You could have the best product in the world. A new tech gadget. The comfiest socks. A coffee subscription with beans picked by Himalayan monks. But if your online store is confusing, it’s all for nothing.
We’ve all been there before – trying to buy something online and ending up in a labyrinth of weird menus, laggy pages, dodgy redirects or buttons that just don’t feel like working.
UI/UX isn’t just a “nice to have” in e-commerce, it’s essential.
But, ‘it’s just another website’ I hear you saying. “People come, they click, they buy. Job done.”
That’s like saying a restaurant just needs to serve food. Technically true, but the atmosphere, the music, the way the waiter doesn’t make you feel like a criminal for asking for gluten-free – all of that matters.
Same goes for online stores. The visual design, user journey, and interactive elements all come together to create a buying experience that either builds trust… or blows it. And it needs to be done in a way that’s distinctly different from your typical ‘brochure-style’ website. We’re not just trying to optimise for leads or get someone to fill out a contact form – the goal here is action. Conversion. Sales.
Every tap, scroll, and click needs to guide the user toward that end goal: checkout. That means prioritising clarity, reducing friction, and making sure the entire path to purchase feels effortless.
Here are some tips on how you can achieve this :
1) UX That’s Invisible (In the Best Way Possible)
The best user experiences are the ones you don’t notice.
Menus are where you expect them to be. Filters just work. The product photos load fast. The checkout doesn’t redirect you to an external gateway.
Intuitive UI = increased conversions.
No guesswork. No second-guessing. Just “Ooh, I like this” → “Add to cart” → “Done.”
A great example? We recently revitalised the website for Silvertone Electronics – specialists in UAV and communications tech.
Their products were top-notch, but the site wasn’t doing them any favours. The layout was confusing, navigation felt unintuitive, and the mobile experience was clunky at best – not exactly the smooth, high-tech impression you want to give in that space.
We redesigned it with clear visual hierarchy, persistent navigation, and a smoother checkout. The result? An e-commerce experience that feels easy and practical.
2) Keep It Clean. But Not Boring.
Minimalism is cool, but don’t suck the personality out of your site. People aren’t just buying a product – they’re buying into a brand. Use colour, imagery, tone, and motion to bring it to life.
We’re big fans of microinteractions – a little hover glow, a subtle fade, or a delightfully snappy “Add to Cart” animation. These don’t just make a site feel alive: they also provide feedback. They show your user, “Yep, that worked.”
And before I hear you cry out in agony:
No, this doesn’t have to tank your site speed.
No, you don’t need to load five JS libraries to animate a button.
Just a bit of minified CSS, and your customers will have a better idea of what’s going on… which brings us to :
3) Speed and Simplicity Win Sales
Here’s a stat for you:
Every extra second of load time can reduce conversions by up to 50%.
If your product page takes longer to load than it takes to snooze your alarm, you’ve already lost the sale.
The fixes?
- Compress your images
- Cache your content
- Don’t load every script known to mankind
Clean, fast-loading pages aren’t a bonus – they’re the baseline. Especially on mobile.
4) Actually Test Your UX
And yes – for the love of god – test your website.
Not just on your ultrawide monitor with 40 Chrome extensions. On an actual phone. In the wild.
Ask yourself (or better yet, ask someone who doesn’t work in web):
- Are the product photos clear?
- Is it easy to enter my shipping address?
- Can I actually find the return policy?
- How do I create an account? (Should I really have to?)
Then hand it to your grandma, your toddler, or your pilates instructor. If they can browse, add to cart, and check out without getting stuck or frustrated, you’re on the right track.
TL;DR – Good UX Pays for Itself
You can spend all the money in the world on ads, SEO, influencers, whatever. But if your store is confusing, slow, or annoying to use? You’re basically pouring water into a leaky bucket.
Want more sales? Start with better UI/UX.
And if you don’t know where to begin, that’s what we’re here for.
Let’s make your store not just functional, but frictionless.
We design e-commerce experiences that convert.
From product page to checkout, we know what works – and what makes people click away.
Get in touch, and let’s turn that leaky bucket into a high-performance sales machine.
