The ultimate goal of an e-commerce website is to lead customers to buy products from your site. If you are looking for an edge over your competitors, then it is time to get serious with e-commerce website design. By putting in effort in designing your website, not only will you increase your sales and customer satisfaction, you will also gain valuable information about your products and customer preferences.

Here are a few tips for e-commerce website design:

Effective e-commerce website design will help the customer find, purchase and pay for a product easily. The gold standards for any e-commerce website design are simple navigation, search engine facilities and online payment schemes.

A website should not be complicated to go through - products and services should be neatly formatted and accompanied with suitable pictures, information and prices. Customers should be able to find products easily – incorporating a search engine makes it easier to find a desired product. By incorporating advanced filters, the visitor will be able to filter products by various attributes, thereby narrowing options and finding precisely what they are looking for. Customers should be able to purchase and pay for their products using a shopping cart functions and online payment processor. All charges should be included in the initial prices and this process should be secure.

Other features that will improve an e-commerce website design are:

• Multicurrency and language support - going online, means that you are going global, which means that you are dealing with customers from all over the world. By incorporating multi languages and currency options, you will be expanding your market base and getting more sales.

• Help and support options – to answer queries about your products quickly and efficiently.

• Frequent promotions of products - discounts, free delivery, and special offers will all help increase sales. These can be easily set up online on your e-commerce website.

• Additional marketing avenues – integrating your website with other websites such as Google will expand your marketing.

E-commerce website design not only helps you increase sales directly; you can find a mass of information via your website. There are features so you are able to keep track of stock easily - with full stock control features and low stock level alerts. In addition to replacing necessary stock, you can keep track of how many and which products are being sold, which in turn will give you insight on your customers preferences, popular products and online buying habits.