Whether you are looking to start a drop shipping store or you are planning on fulfilling orders yourself, you are going to want to choose a design that reflects your business and that also has all the features you need in order to succeed. This means that you need to put some time and thought into what exactly you need before you go ahead and dive into building your site.
Here are some ways to choose the best design for your e-commerce store.
Consider price
You are going to want to keep in mind that any site you choose to build that does not follow a traditional template is likely to be more expensive. If you are open to following a template, you can save a lot of money—especially if you are first starting out as a business. However, you should keep in mind that you will eventually probably have to upgrade your site eventually so you have the features you need in order to scale your business.
Look at features
If your site will need any customized features, then it might be helpful to know that beforehand. Thankfully, you can fix this with a method like headless commerce, which allows you to separate the front and the backends of your website. This allows you to test certain features out without having to change the code for your website, which can be ideal for those looking to start out with the basics and then move on to creating a more custom site in the future. However, you will want to make sure that the necessary features like a checkout, product pages, and more are already there.
Look at your competition
Your competition can be the perfect way to inspire you when it comes to choosing a design that works. Before you go ahead and purchase your theme, you’ll want to do an in-depth competitor analysis where you see which site has successfully added which features. With this in mind, you can make design decisions that reflect what your competition is doing right and can help you avoid what you might be holding them back. Head to four or five of your competitors’ sites and make sure to share them with your web designer so he or she knows what to avoid.
Consider checkout
Your checkout process might be the most critical part of your business, and you should take time to consider whether or not it is a seamless process or not. If there are problems related to the user experience of your design, you’re likely to have people who will drop off and you won’t end up getting the sales you expect. Before you launch your site, make sure that you test it so if there are any problems, you can fix them in advance.
In summary
Your design can be one of the main things that motivate your customers to purchase from your site. When this is the case, you want to make sure you have a design that you feel proud of and that has the features you need to be a success.