Ecommerce sites should set the bar for user experience. They're asking people to trust them enough to not just buy their product, but also share personal and credit card information with them. Great ecommerce websites should be immediately trustworthy, show off the product or services, educate the customer about those if necessary, and make purchasing easy.
Product images should be top-notch, site design should be professional, and reviews and testimonials should bolster visitor confidence. Product descriptions should be clear, and the buying process should continue to inspire confidence while being intuitive. Need a great site to link to your online store? Use Zarla's AI website builder. If you're looking to create an ecommerce website of your own, browse these well-designed examples for inspiration.
Zarla checks that sites meet basic web standards for mobile and desktop. We also use Google's PageSpeed Insights, and WAVE, a service that evaluates accessibility for individuals with disabilities. PageSpeed scores and accessibility are important factors for search engine rankings. PageSpeed scores may not match user experience and can vary substantially.
Westlake Village, California, U.S.
Strymon makes premium guitar effects pedals and equipment that are used by a variety of professional musicians. They've been in business for 20 years. The product photography is crisp and bright, with backgrounds that complement the color of the guitar pedals and suggest the sounds they create.
Their shopping pages offer just the right amount of basic information, while product pages give details in a clean, concise format, with videos that let you hear the pedals. The professional look of the site and the clean shopping cart design inspire confidence. Information on free shipping, 30-day returns, and financing is well placed just below the navigation.
The site has enticing photography. People who don't play guitar might be tempted to buy their BigSky MX pedal, just to look at. Learning about their products is easy, and the shopping cart experience is straightforward and confidence-inspiring. The site had very few WAVE errors.
Many well-known professional guitarists use these. Why aren't some of them on the site giving testimonials or demos? At a minimum, they could list some of the artists who use them, ideally, there would be videos of the artists showing them off. This would help inspire confidence, and show off how important this brand has become to modern music.
The desktop site performs well and looks great, with ample space to show off their product photos and cool background images. The subtle animations call attention to products, without distracting from the overall site. There are just enough of their products on the home page, without overwhelming a visitor with choices. PageSpeed Insights gave the desktop a score of 81/100 for performance.
The site looks great on a mobile device as well. The animations are slightly different from the desktop, but still subtle and just enough to add some fun and call your attention to the product images. Condensing information on shipping, returns, and financing into a slider is smart. The shopping cart resizes nicely for mobile devices too. The site scored 51/100 on PageSpeed insights for mobile performance.
Carlsbad, California, U.S.
prAna is a sustainable, active lifestyle clothing brand. It focuses on customers engaged in yoga, climbing, and outdoor activities. prAna has been in business since 1992. The site does a great job of offering the clothing of the season on the home page.
As of this writing, in late spring of 2024, swimsuits are the main focus. Scrolling down takes visitors through summerwear and to more general clothing. The image quality on the site is superb and feels authentic. Their online store makes it easy to compare the look, pricing, reviews, and features of items. Free shipping information on all size orders is well placed on the inner pages.
prAna knows what their customers are there for, swimwear and summer clothes as of this review, but it's also easy to navigate to more options. The shopping experience is intuitive, and the "quick shop" button is convenient if you know what you want, while it's also easy to click and learn more about each product.
Although the site checks out just fine on the live devices we tested it on, PageSpeed Insights gave ita low performance score on both the mobile and desktop versions of its site. Other than that, our review didn't find additional cons for this site.
The site looks great on a desktop screen, with plenty of space for elements. The home page varies enough to keep visitors' interest, without seeming too busy. Shopping pages are easy to understand and navigate, and checkout is intuitive. In live tests, the site performed well on desktops, but PageSpeed Insights gave it a score of 61/100 for performance.
The site reorganizes itself well on a mobile screen, managing to pack a lot of information into a small space without seeming overwhelming or busy. It's also surprisingly easy to read the details on a small screen. The shopping and checkout pages are well-organized and elegant. In live tests, the mobile site performed well, but PageSpeed Insights only gave it a score of 31/100 for performance.
New York, New York, U.S.
Hu offers organic, high-quality chocolates with simple ingredients — often just three. The company started as a family business in New York in 2009. The photography on the site features mouth-watering images of chocolate and great examples of their simple packaging.
Product navigation is nicely divided between dark, milk, and baking chocolate. The home page offers a list of "weird" ingredients Hu chocolate does not have, quotes from the press, and images from social media of people enjoying Hu chocolate. Buying is simple, and the slide-out cart on the product page is a nice way to keep users oriented.
The site has great product photography and photography of chocolate in general. The shopping experience is easy to navigate. Product descriptions are simple and to the point, much like the product. Overall, the simple site does a good job of emulating the product.
The drop-down product navigation is cool, but it might seem like they offer few products. Users need to click on "Shop All" to see the rest. The social media testimonials should clarify where the testimonials come from, and clicking on them should take you to the testimonials, not to the product. A visitor might question whether the reviews are real.
The desktop site feels spacious and easy to take in at a glance. The story of the brand is told through images, headlines, and bullet points, but the site's simplicity doesn't feel empty on a desktop. In a world where many sites seem to scroll forever, Hu keeps their home page short and to the point. It scored 61/100 for performance on PageSpeed Insights.
As nice as the content looks with space on the desktop, it looks even better centered on a mobile device, with the chocolate bar and its chocolaty background the first thing your eyes are drawn to. If there's anything a website selling chocolate should do, it's make a visitor's mouth start watering upon arrival. The mobile site scored 38/100 for performance on PageSpeed Insights, but in live tests, the performance was fine.
Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Playdate is a handheld video game system that launched in April 2022. It has a black and white screen and a crank controller, it's bright yellow and fits in the palm of a single hand, setting it apart from the average video game console.
The website has a playful feel. There's a large image of the device front and center that you can move with your mouse or fingertip to see it from different angles. The image makes it look cool and well-designed, like an accouterment you'd enjoy showing off. While the rest of the site is colorful, the background behind the device image is grey, bringing your full attention to it and the bright buttons for ordering.
The site feels light and fun, which fits with the device. The job of this site is selling a product most people won't have heard of and probably weren't looking for, and it seems to do that. What the product is, what makes it unique, and why someone would want one all come across clearly. The shopping cart experience is good. The site had very few WAVE errors.
The return policy and shipping information are a bit hidden. Someone considering a device like this, that they may never have seen or touched, and whose maker is likely unknown to them, might wonder what happens if they get it and don't like it. The home page is text-heavy, but it's well-written and perhaps necessary for selling a one-of-a-kind product.
The site looks particularly good on desktop devices, providing a strong visual impact. Although it only scored 42/100 for performance on Google's PageSpeed Insights test, the site fared well on mobile devices in real-world tests. The close-up images of the product, especially the exploded view and the animation with the game excerpt work well on a larger screen.
On smaller screens, the amount of text on the home page is a bit daunting, and the images that worked so well on the desktop lose some of their efficacy on a mobile device. Still, it retains its playful feel, and the animation of the crank working on the device is fun. It scored 39/100 on PageSpeed Insights for performance, although, once again, live tests provided a pleasant mobile experience.
Stuttgart, Germany
Giboard makes a balance trainer that combines a slackline and a board, similar to a snowboard or skateboard. It's essentially a miniature slackline that can be used in the home.
The site has nice images of the boards and the artwork on them, and good headline text that lets you know exactly who and what the boards are for. Information on shipping times, warranty, and returns is well placed. The site has short, easy-to-read text that explains more about what this unique product does, well-placed reviews, and links to a video library where visitors can learn more about how to use the Giboard.
The site has a fun, athletic feel that explains the purpose of the product very well. Combined with short, scannable text explanations, it's a good site to review for companies who are selling unique products and want to explain them quickly. The shopping experience is easy while offering additional information for visitors hesitant to buy a product they've probably never touched.
It's a little surprising that images of people using the boards are near the bottom of the home page. Someone who has never seen the board might wonder how they're used when they first see the product images. There is no information on where reviews came from on the home page (though you can find it on the individual product pages).
The desktop site performed well when tested live, and PageSpeed Insights agreed with our experience, giving it a score of 86/100 for performance. Information is punchy and focused, without being sparse, and the large product images show off the designs on GiBoard. There are a couple of sections toward the bottom of the home page where the images and text appear pixelated on a desktop screen.
The site looks even better on a mobile device, with short, quick product explanations broken up by great-looking images. The shopping cart works well and still manages to pack in a lot of information without feeling overwhelming. Although it performed well on mobile devices in live tests, PageSpeed Insights gave it a score of 39/100 on performance.
If you use a website builder and existing ecommerce platforms, costs with everything else you need for a web presence (email, hosting, SSL certificate, etc.) can be from $25 to $100 per month, with one-time setup fees from $10 to $200.
No; if you'd like to list your products, add descriptions and pricing, and create a checkout page, you'll need to create an online store on another platform. However, Zarla's AI website builder makes it easy to create a site and link it to your online store.
