieve the perfect look of a product page? What if you try playing with bold typography and massive headers a bit? Obviously, there’s no better way for a user to skim the homepage than by looking through the headings and subheadings. This gives a general idea of the page content.
Small-sized typography is a web design trend you could use for an e-store. It’s great for online shops and can be implemented in a number of things like header elements, product pages etc.Small-sized text creates more space and less clutter which results in cleaner layouts. Avoid using small-sized typography with large blocks of textual content. It looks better when there is not much text to display. Combine text sizes in ecommerce web design — chances are it will attract the attention to your online venture.
Calls To Action
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I won’t surprise you saying that a good old call to action will be trending for ecommerce website design. To make a call to action more attractive use vivid colors and simple words. Usability wise, ensure there’s a direct path for a user to make a purchase every time a product appears on the screen. Throw in prominent buttons and a number of clickable areas. It’s important to make a shopping cart easy to find from any place on the website. Users have to get to the checkout fast as soon as they finished shopping.
Invest in Additional Design Elements
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Want to make your ecommerce website differ from hundreds of others? Invest in extra design elements that can create a really unique vibe. The details mentioned above can be: stock photography, background videos or animation. Aim at making your store as alive and interactive as possible! Think of something that urges to click again.
Pay attention to videos — these are and will be trending in 2018 for sure! Videos can take many forms and be as varied as possible. Product pages will work to your benefit if you embed a full-screen video or videos from social media.
What about “hero” videos? These can be great for your store’s homepage. Videos like this needn’t have a content overlay, but they as well can include headlines and calls to action. To generate more interest and draw the attention of your potential clientele, play around with your video content strategy. Try embedding multiple videos that play at different times. Videos help to tell a story and can be self-explanatory in terms of why you should or shouldn’t buy a specific product or service.
What are your predictions about Ecommerce web design trends in 2018? Feel free to share the article and sound off your ideas in comments below!
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Designs are the best tool from which a website owner can get the maximum number of engagements. The more simple the designs are, the more sales growth a business will witness. Apart from that, all these tips are really informative and looking forward to reading more such articles in the future! Thank you very much for sharing such interesting information.