There’s a saying that if you’re not online, you don’t exist. A saying that grows more relevant each day as the online marketplace continues to dominate the shopping world. For retailers, this should be interpreted as such: if you currently do not have an ecommerce website, you may be preventing yourself from hitting revenue goals and reaching your full potential. When you’re selling online, you want to make sure your website represents who you are and what you do. After all, it’s your chance to make an impression on your customers. And if you do it right, you can make a lasting one.
What exactly does ecommerce website design entail? Put simply, it’s the process of creating an online store for your business to sell digitally to target shoppers. To design an ecommerce website, you need to plan, conceptualize and arrange your content and products for effective display on the Internet.
The ecommerce push has already begun, as more companies and more shoppers are turning to ecommerce stores to make their purchases. In 2020, Walmart’s online sales increased by 97%. Amazon’s Q2 sales and profit growth was 40%. It’s not just the big guys either, benefiting from consumers’ spiked appetite for online shopping. Smaller retailers such as Howards Storage World and B-Wear Sportswear, among others, are seeing double and even triple-digit growth in ecommerce revenues compared to the year before.
Whether you are just starting out or already have a brick-and-mortar business, creating an eCommerce site means considering the website’s overall design, from the aesthetics to navigation and accessibility. These aspects are crucial for making a lasting impression and providing a seamless shopping experience.
To help you develop a website that stands out, this article lists eCommerce websites with excellent designs and functionality for inspiration.
Hebe’s website is beautiful. The thing that stands out the most is its photography. High-quality photos are important when running an online ecommerce business, especially on a clothing website. The site’s typography is great as well. The font is just a little bit thicker than what you usually see online, which makes the website design stand out even further.
This ecommerce website channels its fun energy through its website design. With bright colors, it gives off a very cheerful feeling. Additionally, it’s done a great job with photography. The big photos on its homepage set the mood of the rest of the website’s design.
Dress Up sells fashionable clothing for women. It uses contrasting colors and texts to highlight new arrivals, sales, or seasonal promotions. What’s interesting on its website is the “Chat with us” option, which isn’t common for online fashion stores, but is definitely a plus point!
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to design a clothing website, Bohemian Traders is a good place to start. With a bit of Bohemian touch in the design, visitors to this ecommerce website can easily navigate between clothing items based on the latest arrivals, occasions, accessories, or sale items.
Here we have another ecommerce clothing website. This online store is full of the colorful patterns of the brand’s jackets, shorts, and t-shirts. So it’s no surprise that its ecommerce website design is full of big, bold colors too. It also uses a lot of orange, which stands out against the minimalist background of the site.
Magic Spoon, a breakfast brand, does a great job portraying its products’ texture on its ecommerce site. The layout has a magazine-like structure, with a sparking color palette and detectable details behind every click and scroll. A light blue background spreads through pink and purple palettes, which perfectly complements the high-quality product shots.
Dick Moby sells glasses. Its ecommerce website design is full of great design elements. First off, it’s the fun patterns and squiggles you see at the top of its homepage. Second, it’s the quality photos of its glasses. Notice that on the Shop page the glasses are alone without anything in the background. That lets the product stand out. It’s a great ecommerce website example where the design helps create a unique feeling for the products.
Everything from the name to the design of this ecommerce website is memorable. You see bold pictures and fewer words. If you’re looking for how to design a website in a unique way, you can take some inspiration from The Horse’s amazing design.
The ecommerce website design of Esqido focuses on the beauty of its main product: lashes. It’s full of closeup photos of the product and its intricate packaging. What’s more, it even has a short video on its homepage explaining how to apply fake lashes. This ecommerce website is especially helpful if you’re looking for some ideas on photographing makeup or beauty products for your ecommerce website.
Mahabis focuses on showing off its high-quality products straight away. And what better way to do that than with a beautiful website design. As soon as you’re on the homepage of this ecommerce website, you’re greeted with a one-line description of how comfortable the product is. The amazing design of this site shows even the smallest details to entice the potential buyer.
The layout of shoe products on Muroexe’s site is great. The shoes are aligned in a neat grid, making browsing easy. There’s a lot of white space, which is the empty space, or padding, around the photos, making the products on this ecommerce website stand out even further.
Sierra Designs is a great example of website design to take inspiration from. Its eye-catching professional photography and user-friendly website provide an equal balance between a clean aesthetic and a responsive design. The website has a feeling of adventure and liveliness that is carried through the appealing photos on this ecommerce store.
Longines is a luxury watchmaker with a long history, and this eCommerce website is a tribute to aviation pioneers who used the company’s watches in their campaigns. Its interactive homepage reveals how the products’ cutting-edge features and durability help aviators from different generations adjust to time zones and travel in extreme conditions.
Helbak is the perfect example of small business website design that shows you don’t have to overdo it. Its products are beautiful and clean. The design utilizes the color of the products and white space in the background to show off the artistic side of the items. It’s simple, it’s neat, and it’s easy to look at.
I’d call the ecommerce website design of Skullcandy anything but simple. It uses just the right amount of text and visuals to enhance the experience for visitors. Its website comes to life with the chosen colors.
100% Pure doesn’t have a fancy website. I wanted to include a less dramatic ecommerce website design example to show you don’t need to be overly creative to have a good-looking website. It’s OK to start with, as long as your website is easy to navigate—just like 100% Pure’s.
Oi Polloi is another one of my favorites on this list. Its homepage is minimal, but it’s also fun. And it shows that minimal doesn’t need to mean cold. The website design of this ecommerce store relies on giant photos of its products on colored backgrounds. It also uses a fun custom font to tie it all together.
BlackButterfly’s web design represents a simplistic, modern feel with a basic theme. This ecommerce website example follows an easy structure. With fun photos and cute graphics covering the website, you can easily scroll through to the dress category you’re interested in.
This Tokyo-based ecommerce site switches from a flat theme to a unique dimensional affair using suggestive motions. There’s also hyper-stylized visuals of the product and the shop full-screen animations that switch to modal views when you hover over them. It’s fun yet inspiring to watch. We especially love the animated green text-slider above the footer that contradicts the static with the dynamic.
Kettle & Fire’s design will take you by surprise. Above the fold, the company uses a fairly standard layout for an ecommerce site. But a few clicks and scrolls later, you’ll see a lot of unique elements. There are photos of vegetables (key ingredients in the brand’s product) floating throughout the site. Plus, fun slogans like “Warm your soul” and “Yummy in the tummy” show off the quirky side of the brand.
The Mountain has all the great design features of an ecommerce website. A straightforward navigation bar featuring main product categories prompts exploration. A service banner, placed under the header, immediately informs about shipping terms and possible delays — good practice for managing customer expectations.
Solo Stove website is an admirable example of how to use iconography in ecommerce. The fire pit manufacturer made custom icons for each product category to better convey what they are selling and highlight some of the main product specs. How-to product videos, illustrations and FAQ sections highlight their main point further — their products are durable, easy-to-use and well worth the price.
