Top 7 E-Commerce Website Design Trends of 2018

By Pratap Ranjan Singh

As evident by the numbers, the e-commerce market has grown tremendously over the years. Moreover, it is a fast-growing market with faster changing trends, which one needs to adapt to fetch the maximum results.

E-commerce, that once started with the sale of a handful of products, now encompasses each and every product imaginable. From books to electrical equipment's - everything can be purchased online. Until a few years, back e-commerce was something that was conducted using laptops and desktop, but the past few years have seen an increase in the use of mobile devices to make a purchase from e-commerce sites. This has made it necessary for online businesses to have a mobile-friendly version of their site, as a result of which mobile friendly-commerce website development is on the rise. Besides the use of mobile sites, there has also been a rapid increase in the use of mobile apps. All these factors have contributed to e-commerce becoming a major part of the retail landscape.

With the growing importance of e-commerce, let us have a look at the top 7 e-commerce website design trends for this year.

Mobile-friendly design

Considering how important mobile devices have become, it is not a surprise that a mobile-friendly website design is one of the most important e-commerce trends this year. As stated above, the rise in m-commerce has made it critical for business owners to come up with a responsive design to their site. A responsive design adapts to different mobile devices and eliminates the need to develop x no. of designs for x no. of mobile devices.

Use of templates

In the year 2014, Google launched its "Material Design" motif, which is a template used for developing Android Apps. An increasing number of e-commerce websites are now using the same design principles that "Material Design" is based on. Using the "Material Design" motif doesn't mean that your website will be identical to others, as there is a lot of scope for customization.

Efficient loading and layout

Efficient loading and layout of the site especially in the case of mobile devices should be a major concern among developers. This means that when a user opens the website, that what is important should load first. In the case of e-commerce websites, it is product-listing. So, instead of loading 100 products on one page, developers should focus on loading 10 products per page, and load subsequent sets of 10 if the user scrolls down further. One should note that e-commerce websites that load easily on mobile will appeal more to the users rather than the ones that take a lot of time to load.

Use of hamburger menus

Another trend this year would be the increase in the use of hamburger menus. Hamburger menus are typically defined by three horizontal lines, and they offer a convenient way to hide or reveal the menu, as necessary. This essential feature of the hamburger menu makes the site easier to navigate. The easier it is to navigate the site, the more appealing it is to the users.

Cinemographs

This year will also see an increased use of cinematographers on e-commerce websites. Cinematographers is a midway point between an animated GIF and a static image. It usually consists of an image with animated text over it, although in some cases a part of the image may itself be animated. Cinematographers are easier to load on mobile as compared to gifs. This is because when a series of GIF's are added to a page, the data requirement or the load time goes up significantly.

Adaptation

Websites adapting to different devices is no news, but in the future websites may adapt to the user themselves. For instance, as per the age or the web activity of the user, the website will be able to show some elements more prominently than the others. In other words, the website would be able to re-order itself.

The elements of the site would also shift either to the left or to the right depending on whether the user is left-handed or right-handed. For people who are color-blind, the site may also alter its color-palette.

Use of grid layout

The use of grids in e-commerce websites is one of the simplest yet effective forms of design. Grids use the available space efficiently and are also easy to navigate. A growing trend this year would be e-commerce sites adopting the grid layout but removing the borders, thus allowing the grid to blend into the rest of the page.

Keeping these top 7 trends in mind, it is about time you begin the exciting journey of your e-commerce website development.

Article Source: Top 7 E-Commerce Website Design Trends of 2018