How to Design a Website for 2022's Modern Retail Audience

Do you want to position your retail business for instant growth? In today's day and age, you can't run a successful business, if you don't have an online presence.

As the online marketplace continues to dominate the shopping world, there's an increasing need for businesses to improve their online presence. Your website represents your business and gives your audience an idea about it. Developing a dull and boring website won't get you anywhere. Your website needs to be highly responsive, user-friendly, and equipped with cutting-edge features and widgets.

According to a study, In 2021, overall retail sales surged by 17.9% from 2020 and it's expected to increase further in 2022 and beyond. Every online marketplace has different requirements. While developing a website is critical for retail stores and other businesses, a study indicates that over one-third of small-scale businesses in the US don't have a website. If you don't want to be left in the dust in the coming years, you need to develop a striking website. Here's how you can develop a well-designed website for 2022's modern retail audience.

Factors to Consider

While designing a website, you need to explore the right platform. Here are some important factors to consider while choosing an online platform to open your online store.

- Customization features.
- Performance and responsiveness.
- The in-built feature set and user-friendliness.
- Flexibility.

Some popular platforms among retail businesses include SaaS, open source platforms, and headless commerce platforms.

SaaS Platforms

SaaS allows you to use a drag-and-drop visual editor for the convenience of the website designer, so you don't need any technical knowledge or expertise to create a website with SaaS. However, the platform isn't the right option for you if you're looking for a wide range of customization options.

Open Source Platforms

If you want to explore your inner creativity and create a unique and highly customized website for your retail business, then you should consider choosing an open-source platform. While it may require you more effort and consume a significant amount of time, the results will certainly be worth your effort and time. To create a website, you need to have coding skills. You can also hire a developer or coder and a website designer to create a website on open source platforms. But make sure the final website looks up to the mark and meets current online market standards.

Headless Commerce Platforms

The most notable feature of headless commerce platforms is their flexibility and ease of use. These platforms allow you to offer an API-driven experience to the website visitors through a DXP (digital experience platforms), CMS (content management systems), and custom front-end applications. Using these features, you can increase the audience's interest in your products and improve your brand name and reputation.

In a headless commerce platform, the front-end is decoupled from the backend because of which you can upgrade or edit it from anywhere anytime, without having to disrupt the front end. This feature allows you to create a compelling user experience for your readers.

Important Features of a High-Performing Website

Mobile-Friendly Website

According to a study, about 46% of online consumers purchase stuff from websites while 75% of the online shoppers agreed that they don't use shop from websites that aren't responsive on smartphones. Always optimize your websites for mobiles, tabs, and laptops.

Simple and Easy Site Navigation

Can the users easily navigate from one page of your website to another? The term 'navigation' refers to your websites' user interface and its elements such as footers, product or service categories, filters, etc. A high-functioning website can dramatically improve your online sales and convert regular website visitors into purchasing customers.

Seamless Online Shopping Experience

To ensure that your audience doesn't just add your products to their cart but also purchase them, you need to create an excellent UX (user experience) for them.

Assess your website's fundamental UI elements and check if you can easily navigate through the website, make sure that your website offers easy customization and you can integrate more features in the website as your business grows. This is especially important if you plan on expanding your business, increasing your products, or have some other retail business growth ideas.

You should also check the load times of all the pages, website speed and ensure there are no glitches in the website design. If your product demonstration videos aren't loading fast, or different pages take longer than usual, then it may affect your sales.

Important Website Design Elements for Online Retail Businesses

Whether you're acquiring professional website design services from a company or hiring a professional developer, make sure they design a website that includes the following elements.

Homepage

The homepage is the first place where your customers get the ''vibe'' of your business. They get a sense of who you are, your mission, services, and products. It serves as a digital storefront and hence if you want to make a lasting impression on your customers' minds, your homepage should be high-performing.

Always mention your current offers and discounts on the homepage, use image sliders, present your products, and most-liked items and recommended products in an organized fashion, and list the product categories on the sidebar or the header of the homepage.

Category Page

A majority of online businesses don't have separate pages for each product category, however, it's not something you can easily neglect. Before purchasing a product, people want to have a detailed and comprehensive view of the product, its features, and different elements. This is only possible if your website features category pages with detailed insights about the products mentioned in that category.

Category pages also include all the products in that category, which makes it easier for them to find their desired product. For instance, if you want to purchase a night cream or a serum, you may not want to browse through all the products offered by a business. Instead, you'd prefer to choose a category named 'skincare' and find your desired product from there.

Make sure that every category page on your website includes a concise description of the products in that category, features an SEO-friendly URL, and its design is relevant to the overall website design.

Product Landing Pages

Product pages should include high-quality images of your product. Make sure that your products are just as good-looking and high-performing as other pages, including a comprehensive description of the product/s, customer reviews (genuine), and related products.

Courtesy of the seismic technological advancements, you can also add some other features on the product pages, such as AR demos, timers to create a sense of urgency, and more!

Checkout Page

The checkout page should be seamless and simple. It should allow first-time website visitors to complete their purchases easily and register an account.

About Us

In a study, 52% of businesses agreed they a business's 'About Us page is one of the first things they check on an online store before checking out. Make sure your 'About Us' page tells your audience why you started a store, your vision, and your values. If there's a certain motto or ideology surrounding your business.

If we speak about the design of your ''About Us' page, we recommend you to keep the text, concise, and don't add sales pitches.

On-Site Search Engine

To ensure long-term website visibility, your website should also feature its search engine to help the online website visitors get their desired search results fast and quickly.

If you're integrating an onsite search engine, make sure the search bar is visible, also provide results if some of the words aren't spelled correctly, and also support image searches.

This guest post was written by Joseph Dyson, an experienced website developer at Search Berg, a highly reliable digital marketing company, known for its excellent and innovative website design services.