Look as Good as You Sell:
5 Best Ecommerce Website Designs 2018

by John Rosato

Sure, the commerce part of an ecommerce site is the most important – it has to be able to successfully and securely generate revenue. But a major contributor to revenue, and perceived worth and prestige, is the design of an ecommerce website.

We, as humans, are naturally drawn to visually pretty things – the aesthetic value of design. Good UI and UX design increases the perceived value of your products, builds trust and communicates a message. Needless to say, designing with mobile at the forefront has never been more important.

We’ve all become pretty fatigued by tricky designs, and now we expect a pretty seamless online shopping interaction. If something freezes, we’re throwing all our toys out the pram.

So a truly compelling website has got to be something really special these days. It has to have style, unexpected features, maybe something interactive that makes it go viral.

Of course, you don’t want to design a site to make it so hypnotic that people forget what they came for and just spend 20 minutes playing around on it. A beautifully designed ecommerce site has to fly effortlessly, taking you on an unexpected journey to your final destination – the checkout.

Here at Soul+Wolf, we can’t get enough of sleek ecommerce websites. We love building and designing them. So, in the spirit of great ecommerce design, here are a few we’ve been inspired by, and we hope you will be too.

Andrea Brugi

With a Scandi-clean palette, fluid layout, beautiful typography and a unique menu style, this brand is immediately positioned as a sophisticated one without being elitist. It offers excellent user animation and.very clear, and appealing calls to purchase.

View site.

Antenne Books

When you have an enormous catalogue of products, you have to be careful not to cram up your design, relying on clever filters and product mapping to serve up the most tempting items instead. Antenne Books is a London-based distributor for independent publishers and their ecommerce site is easy on the eye, informative through visuals and rich in information if you want to dig deeper. Its index and filter function makes for an efficient experience.

View site.

Grovemade

This Portland, Oregon-based craft collective run a very hands-on business, crafting beautiful things out of wood, but their ecommerce approach is far from rustic. With a super-clean, interactive design, it feels like you’re in an airy shop. The interactive page of artisan profiles adds an appealingly human touch.

View site.

Jean Paul Gaultier – Be the Drop

Anyone who knows the slightest bit about JPG will know you get something unorthodox every time. His current interactive campaign, ‘Be the Drop’ puts you in the place of a molecule of perfume, flying through all the elements of the fragrance, like you’re whooshing through Willy Wonka’s factory. It’s evocative and addictive.

View campaign video.

Yulia Magdych

This Croatian fashion label creates ornately embroidered clothes, so they’re showcased against an unfussy white background. The option to ‘shop Instagram’ is also a smart addition to the site. With a homepage divided simply into ‘About’, ‘Shop’ and ‘Blog’, this site is refreshingly pared back in its design, with just the right about of movement, such as the floating panels on a scrolling blog.

View site.