Ecommerce design best practices organised by the page a shopper is on: homepage, navigation, category listings, search, product pages and mobile, with what to include and common mistakes to avoid.
Good ecommerce web design helps a shopper do three things quickly: find the right product, trust it enough to buy, and pay without friction. In practice that means navigation that matches how customers think, fast mobile pages, big product photos, prices and shipping shown early, visible reviews, and a short checkout.
Rather than a list of general principles, this guide goes page by page, because the shopper's question changes on each one.
The homepage has a few seconds to confirm what you sell and who it is for.
Include:
Avoid: auto-rotating carousels, pop-ups that fire before the page has loaded, and hero videos that delay the first view on mobile.
This is where most comparison happens.
| Element | Best practice |
|---|---|
| Product cards | Same image ratio for every product, name, price, rating, and a second image on hover |
| Filters | Match real decisions: size, colour, price, material, in stock. Show counts. |
| Sort | Default to "Featured" or "Best selling"; offer price and newest |
| Stock | Hide or clearly mark sold-out items |
| Paging | Load more or numbered pages; keep the filter state when people go back |
| Mobile | Filters in a slide-up panel with a clear "Show 34 results" button |
A common mistake is filters that clear themselves when the shopper opens a product and returns. Test the Back button.
Shoppers who search usually have high intent, so a weak search box costs sales directly.
The product page does the selling. Work through it top to bottom.
Lead with what the product does for the customer, then the specs. Use a short spec table for dimensions, materials and care. Size guides should open in a panel on the same page rather than sending people away.
Add Product structured data (name, image, price, availability, reviews) so search results can show price and ratings.
Checkout design is its own discipline. The short version: show the full cost early, allow guest checkout, keep the form short, and offer express wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Our guide to checkout optimization covers each step in detail.
Design does not stop at the Pay button. The order confirmation page and email are read closely by almost every buyer.
Most store visits come from phones, so design and test the phone layout first, then expand for desktop.
Both are design decisions, not just technical ones.
Speed: compress images and serve WebP or AVIF, set width and height on images to stop layout jumps, limit third-party apps and scripts, and check your Core Web Vitals in Google's PageSpeed Insights.
Accessibility: colour contrast that meets WCAG 2.2 AA, alt text on product images, labelled form fields, keyboard-reachable menus and filters, and error messages that say what went wrong. Accessible stores are easier for everyone to use, and in many regions accessibility is also a legal expectation.
If you are starting from scratch, a good starting layout saves a lot of these decisions. Browse our templates for store designs, or describe your shop to We.Inc in chat and it builds an online store with product pages, cart and checkout that you can then refine visually or in code, with hosting and SSL included.
Clear navigation by how shoppers think about your products, fast pages, large zoomable product photos, price and shipping information near the Add to Cart button, visible reviews, working on-site search, and a short checkout with guest purchase. Design for phones first, since that is where most store browsing happens.
Enough that shoppers can compare without endless paging. Many stores show 24 to 48 per page or use a Load more button. What matters more is good filters for the attributes people choose by, such as size, colour, price and availability.
The product name, main image, price, key variant selectors (size, colour), stock status, the Add to Cart button, and a line on shipping or delivery time. Star rating and review count belong there too if you have reviews.
Usually not. Auto-rotating sliders are often ignored and can hurt accessibility and load time. A single strong hero with one clear message and links to your top categories tends to work better.
How we research, test and update this page: our editorial policy. We.Inc is our own product.
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