Top 10 eCommerce Web Design Trends to Keep You Relevant in 2024

1. Micro Animations and Interactions

Animation is going to be major this year. From product displays and reveals to navigation, there are more ways than one that you can include it in your website design.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be major. Small animations can have a great impact. Simply including an animated hover effect can already deliver a more immersive experience.

Consumer expectations have evolved. They want to be entertained.

Animation is one way to make the overall experience more entertaining, interactive, and memorable. It can add that personal touch that’s harder to offer when running an online store.

You can, for example, use it to present product information in a more engaging and effective way that will help to keep them focused on the features and benefits of your offering. Unlike static images, adding an element of animation can make it much easier for interested buyers to visualize the products. This way, they can view products from various angles. Just make sure that the quality remains high so that they can also zoom in if they want to get a closer look.

Aside from keeping your website visitors on your page for longer and increasing the chances that browsing will convert to buying, it can also help with the post-sale phase. As customers could form a better idea of what the product looks like in real life, you can expect fewer returns.

You can also use micro interactions. Examples include letting a call-to-action button light up when a shopper clicks on it or letting the next review display when the cursor moves over product reviews. All in all, it’s a great way to improve the overall user experience.

2. Minimalistic Design

3. Large Fonts

While less is more, bigger is better. This year, expect to see chunky fonts. Whether you prefer thick typefaces with sharp lines or prefer to keep it smooth and include rounded typefaces, the trend is to make it large.

Aside from breathing new life into your website, it can serve other purposes too. It helps to grab attention, highlight your message, and create an inviting tone without adding more clutter. Basically, website visitors will leave with a warm, fuzzy feeling towards your brand. It’s all about positive vibes.

To make it even more impactful, try to use warm colors. Larger fonts can pair well with orange, yellow, or even pink. Obviously, you’ll need to keep your branding in mind, but, generally speaking, brighter, unsaturated colors are currently trending.

Considering that colors and typography are two elements that have a huge psychological effect, you’ll want to pay attention to this trend. Oversized fonts might not work for all brands and are more geared towards eCommerce businesses that want to create an artistic feel and show off their fun side. That said, all brands should choose their fonts strategically.

4. Asymmetrical Layouts

For those more adventurous, there’s asymmetrical layouts. It’s especially popular among lifestyle and fashion brands that need a more creative design.

Using an unconventional layout like this can give your website a very modern and dynamic appearance and make the website experience more enjoyable. However, it’s tricky and can let your website look disorganized if you don’t know what you’re doing.

To pull it off, you’ll need to incorporate loads of empty background space. Then, combine big headers with smaller visuals and let elements overlap.

You’ll also need to ensure there are focal points. What will capture their attention?

It could be an object that’s bigger or has a different texture. You can also use contrasting color to guide their gaze or use lighter and darker colors to emphasize specific areas.

While the design lacks symmetry, there should still be a sense of visual balance. Elements like different colors, objects, or textures, all carry a visual weight and you’ll need to keep this in mind when creating your layout.

5. Central Navigation

Navigation menus are no longer restricted to the header and footer areas. It’s becoming more common practice for brands to place the navigation menu in the center of the home page (think back to other unconventional layout options like asymmetrical design discussed earlier).

What makes central navigation such a popular choice is that it’s also described as “thumb-friendly”.In other words, it makes it easier for mobile users specifically to access the navigation bar effortlessly, giving you another way that you can make your website design more mobile-friendly.

Remember that mobile users complete the scrolling action with their thumb. Having to extend this short, thick finger all the way to the top just to have to click on a small button tucked away in the corner to find the page that they’re searching for is unpleasant.

6. Sophisticated Chatbots

In addition to the aestical elements, website design trends can also impact the technical side of things. It’s only to be expected that artificial intelligence will also play a huge role in how designers go about creating eCommerce websites moving forward.

7. Dark Mode

8. Better Filters

Filters play a major role in eCommerce website design. Without a proper filtering system, website visitors will have a hard time finding products, hurting your conversion rate.

Similarly to other elements on your website, you can also make it more engaging. Instead of presenting them with the conventional, drop-down menu, why not use a slider? This way, users can select which metrics they want to include in their search.

Depending on the type of products that you sell, you can also try to personalize it. Ideas include letting customers build their own product or creating a click-activated journey.

Basically, expect to see eCommerce brands have a lot more fun when designing filters.

9. Storytelling

You might associate storytelling with other marketing strategies like social media, but it can also be used in your website design. This approach can work especially well for lifestyle and beauty brands.

Interactive video can be very useful if you want to incorporate a storytelling element. Inserting a video into your hero section is also currently trending. Considering that this is often the first interaction that visitors have with your website, use it to your advantage and tell the story about what makes your products unique. It’s a great way to lure them deeper into your website and scroll further.

As for your images, go easy on the editing. You want to keep them as authentic as possible so that they can tell a real story. This is especially important if you want to target younger consumers.

10. Accessibility

Gearing your website more towards mobile users has been mentioned more than once already. However, that’s not the only group of people you need to keep in mind.