In order to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace, e-commerce stores need to constantly innovate. Below are 5 e-commerce stores that feature innovative designs that any website can learn from.
Schwinn
In addition to immediately making its key products clear to customers, the e-commerce site for cycling giant Schwinn is a great example of another often-overlooked e-commerce design element. Many e-commerce websites have discovered that by publishing content to a blog, they can boost their SEO, increase traffic, and drive conversions.
In addition to promoting key products, Schwinn has found a way of making their other content prominent on their homepage without impinging on their product range. This emphasizes the value that Schwinn offers its users beyond its e-commerce service.
Bonobos
Whether online or offline, navigating a clothing retailer is often difficult for people that don’t know a great deal about fashion. The fashion retailer Bonobos has found an elegant solution to this problem, using visual aids and flyout menus to illustrate different options to customers. This enables less experienced shoppers to browse with confidence and find the items they want with relative ease.
Blue Dog Supplies
The Blue Dog Supplies website demonstrates one of the most important features of a good e-commerce website – simple navigation. If it is difficult for customers to search through your catalog and find what they need, then your conversions will suffer. Whether you are looking for something specific in their extensive catalog, or you just want to browse what’s available, BlueDogSupplies.com makes it easy with their intuitive navigation system.
This also highlights the benefit of working with an experienced web design agency. Many websites with catalogs as large as the one at Blue Dog Supplies are difficult to browse. However, thanks to some excellent design work from Proper Noun, they were able to give their site a facelift and create something super easy to navigate.
Clad
Clad is another clothing retailer that has taken a radical approach to the design of their e-commerce website. The website is a collaboration between the clothing label J.C Penney and Esquire magazine. As a result, their website has a hybrid sensibility, incorporating design principles from the worlds of e-commerce and publishing.
In addition to its extensive product range, Clad also offers users a wide range of high-quality articles to read. The content mirrors the kind of content that you would expect to find in a print fashion magazine rather than an e-commerce blog.
Gant
Just as Clad combines the sensibilities of publishing with those of e-commerce, Clad has incorporated numerous design elements that you would expect to find on a photography website. The result is that everything has an extra glossy look and their products seem more appealing as a result.
Gant’s e-commerce store is built on Magento and has added images to aid product navigation, as many other e-commerce stores on the same platform have decided to do.
The 5 websites that we have listed above are just a handful of the many innovative e-commerce stores operating right now. Web design has always been a fast-moving field, but the constantly changing expectations of consumers require e-commerce stores to constantly update their designs and reformulate their approaches.
