Whether you’re an established bricks and mortar store, or a fresh online start-up, our guide can help you design the best ecommerce website.

In recent decades, due to the dominance of the internet, smartphones and online payments becoming the norm, the ecommerce space has boomed; with no signs of slowing down. In 2025, Forbes reported that the global ecommerce market is valued at $4 trillion with projections for this valuation to hit double digits by 2030.

Even though ecommerce might be a regular word in your vocabulary, it’s not easy to understand the direction you should take your business when it comes to ecommerce websites, and how it can fit with your goals.

We’ll take you through what exactly ecommerce websites are, how you can create a successful ecommerce website (with some inspiration from the best websites at the moment) and also some common pitfalls you can avoid when designing your new ecommerce website.

What Is An Ecommerce Website?

An ecommerce website is where online shoppers can virtually browse and shop your products or services directly. Similar to how a person browses and purchases items in a physical shop, ecommerce websites allow users to discover new brands, products and make online transactions directly from their phone, tablet or laptop.

There are no rules on which types of business are allowed ecommerce sites – if you have a product or service that you want people to be able to discover and purchase online, then you can make one!

Also, if you have a bricks and mortar store, this doesn’t mean that you can’t promote your in-store products online either. Nowadays, the majority of retailers have ecommerce websites, giving shoppers more options for how they would prefer to browse and pay for their items.

However, there are businesses that have grown purely from their ecommerce website, without opening physical stores. Or, ecommerce sites that have grown rapidly and have started opening flagship stores. For example, gym wear brand Gymshark started as an ecommerce brand before opening their first flagship store in London in 2022.

Why Do Businesses Need A Good Ecommerce Website?

Although the in-store space is still a dominant force in the retail sector, ecommerce has evolved to be a serious competitor. Coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic, ecommerce saw an unprecedented surge, with many shoppers beginning to opt for shopping online even when stores re-opened.

A recent report from 2024 states that 48% of UK consumers choose to shop online (rather than in-store). Their reasons were:

They found it more convenient

It was easier to compare prices and find the best deals

They find online ranged better than what they find in-store

Based on these reports, there is a significant opportunity for businesses to grow their brands online. However, it’s not enough to build a site that simply stocks your products and offers a payment gateway. Just like customers expect an enjoyable in-store experience, they also expect a smooth user experience (UX) online.

Think of your ecommerce website like your digital storefront. It’s a place where online shoppers discover your brand, and might be the first time they’ve ever interacted with your business.

Remember, first impressions count.

Do not expect customers to stay on a site that doesn’t provide them with a smooth UX.

What Are Ecommerce Brands?

Ecommerce brands are businesses that sell their products or services purely through their website. Over time, like Gymshark, they might invest in permanent flagship stores, however, their main revenue streams might still come from their website.

Ecommerce brands are not only common now, but some of the largest brands in the world dominate their space without needing permanent retail spaces. For instance, it’s becoming popular for ecommerce brands to have temporary pop-up stores, rather than committed to a permanent space. There’s a few advantages to this including:

Being more cost-effective than a permanent space.

Brands can easily change locations or create multiple pop-up locations at once.

It creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency, with customers knowing that that pop-up is temporary, rather than being a permanent space they can visit anytime.

It brings their ecommerce brand into reality for customers, strengthening their brand connections to their customers and creating an effective brand awareness campaign.

There are many brands that take advantage of pop-up stores, including Kim Kardashian-founded shapewear brand, Skims. They place pop-up stores across America when they’re promoting a new collection. Their most recent one being in New York City for the launch of their Valentines Collection.

You don’t need to have build your brand online to have a successful ecommerce website. In fact, there are a few crucial elements that you just need to consider.

What Makes A Good Ecommerce Site?

There is no cookie-cutter method to designing and building a good ecommerce website.

You’ll find that brands that have strong websites have customised their sites to fit their brand, the products that they sell, and for their target audience.

However, there are some best practices that most businesses can apply to their strategy when they are creating (or improving) their ecommerce websites.

Always Consider Style and Functionality Together

A good ecommerce site not only looks aesthetically pleasing, but also functions smoothly. This means the user not only enjoys looking at the site, but can also navigate the site and checkout with ease.

When you’re designing your new website, make sure that you don’t prioritise style over functionality. As a website can look aesthetically pleasing, however, if shoppers can’t find the product they’re looking for, or checkout smoothly, then they’ll leave the site empty-handed.

Keep Your Brand At The Core Of The Website

Like we mentioned earlier, your ecommerce website is your digital storefront. Therefore, your brand story should be threaded throughout the site.

Essentially, without looking at the products, customers who are familiar with your brand should know that this is your site. It also avoids your site from looking like another generic ecommerce website that will get lost in the noise.

Think About The Full User Experience

Good ecommerce sites have crafted websites that focus on the user experience, from when they first land on the site, to when they checkout. This involves putting yourself in the shoes of the online shopper who might not have interacted with your brand before and it just discovering your website and products.

Think about how easy it is to navigate through the website, to browse products, or to find a specific product that the shopper is wanting to buy. Then, are the product images clear, attractive and enticing to the shopper?

Then, once the product is added to the basket, the checkout process has to be seamless. Poor and clunky checkouts can lead to abandoned carts (when a user adds a product to the basket, but leaves the site before they checkout) and they might not return to the site.

We’ll go through more common pitfalls of ecommere websites later on this blog. But now, let’s have a look at some of the best ecommerce websites right now.

Best Ecommerce Websites

Some of the biggest brands in the world are dominating their market space because of their ecommerce websites being tailored for their customer’s need and expectations.

From fashion, to tech, to beauty, to dog food, we’ll feature some of the best ecommerce websites and breaking down what they’re getting right for their customers.

SKIMS

Co-founded by Kim Kardashian, SKIMS is a shapewear ecommerce brand that has become a lucrative, global business. Not only does it have the backing of one of the most famous influencers in the world, but the website also provides an affluent experience for the consumer.

The website reflects the aesthetic of Kim Kardashian throughout, from the monochrome colour palette, to the minimalistic design. This keeps the connection between Kim’s fans, whilst also providing an aesthetically pleasing site for shoppers who are just discovering the SKIMS site.

The website balances threading the iconic Kardashian brand throughout, without interrupting the customer as they’re browsing and purchasing products. Through captivating imagery and clear product photos, this website seamlessly marries a beautiful design, with smooth functionality.

Beauty Bay

UK-founded online beauty retailer Beauty Bay showcases how you can stock 100’s of products and still provide a seamless customer experience. Beauty Bay is an online beauty department store, stocking some of the world’s most in-demand and trending brands. Therefore, just like walking into a huge department store, they offer a range of ways that customers can shop on their site, without feeling overwhelmed or getting lost.

Customers can shop by product, brand, category, or current best-sellers. This breaks down the customer journey so they can quickly filter by what they want to browse, without scrolling through endless products they’re not interested in.

It’s not just the functionality of the site that keeps beauty-obsessed shoppers returning to the site. Beauty Bay understands what their shoppers care about and creates custom categories based on key trends. For instance, shoppers can browse the latest in K-Beauty (Korean Beauty) or check out their curated collection for Valentines Day. As well as having the “typical” collections that shoppers expect, they take it one step further with these custom and ever-changing featured collections.

Also, with being a place that stocks over 100 brands, they can take advantage of new product launches on a regular basis, keeping their finger on the pulse on key trends and showcasing to their customers that they are the go-to beauty marketplace.

Beats by Dre.

Founded by rapper Dr Dre. and now owned by Apple, Beats by Dre has become a dominant brand in the audio tech space. Their iconic ‘Pill’ speakers and sleek wireless headphones have become a status symbol, similar to the iPhone.

Their website carries their brand throughout, by marrying luxury with tech to create an exciting user experience. The Beats brand is known for their sleek and minimalist product design and they make sure their web design also reflects this. Each page mirrors the product designs and colour palette, instantly keeping the brand cohesive whether the user has clicked an ad, or just searched for the website or product.

They also keep the imagery minimal, but impactful. The Beats brand is known for collaborating with some of the biggest names, from top athletes, to huge influencers, and they showcase these collaborations on their home page and in their exclusive product collections.

Even if you hadn’t heard of the Beats brand before, by visiting the website you instantly understand who they are, what they’re selling and also the style of the brand. Coupled with detailed product pages that makes it easy for the shopper to digest all the information, pricing and colour options, Beats have created a seamless UX that reflects their luxury tech style.

Butternut Box

It’s not just us humans that deserve a good ecommerce website – so do our dogs! Yes, I know that it’s still the humans that are purchasing their food, but that doesn’t mean that our four-legged friends can’t be at the heart of the website.

Butternut Box is a subscription service offering tailored meals for dogs that are delivered straight to the owner’s door. Although there are other brands that offer this service, Butternox Box makes is clear, easy and engaging for owners to find the best food for their dogs and create a meal plan that works for the dog and their budget.

The site immediately tells the customer what they do, how it works and how they can get started. They also offer a simple quiz to understand the dog’s breed and requirements before offering suitable meal plans. This saves the owner time with extensive research, as Butternut Box has already done it for them!

Through their vibrant colour palette, humorous copy and captivating imagery showcasing all different dog breeds, they showcase how much they care about the dogs they’re feeding, which is highly attractive to dog owners. This is another way that brands can communicate their brand values through their site without needing to interrupt the customer’s experience through the site and also without having to “tell” the user specifically what their values are.

Urban Decay

Cult beauty brand Urban Decay is a brand that has navigated expanding their business from physical beauty counters and stores, to ecommerce. Before the ecommerce boom, Urban Decay had invested in the experience customers have at their beauty counters. Whether they are testing new products, asking their makeup artists for a colour-match, or getting their makeup done, they have crafted a signature style that keeps customers returning to their counters.

Urban Decay knew they had to find a way to bring the customer experience of the beauty counter into their online space. Rather than being a website that simply stocks Urban Decay products, they wanted to capture the reasons why people come to Urban Decay and keep returning.

Therefore, online shoppers can benefit from a range of services that mirror the kind you would expect at a beauty counter, such as:

AI Shade Finder: This helps shoppers find their right shade in their foundations

Virtual Try On: Just like shoppers testing samples at the counter, they can test the products virtually via the website.

Quizzes To Find The Right Product: Instead of asking makeup artists for advice at the counter, shoppers can take quizzes to help them find the right products.

Virtual Tutorials: Similar to the makeup artists giving shoppers makeup tips, they no longer have to miss-out online, with Urban Decay’s dedicated space for online makeup tutorials.

This is just one way that brands can expand into the ecommerce space, without sacrificing the physical in-store experience that customers expect.

Now, let’s look at some helpful tips and insights that can help businesses create a successful ecommerce website, just like SKIMS, Beauty Bay, Beats By Dre, Butternut Box and Urban Decay.

Tips For Creating An Ecommerce Website

There are many things to consider when creating an ecommerce website, but here are 3 things to consider that can help make an ecommerce website a success.

Define Your Goals

This might seem obvious, but it can be really easy to lose the purpose of your website when you start designing and building it. For an ecommerce site, your key goal might be to drive sales. But within this goal, you need to consider many features of the site that will help to drive sales and also might hinder sales.

Are you wanting to drive sales of a specific product? Or maybe you want to use your ecommerce site to supplement your bricks and mortar stores. In these cases, although you want to drive sales, you also need to consider how you then want the website to look and function so that you can hit these goals.

Find The Right Ecommerce Platform For Your Business

Just like how a physical store needs staff members to replenish stock, manage checkouts and help customers, your ecommerce website also needs to juggle multiple tasks to ensure that the customer has a smooth experience. Therefore, you need to choose an ecommerce platform, like Shopify or Ecommerce, that will help you manage online store efficiently.

Ecommerce platforms allow you to track inventory, update products and track orders and customer queries. Therefore, finding a platform that helps you carry out these tasks effectively will lead to a seamless UX for the customer.

Keep Your Content Up To Date

When it comes to the content on your website, ensuring that it’s up to date and relevant for your shoppers is crucial. Make sure that you schedule regular content reviews of your full site to ensure that you’re showing your customers accurate information. This can include:

Updating your product range by removing discontinued stock or launching new collections

Ensuring your shipping and returns information is still correct

If you also manage a blog, keeping this up to date will also help the full user experience

Commit Pitfalls When Creating An Ecommerce Website

Although there are endless possibilities when it comes to designing your ecommerce website, there are a few common pitfalls that can be costly to your business. Don’t worry, we’ve listed them below so that you can make sure that you avoid them and keep customers returning and purchasing from your ecommerce site.

Unclear Product Information

We mentioned earlier that your website should be easy to navigate, whether customers are browsing or finding a specific product. Therefore, if you make it difficult for customers to navigate through your website, or they’re not able to find the product they want, then this could lead to high bounce rates.

Your website should display your product and information clearly and attractively. If imagery or information isn’t clear, customers will be discouraged from purchasing. For instance, the Beats website has designed product pages that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but they contain all the information you need to know before buying a product.

Forgetting About The Mobile Experience

According to finance provider Klarna, 7 out of 10 people in the UK shop on their mobile devices. Therefore, the mobile experience of your ecommerce website is crucial to avoid losing crucial potential customers and sales.

Although you might start designing the desktop version of your website to begin with, it’s important to not make the mobile design an afterthought. Just like you might walk past a physical store that looks messy, disorganised, or you’re not sure what it’s selling, customers will quickly leave your website if the UX is clunky.

If you’re selling a high ticket item, a lot of shoppers might conduct some research using their mobile devices, but make the purchase on their desktop. Therefore, if they have a clunky experience on the mobile version of your site, then they won’t be enticed to make a purchase, regardless of whether your desktop site offers a smoother experience.

Having A Clunky Checkout Process

A clunky checkout process can be a costly pitfall for your ecommerce website. Just like how a chaotic in-store checkout experience can discourage someone from purchasing an item, a customer will leave your website without completing their purchase.

This can lead to high abandoned cart rates and bounce rates for your website. Therefore, always ensure that your checkout process is smooth, seamless and efficient.

Your Guide To Making A Successful Ecommerce Website

Ecommerce is becoming a dominant market space for retail brands and it is continuously evolving alongside technological advances. But there are clear opportunities for you to grow your brand in the ecommerce space with our helpful tips, pitfalls to avoid, and also taking inspiration from some of the best ecommerce sites at the moment.

Working with a web design agency means you get to work with a team of experts who are here to help you avoid these common pitfalls that we mentioned earlier. They’ll also work with you to design an ecommerce website that not only looks good, works smoothly, but also tailored to your brand and business goals.

You can book a call with our web design team today to see how we can help you create a successful ecommerce website.