Ecommerce Website Redesign: Benefits, Reasons, and Pro-Tips

Constant progress is the right phrasing to describe the eCommerce industry. Everything, from the employed marketing techniques to the web-development technologies, is becoming more intricate.

Without sophisticated marketing, well-thought sales funnel, and overall, a great digital customer experience, your eCommerce website will struggle to keep an up-to-the-mark ROI. However, in many cases, a business can have all the above and still need help to survive.

And if you’re facing any barriers to success, it’s time to consider a comprehensive eCommerce website redesign. It sounds big when it’s mentioned, a website redesign! And truth be told, it really is!

But we’re not here to make you worried or anxious. Instead, we’ll focus on:

• Reasons to redesign your eCommerce website
• The benefits you can anticipate from an entire eCommerce website revamp
• What to keep in mind to make sure the revamp project succeeds

So, let’s get started!

Why should you redesign your eCommerce website?

Your website is the trademark of your entire business. It’s where potential clients go to decide if you’re worth their time and money or not. And that’s enough reason to constantly think about redesigning your eCommerce website and making it look better.

Still not convinced?

Here are 10 reasons to redesign your eCommerce website:

Your existing visual brand isn’t adequate anymore

It’s reasonable to check what other e-stores look like when you want to build your eCommerce store for the first time. That’s how you can come up with an appealing visual brand and add essential and functional features.

But over time, competitors would always try to beat one another. Even in terms of the website’s design. And if you don’t pay enough attention, your visual brand may no longer suit the shoppers’ horizons of expectation.

Making sure your visual brand is still relevant and suits the market’s changes is an essential reason to revamp your eCommerce website.

You’re falling behind the competition

Down the same road, more and more functionalities & features are being innovated every few months. Emerchants are competing to provide the best digital customer experience to online shoppers!

Banking and digital assets expert Gerard du Toit, in this regard, says:

And what Mr. Gerard is implying here is: businesses now do not only compete for who’ll deliver the best product and/or provide the best prices… but instead, who’ll provide a greater shopping experience.

And needless to say, website navigation and interactive-ness are very crucial in this experience. So, in case your conversion & cart abandonment rates are not so good, it’s probably the right time to think about an update!

Your loyal customers are dumping you

Anyone with a long enough experience in eCommerce knows that there’s a point where you start losing customers faster than daybreak.

If you’re experiencing that right now, think no further! It’s enough reason to redesign your eCommerce website!

4. Your eCommerce website had a recent legal or customer relationship issue that went public
5. An eCommerce business’s reputation controls its performance.

Amazon, per se, spends millions of dollars, not to sell products, not to grow its real estate assets… and not to reach more people. It does so just to maintain a healthy brand image. This approach is termed “customer obsession”.

Not every eCommerce business is expected to do the same though. At the end of the day, Amazon is… Amazon! 

But if you’ve had a legal eCommerce issue or a customer relation problem…  and it went viral upon your audience, you certainly need a revamp!

It’s important in such a case to re-represent your entire brand with new color psychology, a new website design, and overall, a new brand identity.

Think of it as telling your audience we’re not the same people who had that issue, we’re here for a new start, to delight you! An eCommerce website redesign isn’t enough to wipe the past out. Still, it’s very necessary to restore customers’ trust.

You changed your business model

No one launches one’s eCommerce business right. Even if you plan it all year long, you’ll launch it, and unforeseen issues will arise. Perhaps this justifies the 90% failure rate in eCommerce businesses.

So, Have you thought about your performance and found that your entire business model needs to be updated? If yes, redesign your eCommerce website. There’s no other way around it!

A new business model, a new marketing approach, and probably a new goal… all require a new funnel and a new medium (website).

Your business is now acquired by another corporation

If your eCommerce website’s been quite successful in the past years, chances are you’re receiving tons of offers from larger businesses. Millionaires and billionaires are always looking for good businesses to acquire and/or invest in.

If you received a lucrative offer recently and accepted it… it’s probably a good time to re-think how your website looks. You can grab this opportunity (or use it as an excuse) to get those features and that website design you’ve always wanted!

Even if the entire executives’ board is new, a website design update wouldn’t hurt!

Do you just want to revamp your eCommerce store and make it better!?

It’s not always a good idea to rebrand your entire website just because you want to, or ‘cos you think the current layout’s ugly.

If it’s ugly and has a bounce rate lower than 40% and a conversion rate above 1.8%, keep it as it is! It’s a goldmine. You’re good to add new features and/or web apps, but just keep it as it is for the moment!

Here are 10 worthwhile benefits of an eCommerce website redesign:

Add new features

As we mentioned earlier, the eCommerce arena is getting more and more heated. And you can’t keep up with it without adopting new proven features.

For instance, Click UpSell is relatively speaking a newly adopted selling technique. It became popular in 2020 when shoppers started buying almost everything from the internet due to quarantine restrictions back then. The average and inexperienced e-commerce merchant, at that point, thought it was a good time to sell more than one product to the same customer!

In his book Marketing Metrics, Paul Farris explains that the probability of selling something to a new prospect is anywhere between 3% and 20%. On the other hand, upselling to an existing customer goes up to 60% or even 70%.

We’re not, by any means, recommending the adoption of the click-upsell technique. Instead, we’re inviting you to benefit from the technologies that work well for your competitors. Then plan an integration, redesign your eCommerce website, and start testing things!

Solve existing problems

If your website doesn’t have any problems, then there’s a problem!

Run a full-website audit using SEO tools like SEMrush, and check your Search Console notifications. You may also want to check the metrics on your Google Analytics and look for defective KPIs.

If you find some, or if you’re already aware there are problems, redesigning your eCommerce website is a chance to address them.

Consult experts. Get their ideas and suggestions for your technical and non-technical issues. And let the team in charge of the redesigning process take care!

Make sure everything is in place when the redesigning is done. You don’t want to discover new problems after it’s all coded… you’ll double the work & the bill.

Benefit more from SEO efforts

Isn’t it disappointing to devote so much effort to SEO and barely get an organic sale or two?

There are several critical errors that might prevent SEO growth. Do the homework of spotting those on-page SEO problems, or hire an expert (again) to provide you with extensive feedback.

Design your new website with the best SEO practices in mind, and you shall see better results in the next phase! Here’s a snapshot of an audit that illustrate how technical and UX problems rates dropped after redesigning this website:

Increase traffic (including returning visitors)

We’re talking SEO, so, we’re talking traffic and sales for sure. A recent case study by Pure Visibility shows an increase of 85% in organic traffic during the first 3 months after a website redesign.

While there are many variables like the website’s niche, type, and marketing strategy… this indicator remains enticing.

What’s more, is that leads who enjoy a special experience (even without buying a product) will get acquainted with your website and brand. The memorable experience will force them to click again the next time they see your website’s name whether it’s on an ad or on the organic SERP.

Increase conversion rate

We’ve been talking so much about digital customer experience (DCX) in our eCommerce blogs. And that’s because it’s extremely important.

We now want to shed light on one of the DCX factors: navigation. It’s a fact: the easier it is to navigate an eCommerce website, the higher its conversion rate will get. 

Let navigation be top of mind with your next eCommerce website redesign. Other things to pay attention to in this regard include billing problems & cart abandonment. Who knows, you might end up with an 8% lower bounce rate & a 46% higher conversion rate like Support Marketing has experienced.

It’s a chance to go mobile

Everyone’s busy these days; even for a shopping session on a desktop! People now buy via phones more than ever. And that’s why Google presented the mobile-first indexing algorithm.

In a nutshell, Google tries to satisfy as many users as possible… Back in the 3G era, desktops were stronger and therefore more practical to navigate and shop online. But with better phones and higher speed networks like the 4G, 5G, and soon the 6G… mobile users have dominated 60% of all Google searches on Google this year (2022).

Google reacted to this change by cherishing phone UX over the desktop’s.

It’s now the time to go phone-first-minded. And also it’s time to benefit from the shareability of content across other social media on phones. Add sticky (but not annoying) social media icons on your landing pages and product pages. This will let whoever wants a second opinion share the content faster.

Reduce bounce rate

The primary reason why bounce rates go nuts for most websites is website speed. One of the benefits of eCommerce website redesigning is exactly that! It’s a chance to build a more responsive and faster website.

If you’re performing an in-house revamp, you’re obliged to (again!) do research or consult experts. Otherwise, make sure the firm taking care of this task knows how to do it all properly!

A better option (Ehm) would be to let us take care of your website redesigning process! Our team consists of experienced on-page SEO specialists, versatile designers, and of course, web developers. Hesitate not to text us for a quote or advice. Who knows, it might be the start of a great collaboration!

Improve security

Not only does Google favor websites with HTTPS certificates via secured SSL, but actually, so do e-shoppers!

Customers are being more cautious about their billing methods. Probably the hardest challenge new eCommerce businesses face is to convince shoppers to bill on their new website.

With the new design, you can add small but noteworthy popups telling visitors that your website is secured and the data it collects is encrypted, including billing methods.

Make use of existing data to improve the business as a whole

If your business’s been around for quite a while, the data you’ve collected is worth diamond. Big data provides marketers with difference-making insights into shopper behavior and decisions.

Big data engineers are probably the most expensive, the insights are worth the cash and time.

So, you may want to hire a professional data analyst to make sense of all the numbers at your disposal, then drop suggestions to increase your growth rate.

It’s a chance to make almost everything else better!

Yes! It’s the right time to do it all. Whether it’s an aesthetic or a practical addition, don’t hesitate to suggest it to the team in charge of the design.

You’ll still need to be skeptical about what ups and downs ideas can bring, but you can always ask for our recommendations!

Keep these things in mind during an eCommerce website redesign:

Such a long journey toward this section, ain’t it?

We’ll end with a quick list of things to bear in mind during the revamping process:

• Pick the revamping goals based on what’s working and what’s not
• Make your homepage follow a hierarchical structure with H1, H2s, and H3s…
• Ensure the development team makes the blocks flexible with different screens (phones, tablets, iPads… etc) and sizes
• Maintain a consistent identity whether with written copies or designs
• Let a second expert check the wireframe (website mockup) before approving 
• Track any changes you see on your Google Analytics reports after you revamp your store. And don’t hesitate to check with whoever’s been involved in the redesigning if things went south!
• Make sure everything you add or remove will be beneficial for your target audience (buyer persona)
• BUILD A BLOG IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE YET (it’s that important)
• Optimize the website for vocal research
• Consider migration if your current CMS is not good enough

So, how much does it cost to renew your website?