Design Trends That Will Take Over the E-commerce World in 2019

One’s success in retail has always depended on their ability to persuade a potential buyer to buy their product.

While this may sound simple enough, you need to consider the fact that you probably have tough competition as it is, some of which offer bonus features or the price that you simply cannot match.

Fortunately for you, there’s more to commerce than price, otherwise there would be only one seller per industry (the one with the lowest price on their products). Trustworthiness of your business, the efficiency of your operations and your overall vibe will be a deciding factor when it comes to your success in retail. When it comes to e-commerce, all of this will get estimated based on the design of your e-commerce website. Here are several e-commerce design trends worth keeping an eye out for in 2019.

Micro-interactions

The incredibly simplistic approach that some e-stores are taking is not going to be with us for long. You see, traditionally, a buyer would have an option to either buy an item or add it to a basket. The problem with this system lies in the fact that it doesn’t give you a chance to learn more about what your audience thinks about your website, your products, and your business model. With micro-interactions on your side, you get to resolve this problem in a simple and elegant manner.

First of all, you get to see immediate feedback that comes from users interacting with your website. Second, you give people a reason to stay on your website even if they don’t intend to buy anything just yet. This is especially important due to the fact that not everyone is ready to buy right away. There’s this theory called customer lifecycle, which claims that every single customer passes through several stages before making their first purchase. With these micro-interactions, you can ensure that this loyalty is much more reliable.

Chatbots

The next important thing in this field are chatbots, that are, nowadays, becoming an industry standard. Reasons behind this are numerous. First, chatbots save time, seeing as how they give an immediate response to every single customer. Second, they’re substantially cheaper than having to hire actual people to respond to these requests. Present-day chatbots are so sophisticated that they are even able to provide greater customer satisfaction. Sure, some may argue that these chatbots are still not a real AI, which means that they’re not as versatile as the real representative of customer service, however, this doesn’t mean that they make more errors. You see, in this stadium of chatbot development, human error is far more likely.

SEO-friendliness

On-site optimization of an e-commerce website is incredibly important, due to the fact that a lot of your customers might base their decision on whether to do business with you or not, exclusively based on your position in Google search results. A good website design can affect your SEO efforts in more ways than one, which is why you should consult digital marketing experts in the early stages of development. It would be even better to entrust development to them completely. Design for content discoverability is definitely not easy, nor is achieving this while keeping your website functional and responsive. Nonetheless, all of these are things that you’ll simply have to make work.

Use of video

The use of different formats is a powerful persuasion tool, yet, there is one that always gets ahead, regardless if we’re talking about B2B or B2C marketing. We’re talking about the use of video in your website design. Still, the use of video for B2B is slightly different, due to the fact that it needs to be optimized for channels like LinkedIn (adequate aspect ratio, video length, video frames and the size of the file) and much more. It also needs to be optimized for SEO, which implies that it should have transcribed video content, adequate headline, and a catchy thumbnail. This is a delicate art so don’t get discouraged even if you don’t succeed at first.

Integrate your brand into your design

Brand awareness and brand recognition can both be increased through adequate brand design. Still, in order for this to work, you need to find a way to integrate your brand into your website design. The position and shape of your logo, the frequency of your brand name and more can’t stand one-size-fits-all solutions. They are something that can make your brand and your e-commerce website quite unique. Still, for this to work, you need to have the future website in mind while coming up with the name, logo and corporate colors. Remember that these factors might end up affecting the end result of your design.

Minimalism

There was one study where two groups of test participants were presented with a coupon for a jam of choice. The first group had to choose one amongst 6 different varieties, while the latter had to make the same choice when faced with 24 different types of jam. The results were staggering, seeing as how the latter group was 10 times less likely to make up their mind. This means that when presenting your audience with too much choice, you are making it harder for them to make up their mind. On the other hand, when you bring down the number of visual elements to a minimum, you’ll do your potential buyers a more pleasant customer experience. You’ll also make your website more responsive, due to the fact that you’ll reduce the number of HTTP requests.

Responsive design

When it comes to the question of how to deal with various different devices trying to access your website, you’ll have several different choices to consider. First, you could make two different versions of the website, one for desktop and one for mobile users, however, what about tablets, laptop screens of various sizes, etc. It’s much better to make a responsive design and be prepared for any potential outcome or scenario. Other than this, having different versions of the same website takes a lot in terms of maintenance and causes you to post duplicate content (which might indirectly hurt your ranking).

Dynamic elements

While interactive elements require more power to run, you need to understand that, nowadays, this is an industry standard. First of all, your audience will expect these elements to be dynamic which means that making them static will cause slight disappointment. Second, dynamic elements are quick to attract attention, leading to a rapid decline in bounce rate. Also, instructions provided this way are more likely to be followed and understood. These are just some of many reasons why static elements are expected to almost entirely disappear from use in the following several years.

Intuitive navigation

Being innovative might sound like a good idea but, upon entering your website, your audience will believe that they already know how to properly use it and the last thing you want to do is to prove them wrong. If something looks like it’s clickable, it should be clickable. In fact, when it comes to some of the basic web design principles, you need to be as industry-standard as possible. Sure, being different may draw some attention but why would you want to draw attention from your products and your offers? It really makes no sense and is, therefore, to be avoided.

In conclusion

The world of e-commerce is getting more and more competitive by the minute but this is not necessarily a bad thing. The reason why this field (e-commerce) has the lowest conversion rate is due to the fact that people like to see several offers before making a purchase. This gives you a chance to use your inferior competitors as a reference point to just how great your business is. There’s no easier way to do so than with great offers and sleek design.