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Suggestions for eCommerce Design

by HamSandwich
8 replies
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Hi y'all,

Looking for suggestions in the design department for an ecommerce website I'm designing for my boss. We're a music retailer (instruments, accessories, that sort of stuff), so I'm thinking a really pro design similar to guitarcenter.com, samash.com, or musiciansfriend.com.

I'm using Shopify to create this store since his budget is very limited and he is very impatient. For this reason, learning code is out of the question (I only know the very basics). We have a lot of SKUs, but he needs to see results before dropping a lot of money on the website.

This is our current website, which I designed.

Rock Island Sound - Rock Island Sound Online Music Store | Acoustic/Electric Guitars, Effects, Accessories, More...

I think it looks pretty unprofessional and it's no where near optimized, but this is as far as I could get with no coding knowledge and a free theme.

My problem is that a lot of Shopify themes, even paid ones, look pretty indie. This is fine for an independent artist selling his artwork. But for a professional retailer, it looks extremely unprofessional and I doubt anyone would trust it. A lot of them get some of the look right, but none get it all right. Here were some I was looking at.

Paradigm Demo Store
Reign Air | Welcome
No Limits | Welcome to No Limits
SALT YARD
Man

Basically I'm looking for suggestions moving forward. Should I scrap the design I currently have, or is it salvageable? Anything major I've done wrong (be ruthless here, I won't be offended)? Any of the themes above look workable with the least amount of code tweaking necessary?

I would really appreciate any suggestions or help. Thank you so much!
#design #ecommerce #suggestions
  • Profile picture of the author lunarninja
    The first site is Very Clean I like it.

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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      For someone with no coding experience I think you have done quite well especially given that Shopify doesn't provide for sub-categories out of the box. Is your first site perfect? No but I have seen much worse. I would say any of those themes you looked at will make it easier for you, but the first two especially, Paradign and Reign are the ones that stick out to me as ones I like. You can buy and install those and not lose your original work since shopify allows you to install multiple themes. Is your mobile site set up yet? My iphone was saying the store is not currently available.

      It looks like you have good product descriptions but make sure you make use of H1, H2 and H3 tags in your product descriptions. There is a free app in the app store that will do a free analysis of your website. The only thing you won't be able to fix is the page specific meta tags, titles and keywords since Shopify (last time I checked) doesn't support this.

      There are a few third party apps in the app store that will help you with your marketing you should checkout once you are done with the build.
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      • Profile picture of the author HamSandwich
        Thank you so much for your thoughtful response!

        Good point, I will check to make sure the site is working on my iphone. I think it does, but for some reason if you don't put "www" before the url, it comes up with an error. Which is probably a big problem, since a lot of times I'll just leave out the "www" when typing out a url, and I'm sure others do as well.

        Thank you for your suggestion about tags, I'll try and incorporate more headline tags in my product descriptions. Do you know the name of some of the helpful apps you recommend, offhand? If not, don't worry about it.
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        • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
          Originally Posted by HamSandwich View Post

          Thank you so much for your thoughtful response!

          Good point, I will check to make sure the site is working on my iphone. I think it does, but for some reason if you don't put "www" before the url, it comes up with an error. Which is probably a big problem, since a lot of times I'll just leave out the "www" when typing out a url, and I'm sure others do as well.

          Thank you for your suggestion about tags, I'll try and incorporate more headline tags in my product descriptions. Do you know the name of some of the helpful apps you recommend, offhand? If not, don't worry about it.
          I can give you a few apps but it will always be best when you go check out what they all can do.

          Plugin SEO will do an analysis of your site and give a few pointers. But like i said, it will tell you to make some changes that shopify doesn't provide for. But install it, run it and uninstall it.

          Retail Tower - Lets you hook up to the comparison shopping engines quite easily - especially the free ones to start with which will make your boss happy

          chimpify - if you are using mailchimp to do newsletters - its a fee plugin to attach it to your site

          referral candy/just uno - social bribing

          Go through and look at all them, read the reviews and go in with an open mind. For example, retail tower is free but getting any support is impossible, but, its free, so suck it up.

          As for mobile, you are right, putting the WWW in front makes it come up. Is this a responsive theme you are using? Consider installing a mobile theme as well, Shopify lets you do one normal, and one mobile site. Just a personal preference of having a mobile CSS when possible and it might solve your issue, if not call shopify support and let them help you get the redirection set up right.
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          Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
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  • Profile picture of the author simonthewebguy
    hi

    just a few things, as have built a few ecommerce sites and researched loads of platforms agree with you no one theme or platform ticks all the boxes , but we can, me included get so hooked up on perfection I think your site looks nice and clean and will work fine there are a ton of sites that are pig ugly ( no offence to the 4 legged friends) that rank in loads of cash

    the main problem is traffic and conversion with ecommerce in particular your check out process make sure its as short as possible and one page if poss as abandonment up to 85% on some platforms

    ref shopify themes chek out themeforest or look at this site for example of whats available this site makes thousands and think youll agree looks professional see Lara Jill Bags for example

    finally agree with onlinehelp comments make sure you maximise your product description , call to action , and videos on products if you have any specific

    personally I would go forward with what you have and you can always make custom edits in theme editor to make tweaks with regards to opt in forms or plugins such as ratings etc if you dont want to do you yourself someoone on fiverr can easily do cheaply just let me know as will be honest with you hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author smileverse
    I think you have done a good job. The design is clear and the product has detailed description. If you can add a theme to it, it will look better. I recommend Paradigm, Reign Air. The design and layout can be easily integrated with your existing style. Man is also great, but you need to change more if you add this theme. In addition, as an ecommerce site, some extensions will help you increase sales conversion, such as Comm100 Live Chat, MailChimp, etc. Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author webfreshing
    Yes! You have a done a great job here with your limited experience and coding knowledge.

    Firstly, if your boss wants to be in business, he needs to accept that marketing is something he'll need to pay for. A website, is of course the most economical and far reaching kind of marketing there is. For every dollar he doesn't want to spend, he's losing customers...it's that simple.
    Tell him to grab a few dollars and spend it on decent, reliable and secure hosting (that you can control) and a cool, modern looking Prestashop template.

    Website designers/developers charge for their services for a reason. If you want a professional website that is comparable to a professionally built one, then obviously you need to have a professional build it for you.

    Free website templates are very minimal, so you just can't expect any bells and whistles built in.

    Personally, I think Prestashop is the best open source ecommerce system out there, and I wouldn't bother with anything else (I've had experience with most of them). Not only do you have to build the store, you have to be able to manage it easily once you start making sales, no matter how large and busy the store gets.

    Don't be fooled by some of the comments on here. If your website looks anything less than professional, or if your competitors websites look and feel more trustworthy and professional than yours, that's where the buyers are going to go.

    Again, I think you've done a great job. I'm a website developer, and I could do a great job at painting my house or fixing my car, but I bet with the time it takes, and the quality of my work, I would have been better off just getting a professional to do it afterall.

    Keep up the good work, and best of luck with the project!
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  • Profile picture of the author hamburglar
    Hey,

    For your first time coding, that is not a bad looking site at all. Take my suggestions with a grain of salt or nothing at all .

    1) Have you tested the site on different resolutions? The logo is way to big. Reduce the size. You want you intro/products to be above the fold. Look at the following ecom sites and see their logo vs. product placement ratios:
    Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more
    Shopping Online at Home is Easy with QVC — Official Site
    Overstock.com: Online Shopping - Bedding, Furniture, Electronics, Jewelry, Clothing & more

    There are countless others but you get the picture. I don't care for the logo as I am new to the site. I just want to purchase your product as quickly as possible.

    2) Have you tested this design with traffic? Get yourself one of those free Google Vouchers and send traffic. Watch the pages they exit and fix those up.

    3) Test, test and test. Don't keep changing designs. Focus on visitor conversions and then change design slowly.

    I hope this helps.
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