In this blog we’ll look at the top 7 web design trends in eCommerce for 2022 to help your online business stand out from the crowd.
Web design is something that is constantly changing and evolving. With online shopping becoming ever more popular, we’ve been on the lookout for some of the biggest design trends in the ecommerce space right now. Not every design trend will be right for your business, but knowing what is on trend will certainly help you to consider what customers may be looking for in 2022.
Live search
Live search uses something called asynchronous JavaScript to fetch the relevant data as customers type in real-time, helping to create a fantastic user experience. The best live searches we have seen not only include exact phrase matches but also similar products and account for things like close spelling matches in case of a typo. This is all about helping your customers find exactly what they’re looking for as quickly as possible to help boost conversions and sales.
If it’s too difficult for potential customers to find the products they’re looking for, they are very likely to bounce and go to a competitor’s website instead.
Better filtering options
This one goes hand-in-hand with live search, but we are seeing a really big effort to improve the product filtering across ecommerce sites. You can improve the user experience by changing up the user interface from endless dropdown menus and checkboxes to something more intuitive and quick to implement.
Your customers want to filter colour picker options, sizing options, brands and more. It is worth spending time thinking through what your filtering looks like and how quick and easy it is for your customers to implement. Sure, it may seem logical to tuck options behind various accordion-type panels to save space, but if it’s another click for users, it can be annoying.
Micro animations
The user experience between desktop sites and mobile sites is closing, and now it is all about website applications as a whole. Customers expect instant navigation between pages, subtle animations and transitions, and more and more an app-like experience on websites. Image transitions on hover are big at the moment, as well as button hover effects and more. It’s about wowing your customers and showing off your products online in the best way possible. In a physical store they call it visual merchandising – thinking through how your ‘shop window’ looks online is just as important.
Simplicity and minimalism
I’m a big fan of minimalist design and keeping things simple online. Have you ever been to a website and been bombarded with popups, notifications, live chat, and busy, cluttered designs? All within the space of about three seconds. Sure you have. It’s a huge turn off and one that can seriously hurt online sales. When it comes to ecommerce websites, I always think it’s best to let your products do the talking and we’re definitely seeing a big rise in super clean, minimalist design when it comes to ecommerce websites. Pastel colours are in this year, so make the most of those lighter tones. Sleek, clean designs, with calming colours and clear navigation with high-quality product images is something we love to see this season.
Faster site speeds
This maybe fifth in our round up of the 7 e-commerce web design trends for 2022, but it has always been a vital factor. Site speeds are important for all websites in 2022, but are vital for ecommerce sites. Every millisecond (ms) your site slows down can equate to an actual monetary value in sales lost.
In a report aptly named Milliseconds Make Millions, Deloitte discovered that when load time was improved by just 0.1s, bounce rates on product listing pages in retail and travel improved by 5.7% and 5.4% respectively. That’s huge!
If you implement no other changes for your ecommerce website than one on this list, let this be the one. If your website currently performs like a snail when it comes to site speeds, then it’s time to do something about that in 2022. Check out this handy blog on five ways to improve website loading speed.
AI & AR
Improving technologies are exciting for ecommerce businesses and we are seeing a big rise in companies taking full advantage of what is possible in 2022. This includes the AI chatbot experience to help people find exactly what they want quickly and painlessly, as well as the use of augmented reality (AR) which helps customers visualise their purchases in their own home. This is huge and we can only see this getting more prominent as a way to help eliminate that feeling of constraint when buying online, especially when it comes to big ticket items for your home.
One of the companies I’ve been most impressed by who are doing this, is Currys here in the UK. They have even launched a separate website with an app you can download for android or Apple devices to point and place products in your home. You can now see how these electricals will look in your own home before you buy – very cool!
Headless eCommerce
Headless websites are all about decoupling the frontend of the website from the backend to create slick, modern web applications which look great and perform brilliantly for customers, whatever device they are on. This enables business owners, marketing teams and SEOs to modify the content of their site and add products without worrying about how it will affect the frontend of the website. The backend of the website essentially becomes a data source for the front-end and the developer or team of developers can fetch that data and display it in various ways using modern frontend technologies.
Some of the biggest ecommerce businesses, including the likes of Nike and Amazon, are starting to take advantage of the technology available to update and offer the best experience possible to their customers. Headless ecommerce sites can perform faster, scale better and be more versatile for the future than conventional ecommerce sites.
I’m excited to see what other ecommerce brands adopt this new trend in 2022 and beyond.
That concludes our list of 7 web design trends for ecommerce websites in 2022. Hopefully this gives you some fresh ideas in terms of what is hot right now for online shopping, and how you might be able to update your ecommerce site this year and beyond. If you’re thinking of updating your ecommerce website, or starting a new ecommerce business but not sure where to start, why not contact our team of experts who can help steer you in the right direction and help you on your new website journey. After all, we know what works, we know what looks great and we would love to partner with you on your big idea.
