The principles of good e-commerce site design

If you're looking to sell things to your online visitors,
rather than simply providing them with interesting content, your
site design will need to look very different from that of
conventional information sites. Your e-commerce site design
will ultimately decide how many visitors convert into actual sales,
so get it wrong and you will directly affect your cash flow.
In this article, we'll look at the principles you should follow
when you design your e-commerce site.Visitors to an e-commerce site
are looking to part with cash, but they will not do so if they feel
in anyway insecure about it, or if it's any way difficult.
Over and above a pretty design, therefore, you need to attend to
the technical aspects of buying online - a decent shopping cart, a
range of payment options, and an emphasis on security. Securing
e-commerce websites Work on making your visitors feel safe and at
ease. Look at the websites you regularly buy from, such as
Amazon. They constantly emphasize the security of their
payment systems and the ease of making a purchase. Everything
is one-click, and designed to flow, with simple access and
straightforward navigation. Think yourself into your
customer's shoes, and ask yourself, "what would make me buy from
this site?" Look at branding. Nobody wants to buy from a
website that looks as if it's been slung together by somebody
working from their back bedroom. Use strong logos, taglines
and design elements, everything to convey the message that this is
a professional e-commerce site that you can trust.A shopping cart
is the program that actually allows e-commerce to happen. You
therefore want a shopping cart that is as comprehensive and as
reliable as possible. It needs to be user friendly, and it
will need to fit in with reliable card processors and payment
gateways. It will need to handle all major payment
options. Your customers don't want to grapple with
complicated invoicing or press lots of buttons to make their
purchase. They want to be able to put what they want in the
cart and pay for it with as few clicks as possible.Above all, you
need to emphasize security and safety. Speed and convenience
are important, but at the end of the day, nobody will put their
credit card details into an online form if they don't think it's
safe to do so. Invest in the most secure payment processor
you possibly can, and tell your customers that you have done
so. You can't stress this enough.In the end, your e-commerce
site will live or die according to its ease of use and its
security, so make sure your design reflects that.