Ecommerce Website: A Designer’s Perspective

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Ecommerce Website: A Designer’s Perspective

These days, hardly any business worth its name is without a website. But most businesses believe that their website is at best a brochure on the web and at worst an online business card. But, if your website is a marketplace for your products or services, then, you have to pay special attention to ensure that the ecommerce website is doing its best to target consumers, maximize conversion rates and make shopping easy.

Unlike a static website which is just a collection of web pages, an online marketplace is in reality an application with different kinds of functionalities like accepting payment, ensuring secure log on and so on. At the same time, the ecommerce website must look attractive and offer the right amount of information. In short, there has to be a balance between the design and function elements in an ecommerce website. An ecommerce website designermust know about the different functionalities and how to provide for each of these while creating the design.

An ecommerce website has to be dynamic as well as innovative. It has to keep reinventing itself according to the changing needs of the company. For this to happen, the website must have all the tools needed to create and update content as well as manage transactions. As new modules are added to the website, the design must accommodate these changes seamlessly. It is the job of the ecommerce website designer to create a design that is fluid.

The most important duty of an ecommerce website designer is to understand the main needs of the client and produce a design that answers that need without compromising on speed. For instance, these days, the use of Flash movies is increasing. However, flash movies may not really be suitable for heavy ecommerce websites that attract a lot of traffic. The ecommerce website designer must understand the constraints of each platform and deliver a product that is attractive and stable. Most importantly, the finished product must be easy to maintain and manage in the long run.

Many startup companies make the mistake of purchasing software that helps them create their own websites. These kinds of sites may suffice for the most rudimentary purposes. But, they start creating problems the moment the business begins expanding. When that happens, the website will not be able to accommodate the growing needs of the business. Some business owners hire relatives or friends for ecommerce website design. But, the truth is, these ‘born-again’ designers cannot deliver the kind of successful ecommerce website you see on the net. The third alternative is to get an existing designer to design your website for you, just because they had designed their business card or logo in the past. However, it is important to remember that these designers are basically into graphics development. They have only one of the skills required for the development of an ecommerce website. Such designers may have problems with providing continued support.

One of the best ways of designing and implementing an eCommerce website is to hire a website developing company that offers flexible, dynamic and impressive ecommerce websites. These websites will not offer run-of-the-mill, cookie cutter website templates on resale. Reputed ecommerce website developers will offer a website that looks good and has all the functionality that an eCommerce website requires. Most importantly, they offer continual, long term web support for their clients.