Although design is an investment, that doesn’t mean it has to cost an arm and a leg.
However, you should be willing to put some of your resources into establishing a solid design that reflects your brand and makes you stand out from your competitors, advises Business2Community.
Cyber Monday isn’t only for your customers, but also for you as a business owner.
There are lots of eCommerce deals out there on the busiest online shopping day of the year, such as Shopify templates on sale and other features for the online business owner available at a discount.
Here are four tips on aesthetic mistakes online business owners frequently make when customizing or choosing an online store template.
Your Logo Shouldn’t Be a Wallflower
Online store layouts are important, and some are better than others. While there are lots of free templates that will do just fine, if your business has specific needs, such as large images or complex customizable features, it can be worth paying for a template. One of the first features you should look for is a place to prominently display your logo. As an online business owner, one of the most important aspects of building a reputation for your store is your brand.
A brand is supposed to represent a certain set of ideas, guiding principles and identity that customers associate with it. For example, if you run an online vintage clothing store, there should be a philosophy behind your selling tactics that’s conveyed by your brand. The logo is the best way to visually depict this information in a succinct, design-savvy manner. Put your logo upfront on your store, and make it recognizable.
This is especially important for Cyber Monday, because there’ll be a lot of other information on the front of your site.
This includes Cyber Monday specials, holiday shopping discounts, and other information you want readily available for shoppers. Make sure your logo is also front and center, since it takes up less space, but will remind your customers from whom they’re buying, which is important to maintain. Cyber Monday is also a very busy day, so many consumers won’t even remember where they found certain items, as long as they can check gifts off their list and get a deal at the same time.
Customers Have to Google Contact Info
Your contact info doesn’t need to be in big, blinking letters, but it should be readily available. If a shopper needs to ask you a question and time is of the essence, they need to be able to reach your contact info with only one or two clicks or swipes. Returns are also a major issue during Cyber Monday and the holidays. A surefire way to avoid unnecessary returns is to make it easy for your customers to stay in contact with you. For example, this means updating your FAQ page or offering a live chat, suggests Entrepreneur. Additionally, you can also give your Twitter top billing as a way to not only stay up to date on holiday specials, but also connect with you on a personal level by sending you a Tweet.
Silence Is Not Golden
Even during the rush of Cyber Monday, shoppers are still going to take the time to read other customer reviews. Just because they can find deals faster online than while being on foot during Black Friday, that doesn’t mean that consumers are going to assume your merchandise is worth purchasing without someone else corroborating the story. The best way to create a positive user experience that you can use to improve the way you run your online business is to encourage gathering real user reviews, according to Huffington Post. This includes making the ability to post a review accessible and simple, whether through your store page or on a social media site. Some store templates actually have this feature built in, or you can provide visible links to review sites that many of your customers use, depending on the type of business you’re in.
Don’t Use a Hieroglyphic Font
Fonts make a huge difference no matter where they appear. From business cards and stationery, to banner headers and logos, the readability and design of a font conveys a lot of information. When you’re trying to balance having a slick look for your online store on Cyber Monday, but also advertise lots of deals and convey a good amount of information, you need to be careful about the design. Don’t choose a font that’s too flashy or hard to read. You may think that it looks good with the template, but don’t go overboard with something too edgy. Many templates come with fonts that already match, and it’s usually good design practice to just stick with what the original designer intended, depending on the aesthetic.
These four mistakes are made all year round.
However, it’s essential to avoid them during Cyber Monday, because everything needs to be perfect for shoppers who might have five different online store sites open.
