How Clothing Boutiques Can Transition to E-Commerce Successfully through Effective Website Design
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to businesses around the globe, and clothing boutiques have proven to be no exception. With a historical business model that relies on in-store traffic and purchases, the clothing boutique industry has faced an exceptional challenge in the transition to an online world. With minimal in-store traffic this past year, boutiques have had to quickly redirect their marketing and sales strategy toward their online channels, or otherwise suffer the financial consequences. To successfully execute this transition, boutiques can use website design as an integral tool for maintaining the same level of professionalism and credibility in an online setting. accept various payment options including credit/debit and PayPal.
Professionalism and Credibility
Offering a high degree of professionalism and credibility is critical to the success of an online clothing boutique. With growing instances of scams, viruses, security breaches, and other related risks, it is no wonder why customers’ trust in online retail has become more and more out of reach. Customers’ trust is largely determined by the way in which online businesses present their products and brand, as research shows that 75% of users’ opinions on credibility are based on website design. This can become a major concern for online revenues because as many as 42% of users won’t buy from poorly designed websites, running companies the risk of losing almost half of their potential sales. Therefore, online boutiques must provide a well-designed website that is simple, easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing, and consistent in order to gain the level of professionalism and credibility needed to earn sales.
Simple and Easy to Use
Customers want a professional website that is intuitive and user-friendly. Inadequate efforts to improve the user’s experience can create major financial losses for online clothing stores as 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. One of the best ways to simplify a website’s design and make it easier to maneuver is by creating a comprehensive, well-organized navigation tool and search engine. Together, these tools should allow customers to browse items with ease and therefore must be easy to access from any page and include a concise list of desirable product categories. Another element of website design that enhances the user experience is customer checkout. Since this is the last stride before earning a sale, online companies must put a great deal of effort into making this process simple, fast, and secure. To increase efficiency, businesses should look to reduce the number of steps required during checkout and simplify contact and payment information fields. On account of security and accessibility, businesses should invest in payment security and accept various payment options including credit/debit and PayPal.
Aesthetically-Pleasing
The aesthetic elements of a website matter to customers; in fact, 38% of customers will stop engaging with a website if they find the content or layout unattractive. For this reason, businesses should capitalize on a website design tool called white space. White space can be described as the negative space that exists between various elements on a webpage. Without white space, a website looks inherently cluttered and can distract customers from their objectives. However, when effectively employed and paired with a simple color scheme, white space helps keep customers focused on browsing and purchasing products alone. A major mistake businesses make related to website design is the use of low-quality images. When product images are blurry or pixelated, customers tend to make negative assumptions about the company’s overall quality and trustworthiness. Additionally, low-quality images offer an incomplete glimpse of a product that ultimately deters customers from making a purchase. Therefore, businesses must take additional measures to improve image quality.
Consistency
The various elements that make up a webpage should be consistent in nature. Specifically, product images should be consistent with respect to their size and quality. When images vary in dimensions they do not align well with one another, making the website look choppier, disrupting the browsing process, and taking attention away from certain products. For these reasons, businesses should take the time to resize images to have the same dimensions but make sure to maintain the same image quality Another easy way to improve website consistency is by providing product images that use the same models and/or backgrounds. When this technique is used, customers feel that the website is authentic, personal, and trustworthy. In contrast, businesses should avoid using stock images at all costs as it makes products look fake or unoriginal.
As a social impact initiative, Rem and Company also offers free consulting services and resources to small businesses and nonprofits impacted by COVID-19. Our pro-bono consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies, and facilitate execution. If you are a small business or nonprofit in need of assistance, learn more about how we can help.