Nov 25, 2021

The e-commerce market is anything but static, and the same should be true for your e-commerce website. Here’s a complete guide for a successful e-commerce website redesign.

The e-commerce landscape is constantly shifting based on trends and customer preferences, and online retail businesses will sink or swim by their ability to adapt.

Adapting can mean a lot of things when it comes to e-commerce. It can mean adding new functionality to your online store, or it can be an alteration to the customer journey. However, what it usually means is redesigning either a part or the entirety of your e-commerce website. If you’re using a headless platform, this will be less of a pain than if you’re not. However, either way it takes research and effort to achieve an optimal ROI, which is always the real bottom line.

It takes research and effort to achieve an optimal ROI, which is always the real bottom line.

But it’s not always easy to spot when the time is ripe for a redesign. In this article, we’ll briefly go over some warning signs that might be indicating that it’s time for a change as well as some tips to help you get the most out of your e-commerce website redesign.

When Should I Redesign My E-Commerce Website?

Your current design is underperforming

If you’re experiencing a high bounce rate on your e-commerce site and things just aren’t performing up to standards, then the design probably isn’t working. A redesign could be just what the doctor ordered.

The current design is out of touch with your target audience

It’s important to pay attention to customer feedback, especially when it’s concerning the look and feel of your site. They’ll let you know when things aren’t working for them, especially if they enjoy your product. If your site’s design just isn’t doing it for the kind of customer you’re targeting with your business, then you’ll have to change it in a way that satisfies their complaints and makes shopping with you a more enjoyable experience.

Your competitors are doing well after changing their sites

It’s always important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. If your competition redesigns their site and is suddenly pulling in a heftier ROI and a larger share of the marketplace, chances are it’s time for you to follow suit. That doesn’t mean you have to copy what they did. It just means you have to uncover the “why” of their success and replicate it in a way that makes sense for your brand.

Your site takes too long to load

If your site is taking longer than 3 seconds to load, you might as well not have a site at all. Studies find that people are generally not going to stick around longer than 1-2 seconds to wait for your site to load, with a greater and greater percentage of visitors dropping off with each passing millisecond. A redesign is needed to cut down load times, the biggest and most immediate change usually being to reduce the amount of large images, gifs, and resource hogging visuals. The problem could also be in the platform you’re using.

Of course it’s not always a good idea to wait until your site’s performance or other factors are forcing you to redesign your website. It’s always a good idea to keep your finger on the pulse of the market and customer feedback and trends to better anticipate the need for a change before it starts impacting your bottom line.

Sometimes a redesign is also appropriate just because you want to rebrand, add functionality, or you just want a refreshing coat of paint.

UX & Web Design

Revamp Your User Experience

Our UX and Design team helps you create experiences that matter – quickly progressing from UX ideation to web design, prototype and implementation.

The Best Tips for Redesigning Your Site

The strategy behind your e-commerce site’s redesign is going to be dependent on a lot of factors, especially the cause behind the redesign in the first place. In light of that, there’s no one-size-fits-all guide to site redesigns.

There are, however, some general tips that are always good to keep in mind.

Stay simple

It’s easy to overdesign a website. There is a lot of temptation to pepper your pages with images and cute graphics wherever possible. In reality, making use of that empty space will lead to better user experiences and also cut down on site loading time. The general rule of thumb is to keep clutter at a minimum and make sure your CTAs are popping.

Stay visual

Keeping your site clutter free doesn’t mean it has to look basic. Find a way to make the site represent your brand in a visual way. Use interesting design and colors to make it your own in a way that tells the story of your company and your brand. Make it stick out from the competition and don’t be afraid to get creative.

Provide visitors with a natural flow

Speaking of CTAs, they are a valuable tool to guide visitors to where you want them to be. For instance, feature new products in a way that doesn’t obstruct other product pages, but which provides an easy path to discovery for customers. The same goes for curated product collections. You want to use easily seen CTAs to provide a path for the customers to reach these places.

Conduct usability testing

Usability testing is essentially having real people interact with your website and observing their behavior and reactions to the experience. At Avensia, we’re big proponents of using the data gathered through usability testing to get us closer to our clients’ end customers and understanding more of the “why” behind the data.

A/B test

We can’t overstate the importance of testing things like color, design, layout, and CTAs. It might not seem like that big of a deal to you whether the CTA copy says “Get yours now!” or “Click here to get yours!,” but we promise that one option will perform better than the other. A/B testing will let you know which is the better choice, and can be used on pretty much every aspect of your site. You can even A/B test entirely different designs against each other. The results will steer you towards making UX-focused changes that are backed with data.

Use social proof

A redesign is a great opportunity to add in social proof that gives your site credibility. Customer testimonials are always a great feature and they speak to new customers of your company’s legitimacy. If you have stats or numbers to show, for instance “300,000 products sold worldwide” or “4.8 star rating on BigReviewSite.com,” absolutely display them on your site. Retail is not a business for being humble.

Let Us Help With Your Redesign

At Avensia, we have teams of veteran digital commerce experts and design specialists who can help you redesign your e-commerce website in the most efficient way possible. We believe that the best way to boost your ROI is to give the customers the experience that they want, and we can help you figure out exactly how to do that.

Every business is different, so we’ll work with you to uncover the data and metrics within your own business to determine the best path for a redesign. We’ll even help you create your own e-commerce site from scratch in a way that gets you to market as quickly as possible.

Whatever your redesign needs are, we have the experience and the know-how to deliver a better bottom line. If you’re ready to take your e-commerce to the next level, feel free to contact us and let’s get the ball rolling.