Has your ecommerce website witnessed an explosion in sales this holiday season? Why are we asking this question? Well, according to experts, compared to 2010, online sales, this holiday season, went up by more than 15%. If your website hasn’t been at the receiving end of the online shopper largesse this year, then maybe, just maybe, there is something wrong with it.

There must be something wrong with the design of your ecommerce website, which might be interfering with its potential to generate sales. Let’s take a look at how you can improve the sales of your ecommerce website.

Design Should Allow Shoppers to Find the Product

No, it’s not that shoppers find your products expensive, or don’t like the visual appeal or design of your website or that they don’t really want to buy your products in the first place that is the reason behind your website’s failure. You will be surprised to note that, one of the primary reasons why shoppers don’t purchase a product from a particular ecommerce website is that they are unable to find the product that they want. Does your website conveniently guide users to their desired products? Be honest with yourself.

If it doesn’t, you need to improve it. A simple, clear, and convenient navigation should be able to do the trick.

Design Should Cater to Different Kinds of Shoppers

Believe it or not, there are different types of shoppers that your ecommerce website design must cater to; it must be the one size fits all, kind of design. It must cater to the requirements of the power shopper, the recreational shopper and also the reluctant shopper. Let’s take the case of power shoppers first, the kind of shoppers who know what they want and don’t want to waste any time when they shop. For them, an intuitive search bar is a great idea as it will keep providing suggestions as they type. All, in all, for them, the design must be able to make shopping quick and convenient.

Now for the recreational shopper who has all the time in the world when it comes to shopping and has a tendency towards impulse buying. So, a series of featured products, great products visuals, and unbeatable discounts will go a long way in vowing them. And now for the most difficult kind of shoppers; the ones that are reluctant to buy anything only, because of various concerns. Your website design has a better chance of converting them into customers if their fears regarding privacy, security, customer services and trustworthiness of the products are dispelled.

Conversion through Product Details Page

If and when, your website attracts the attention of shoppers, it needs to hold their interest. This can be done through many different ways. One of these ways is using high quality photography to showcase the products on the product details page. Something else you can do is sweetening the whole prospect of buying the products, for the prospective shopper. Some early bird discounts or reward points will definitely attract prospective buyers. It will also be a good idea to make your site more engaging by offering reviews and ratings; this also makes your ecommerce website achieve credibility and forge a solid reputation.  These are just some of the many ways that can help you showcase your products, in a way that is sure to captivate and convert.

But, It Doesn’t End Here

With the tips given above you have not just attracted prospective customers to your site, but the shopper centric ecommerce website design has ensured that they have added a whole list of products to their shopping carts. But don’t pop the champagne just yet. They still need to take the shopping cart through the checkout process. This is when the deal will be sealed. The payment process of the shopping cycle must be quick and painless and one of the ways of doing this is by offering one page checkouts. A long drawn out checkout process is never enjoyable, so cutting down on those pages makes perfect sense. Another great idea would be to do away with the need for registration, if the shopper wants to buy products on the site.

Tips are easier to read and very difficult to incorporate. When it comes to the website design of your ecommerce site, the tips given above are not going to be a cakewalk, but they aren’t impossible to implement, either. If you are looking for ecommerce success, it makes sense to put in some efforts in website design. The dividends will be fantastic.

What do some of the biggest and successful organizations have in common, apart from the fact that they are big and successful? The answer is that they have a great logo. Look up any popular organization and you will find a distinct and memorable logo behind it.

The logo can very well be considered the face of your business. So it needs to be original, exclusive, interesting and must be the perfect visual representation of all that your business/company/organization/corporate stands for. It must embody the company’s beliefs, values, mission, purpose and objective. It must be able to inspire trust and prompt instant recall. Yes, a logo does all these things, and a whole lot more.

As can be imagined, it’s going to be quite a task to ensure that your logo is able to improve the awareness of your brand amongst your target audience. But, keeping the tips given below in mind, the task can become a little easier.

Simplicity works Best

Some of the best logos are very simple. Take the case of the Apple logo; what could be simpler than an apple with a bite, the bite was given to ensure that people don’t confuse it with some other fruit. Some of the other logos that are as simple as they are recognizable are Nike, Sony, Yahoo, Google, and Dell amongst various others. Simplicity ensures that the logo can be easily recognized, wherever it’s placed. Such logos, because of the inherent simplicity of their design and purpose are able to make an impression that stays long after the people have seen your logo.

It should impress wherever and whenever it is used

Your logo is going to be used across different channels of communication, and must look good anywhere and everywhere. So, you must identify the various places in which your logo might appear such as brochure, websites, banner etc. and while designing a logo, you must ensure that your logo will look good if and when used in the places that you have identified. At times, you might have to decrease size of the logo, and at other times, you might want to enlarge its size by quite a bit. So, the use of fine lines,  choice of graphic format, fonts, color, texture should be such that it makes the right impression whatever its size and whatever the background on which its used.

The keyword is ‘Unique’

Your logo helps generate awareness about your brand and encourages brand recall. This is why it mustn’t resemble any other logo. It is the uniqueness of your logo that will allow it to create its own space in the minds of the audience. You must do everything you can, to ensure that your logo is different and has its own distinct identity. Here, it’s important not to take the easy way out and download those stocks images from the web and use them in your logo. Do not take a chance. You can take inspiration from various sources, but at the end of the day your logo should be your own creation and must be able to stand out from the crowd.

These are just three tips that should help you choose a logo that is memorable and has the longevity to keep impressing people for a long period of time.

Your ecommerce website is your very own online shop-front and is also a sales tool. It needs to be able to deliver a power-packed performance in order to convert. It needs to justify its existence and efficiency through increased sales. It’s only sales figures that are the clear determinants of the success or failure of an ecommerce solution.

So what separates ecommerce solutions that work and those that don’t. While some give credit to the online marketing efforts of the marketers, the real reason behind the successful performance of such solutions is the custom design. The greatest designs act as a trigger to draw out a positive reaction from the viewers. This fact assumes tremendous importance in ecommerce website design; where the objective is to encourage a positive reaction in the form of a ‘purchase’.

Let’s take a look at some design tips

Brilliant Product Images

Both underrated and overrated at the same time, there is no doubt that product photography is a crucial component of any ecommerce website. As a design element, it is underrated by those designers who think great product images don’t make for successful website design. On the other hand, it’s overrated by all those who think that such images are the only designing aspect that must be accorded importance. What actually needs to be done is make product images an important part of your overall design strategy.

An online shopper is unable to touch, hold, taste or smell the product on the site. The only interaction they have with the product is through its image. They need to feel confident about purchasing the product and a major chunk of this confidence is a result of the aesthetic quality of the images. It is this confidence that has a direct impact on your conversion rate. So, do not compromise on the image quality of the product. By ensuring that your product comes to life through its image is a perfect way of creating the right impression in the minds of prospective customers.

Avoid offering Numerous Choices

Wait a minute! How does, not offering a lot of choices contribute towards a successful ecommerce website? Your surprise, shock and doubt are duly noted. But, have you heard of a condition called ‘choice paralysis’. It’s a condition that affects the best of shoppers, when they are presented with a long list of choices. Instead of making their life easier, such plethora of choices makes their lives difficult.

Let me clarify. There is no problem in giving your customers a choice, but too much of a good thing is always bad. When your customers land on your website, they need to be able to decide what to buy in a given time frame. If they spend a lot of time in the process of selection, they can experience cognitive dissonance. When this happens, they might avoid buying any product on your site. So the design must be such that it helps your customers find the product. One of the ways of doing this is by using visuals to highlight the popular products and ensuring that the design guides customer towards these products.

AIDA oriented Design

Most website designers are perfectly aware of this design strategy. AIDA stands for A- Attention, I- Interest, D- Desire and A-Action.  A custom ecommerce solution should ensure that it first grabs the attention of the customer, then it must develop the customer’s interest for the product/service; once the product/service has captured their interest, they must be made to desire it; it is only if they desire a certain product/service that they will act to buy it.

The key here is to ensure that your design helps deliver the message of the website in the strongest possible terms. It must be able to focus the attention of the website visitors on your products and through the use of visual highlights must be able to trigger a desire for the said product. The final action that leads to product/service purchase can be accomplished through an effective mixture of call-to-action buttons and marketing copy.

Like all design tips, even these are great if you use them well. But, if you don’t, these tips are like the millions of others that you will come across on the internet.

Mobile app development is definitely big business and there are all chances that it will remain a popular and highly lucrative opportunity for mobile app developers. But, compared to the other technological domains, this is still a new field and the scope for its development and evolution is immense and ever growing. There are constant improvements happening and the quality and functionality of mobile apps is improving continuously.

Mobile app developers are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that their apps meet the highest standards of quality and functionality. For this, they are using various tips and tricks to ensure that their apps meet all the needs and requirements of their clients.

Let’s take a look at five tips that determine the success of a mobile app.

Core Focus on User Experience

The mobile app should be easy to use and ubiquitous. The mobile app shouldn’t be something that is perfection itself but should be something that can be used optimally. Your mobile app should be intuitive and extremely user friendly. The best mobile apps offer user interfaces that can be easily grasped and whose inherent functionality can easily be used by even those with the most modicum of knowledge about the functionality of the mobile devices for which the application has been developed. As a developer, it’s important that your mobile app works optimally within the context of the freedom offered by smartphone and also within its many limitations.

Focus on mobile application security

When the mobile application goes through its application life-cycle, it’s important that application developers ensure stringent standards of security of the application and ensure that all the underlying security vulnerabilities are identified and sorted out. While a mobile application is being developed, flawless development is always the objective, but at times, this is not possible. The key is to ensure that the flaws in the design, development and deployment of the mobile application don’t threaten the application, its data and its functionality in any way or form. So, it’s important that security be the driving force of your mobile application development process.

Avoid Overblown Development

One of the oldest development problems is trying too hard. Developers tend to overburden themselves with development and consequently end up making certain mistakes that can be avoided. They forget to understand that the process of iPhone app development or developing any app for some other mobile OS is less about showcasing mastery on a particular mobile OS; it is more about ensuring that the app has very little complexity and can be easily understood by users. It’s not necessary to re-invent the wheel. What will work better is making the best use of the “wheel”.

Strike Balance between User Needs and Client Objectives

Developers need to strive for balance. Yes, they are developing applications for their clients, but it’s the target audience that is going to use the app. You need to be able to ensure that the client’s objectives don’t get in the way of the user’s needs. There is no doubt that the client’s concept is paramount, but it’s up to the developers to balance the two. Once cannot be sacrificed for the other. Also, if the mobile app is perfectly positioned to meet the client’s needs, but fails from the user’s perspective; the app isn’t going to be successful. So, balance is the key.

No Compromises on Testing

It’s important that your mobile application be tested to ensure that its bug free and the coding works in perfect order. One example of a thorough testing process involves testing iPhone application on the iPhone simulator. It’s only if the developers are satisfied about the workability of the iPhone app that it is submitted to the iTunes store. The Android Apps, BlackBerry apps, Symbian and Windows Phone 7 apps are taken through their own specific testing process. When it comes to a mobile app there is absolutely no scope for errors. This is why testing is of the essence.

Small businesses are increasingly getting reliant on mobile applications. For such businesses, it makes great businesses sense to facilitate remote access of their business processes through wireless technologies. It helps them improve their operational control and in long run enhance their business growth. Customized mobile apps that cater to a specific business requirement are getting quite popular these days and over time this is all set to become the norm rather than the exception.

Why mobile apps?

Mobile apps are simple to use and economical to develop. They offer high ROI and they can be developed to satisfy just about every business need. More importantly, developing mobile apps is also a marketing opportunity. If your app is on your customer’s smartphone, you can be assured that you are making an impression on his mind.

What’s more, the world is now moving to technology driven by “fingertips”. Small businesses are best suited to make use of the opportunity provided to them by mobile apps. A business mobile app can not only be used to plan, manage and control a business process but also promote the business; and all this with the help of your fingertips. Small businesses are usually on a tight budget, and they are always looking for ways to cut down on their overheads and improve their bottom-line. A mobile app allows them to do that and a whole lot more.

Improving Business Operations

One of the biggest advantages of using mobile apps is seen in an improvement in productivity. User friendly interactive apps cut down on the time taken to do a particular task, which means more tasks can be performed in a given time. This has a marked impact on the productivity, which improves the profits big time. The time saved can also be put to good use in other revenue generation activities.

Mobile apps also serve to improve collaboration between different departments and also corroboration of data. This ensures a fast decision making process, which not only improves the operational capability of the small business, but also promotes business growth.

Improvement in Profitability

There are numerous ways through which the potential of a mobile app can be leveraged for business growth. One of the ways that small businesses can profit with the use of mobile apps is by using them to attract new customers. There is no better way to expose their products and services to an audience that is constantly looking for something new and is willing to give new products and services a chance.

The use of specially developed mobile apps will also help you be in sync with your customer’s requirements and allow you to respond to their needs quickly and efficiently. This goes a long way in improving customer service and their overall experience of doing business with your company. For a small business, this is an opportunity to promote brand loyalty and ensure business growth.

A small business will experience business growth only if its service or product can be accessed by the customer quickly and with relative ease. As more and more users are appreciating the benefits of mobile apps; apps emerge as one of the better ways of making available products and services to their customers.