19 Emerging E-Commerce Design Trends for 2022

How E-Commerce Design Trends are Shaping the Future of Online Shopping

We are currently experiencing business moving online. It may be thanks to the world pandemic situation, it may be due to technological developments, or it may be just a natural process of business evolution.

Covid-19 changed the world. We are accustomed to masks; we travel in public transport “without hands” and do not part with antiseptics. The virus has had its impact on business as well. Companies have abandoned long-term strategies in favor of quick response to the situation.

In 2021, many brands suffered, but some are feeling better every day, especially in the e-commerce sector. Moreover, online shopping has seen impressive growth for the second year in a row, thanks to quarantines and lockdowns.

According to statistics, 2.14 billion people shop online. In other words, every fourth person around you is an online buyer.

For the positive trend to continue, it is worth paying attention to some of the developing trends. So let’s look at which of these emerging e-commerce design trends you should focus on.

What are the Top E-Commerce Design Trends for 2022?

Focus on Green E-Commerce

There is a continuous shift in the marketplace. Consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and expect the brands they buy from to be responsible for their impact on the environment. As a result, more than 60% of Americans choose to buy from green brands, and that demand has given rise to green e-commerce. Green e-commerce refers to a wave of brands incorporating green solutions into their processes.

Green commerce means working with less environmentally harmful materials, bioplastics, reusable packaging, paper utensils, and non-toxic materials. Brands also actively encourage shoppers not to make same-day deliveries and consolidate their orders to reduce packaging use. You can expect more delivery services using electric vehicles and bicycles to deliver packages.

Also, keep in mind that in order not to cause new problems such as goods that don’t match what consumers expect, brands are becoming more responsible by posting full product descriptions, photos of actual products with in-depth details, and integrating feedback and comments sections their websites. Doing this gives shoppers all the information they need before completing their order, reducing the chances of a return shipment.

Voice Commerce

Did you know that 50% of all searches were voice searches in 2020? Voice Shopping is estimated to reach $40 Billion in the U.S. by 2022. More than 30% of U.S. internet users have used a voice assistant to look for product information or purchase products.

According to experts, this method of shopping has gradually developed into a trend mainly due to A.I. voice assistants like Siri and Alexa.

However, according to eMarketer, more than half of U.S. adults said they have never shopped for goods via voice and have no interest in trying voice shopping. In addition, just 9% of U.S. adults have ever shopped via voice, and only 2% have done so regularly.

Therefore, implementing voice shopping functionality on your e-commerce site will largely depend on the expectations of your target consumers.

Visual Commerce

One of the many difficulties in the operation of an online store is the sale of products to consumers who have no chance of physical interaction with the product. For this reason, businesses should resort to Visual Commerce (V.C.), which allows you to take marketing to a new level. So, instead of simply using photos, V.C. introduces other visual aids: custom content (blogs, podcasts, online image and video sites, online reviews), interactive content, exciting videos, and augmented reality, as mentioned above.

Visual commerce is slowly but surely becoming an integral part of e-commerce, evidenced by the growing demand for deep learning technologies. These technologies include the field of image recognition, the volume of which, according to MarketWatch, by 2026 should grow by 19.6% to $81.88 billion (in 2018, it was $20.19 billion).

Blurring the Boundaries between Physical and Digital

This design exists because of our situation during a pandemic. As a result, we had to adjust our shopping behavior. Even so, we must still meet our needs. Therefore, businesses rely on e-commerce platforms to pick up consumers who transact through physical stores. And with a slow return to normal, the demands for platforms that pave the way for digital and physical interactions remain.

In addition to e-shops or e-commerce websites, multipurpose applications are growing to meet user demands for convenience and excellent digital customer service. The platform cuts a few extra steps from the customer journey if they shop at the store. For example, a physical store requires you to go, shop in a crowd, and stand in line to pay for your goods.

With this new e-commerce design trend, consumers are getting more benefits where they can check which products are available at their nearest store, arrange appointments, and settle their bills digitally. They can also integrate customer service through live support via chat or video calls. In addition, with a market that relies on smartphones, apps can do wonders for businesses and their end-users.

A Holistic E-Commerce Experience

With more than 500,000 brands and billions of e-commerce platforms worldwide, capturing markets with multiple needs is a challenge. Therefore, large companies need to become one-stop shops by expanding what they offer to stay competitive.

More prominent e-commerce brands can take a cue from Facebook. After acquiring several social media platforms other than Facebook, they are now expanding into social technology. Therefore, rebranding to Meta. With their expansion, more and more users tend to use Meta for their social media and social technology needs.

A similar expansion is being made by Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, growing from selling products in various categories to providing Amazon Web Services. Diversification by adding new products and expanding into related markets allows e-commerce businesses to expand and capture a larger market.

Increased Personalization

The pandemic sparked a movement in many companies to support the COVID-19 response. Many adopt a double bottom line approach, where they do business for financial gain and to create a positive social impact for society. Examples include companies that hold fundraisers, giveaway programs, and offer significant discounts. As the saying goes: Doing good is good for business.

Appealing to the Senses

This e-commerce design is concerned with the emotions of the user. Where they expect users to enhance their multi-sensory digital experience, you can employ a less complicated method. The masterful combination of color, gradients, brilliantly shot photos, stylish fonts, and the use of abstract—even interactive—shapes in your layouts will set the mood.

You can add sound effects to enhance your U.I. design, such as a satisfying ‘ding’ when you click a button to confirm an order. This technique is beneficial for accessibility because you can design sounds and imagery as user guides. Additionally, you can include thought-provoking descriptive and engaging copy to better support your visual content and immerse your users in the design.

You also have to remember to select great images. Choose high-quality images that convey how you want consumers to react to your brand. For example, food websites with mouth-watering sauces and a plate of grilled meat can make a person hungry. The soft, silky texture of skin products applied to a woman’s face can appeal to someone looking for a skin product that is gentle and deeply moisturizing.

Live Shopping

Live shopping can be part of social commerce since it can take place on social media platforms. It focuses on the customer’s engagement with the seller or an influencer (as an ambassador of the promoted brand) who takes place in the live streaming.

The promoter shows the product, its design, and its functionality, and customers have the opportunity to ask questions. Additionally, there is a link to the webshop as part of the Livestream. The method of selling is straightforward and relatively new, so we can expect it to grow a lot in the first half of 2022.

Social Media Shopping

The advantage of direct sales on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat is clear: these visual media are ideal for online buying. This strategy is also evident on the social media platforms themselves, and new features are developed for e-commerce shops.

More Diversified Payment Options

Customer satisfaction lies in the little things. Diversity of payment methods is one of them. It is the last step in the entire shopping process, and the lack of preferred payment methods may cause shopping cart abandonment. Allow customers to pay in the way they desire and keep things simple.

Did you know that according to eMarketer, more than 50% of all purchases will be made via a smartphone by 2025? ApplePay and GooglePay look like excellent solutions for this scenario. Both allow checkout directly from the product page.

In addition to payment by credit card, bank transfer, PayPal, and others, there is a rising trend to purchase in installments. For example, in Europe, Twisto offers purchases for thirds. It means you can split the amount over three months. In addition, more services are available across the U.S. via different companies. As a result, it may benefit by gaining customers who couldn’t afford the products in casual circumstances.

Unconventional Layouts

The layout helps organize the information on a website attractively and functionally. Many businesses rely on e-commerce platforms for this, such as Shopify. These tend to offer a variety of standard design templates that follow a small number of defined structures, such as single column layouts or F layouts. The problem with these is that while they are easy to set up, they have become so commonplace that they no longer provide the user with the element of surprise.

Through unconventional layouts, some businesses break the mold and thrive on quirks. Their websites, apps, and online pages incorporate themes into their designs, such as a well-curated state-of-the-art art gallery with infinite scrolling. Some also incorporate elements, such as interactive videos and animated photos to make for an engaging experience. The possible outcome? More prolonged user engagement, higher brand retention, and increased conversion rates.

Vertically Aligned Menus

Initially, e-commerce platforms were intended for users with large screen devices such as desktops or laptops. Therefore, a website used horizontal menu designs. However, today’s consumers visit websites mainly from their mobile phones, smaller than desktop or laptop screens. Due to these changes, you may have noticed a growing number of e-commerce websites with vertically aligned menus.

Because vertical menus can be on either side of the page, they don’t take up much space and are easier to scale. In addition, when viewed on the desktop, vertical menus allow you to add navigation links without the drop-down menus getting in the way of your page content. And because they resemble lists, vertical menus serve as efficient guides for users on how you want them to navigate your page seamlessly.

Simply put, vertically aligned menus are intuitive and practical. Websites are even starting to combine horizontal menus for primary navigation links with vertical menus for secondary links. This approach maximizes space while offering a memorable alternative to the standard navigation views we’re so used to.

Headless E-Commerce

Technological innovations pave the way for unique platforms and features, such as intelligent voice assistants and virtual reality. However, while having multiple platforms is beneficial in increasing your reach, integrating them in a single system can harm managing your server and be time-consuming and complex.

Headless e-commerce removes various user interfaces (front-end) from the server-side (backend). Doing so allows you to layer critical functions in your digital ecosystem—websites, microsites, multiple apps, and V.R. or A.R. features—design and customize them most efficiently while keeping your backend intact.

Each vital component can also be easily edited and updated independently without relying on software developers. As a result, headless trading allows the flexibility to scale up and meet unlimited demands from your users promptly, leading to a seamless user experience across all channels.

Micro Animations

Even though people have grown comfortable doing more online, that doesn’t mean they want to devote more time to discovering, researching, and buying products and services. Designers can help shoppers quickly find what they need through well-placed micro animations.

Micro animations allow shoppers to find the interactive parts of the store quickly. Hover effects, in particular, are also helpful when it comes to product search. They can instantly reveal more views or variations of products. They can also provide shoppers with shortcuts to popular actions — like add-to-cart, share, favorite, etc.

Better Filtering Options

As demand for online shopping grows, we’re going to see digital inventories grow as well. In addition, as stores grow their product offering — often with many lookalike products — customers will need a better way to search through all the options.

Product filters already help with this. However, 2022 is about further streamlining and improving the online shopping experience. That’s why we’re going to see product filters go the way of contact forms, with each field designed for the fastest input.

App-like E-Commerce Features on Mobile

While the number of customers shopping on their smartphones has long surpassed those on desktops, they’ve been quite shy about converting on mobile. But as more people depend on online stores these days, we’re going to see them become less hesitant about buying on mobile.

To encourage smartphone shoppers to do this, we’re going to see more e-commerce sites designed with mobile app-like features. Since consumers already spend most of their digital time in mobile apps, this type of interface and functionality will make them feel more comfortable on a mobile site.

The easiest way to do this is to add sticky elements — headers, bottom bars, floating buttons, etc.

Product Pictures Motion

E-commerce design trends for 2022 include movement design and utilizing more complex graphics. In addition, you can expect more films, movies, animation, and micro-interactions.

We have not seen such components of motion design utilized very much in the past, but the most commonly used technology is current technology. E-commerce sites rely more on them than on attention, among other sectors.

Hand-Drawn Illustrations

Over the years, illustrations have seen several modifications. Recent years have seen an increase in vector drawings and customized character illustrations. In 2022, hand-drawn images and graphics will add a human touch to online stores.

Websites like Mailchimp effectively use black and white graphics. They successfully catch users’ attention with simple and attractive graphics. These artistic graphics display ingenuity, give a distinctive touch and bring people back to the times of print media in black and white.

Multi-Image Panoramas

An innovative e-commerce design trend for 2022 is showing product pictures in one view. Product pictures have traditionally been shown in a carousel style. To view different product views, users had to click next and could not see numerous product views concurrently. The new design trend addresses these problems by enabling consumers to examine multiple product pictures in one view.

The Continued Impact of Covid-19 on E-Commerce

Experts note that the coronavirus probably had the most significant impact on e-commerce in 2020. As governments worldwide closed stores and imposed quarantine restrictions, more and more people turned to online shopping to buy goods.

Experts predict that the effects of coronavirus will be a long-term stimulus for the development of e-commerce. New buyers will continue to buy goods online because it is convenient, fast, safe (due to non-cash payment and a guaranteed refund if the product is not suitable).

Furthermore, the forecast predicts that retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. will grow to 23.6% of all sales by 2025, a change of 13.7% YOY, amounting to a total of U.S. $1.648 in sales, the highest prediction yet.

At the same time, due to the negative impact of the pandemic over the next five years, 100,000 brick-and-mortar stores are projected to close.

Meeting E-Commerce User Expectations in 2022

In 1995, the first e-commerce shopper ordered the first product through the Amazon website. It was a book. More than 25 years have passed since then, and according to Statista, in 2022, this figure will exceed $4.5 trillion.

As one of the most actively developing sectors of the economy, e-commerce generates various design trends that help businesses remain successful. Companies need to optimize their e-commerce design and online store for mobile consumers to stay competitive.

Since 2016, sales using mobile devices have increased by 15%. According to Statista, by the end of 2022, 73% of e-commerce sales will be made on smartphones. Due to the demand for this method of shopping among millennials and generation Z.

In 2022, there is no single “golden rule” for e-commerce development. Although e-commerce design trends change every year, some things remain the same. So you’ll have to do everything that eventually turns into:

• Formation and improvement of user experience.
• Maximum use of personalization.
• Creating a fan community, working with influencers and P.R.
• Use of A.I. and, if necessary, augmented reality.
• Increasing search rankings and visibility.

Do You Want to Provide a Better Online Shopping Experience?

Do you want to create a functional, thoughtful, and user-friendly e-commerce website? Our team of professional designers will be happy to help you with this. First, look at our portfolio and read our case studies. Then, if you believe we are a good fit for your e-commerce needs, let’s talk!

We offer a full range of e-commerce consulting and design services for businesses and product brands, including custom web design and development, e-commerce solutions, multilingual web design, search engine optimization, and WordPress optimization.

Our team will listen to your concerns, analyze any problems and obstacles that stand between your audience and your e-commerce website, and how to overcome them. That way, you can focus on running and growing your online business. Does that sound good to you? Then let’s talk!

Are You Implementing Current Design Trends?

Will your online store meet the expectations of demanding consumers in 2022? Are you planning to implement any of these e-commerce design trends? Do you have any other tips or suggestions for providing a better shopping experience? We would love to know about them.

Please share them with our audience in the comments. Also, don’t forget to grab our feed so you don’t miss any updates. And help any online business owners among your friends and associates by sharing this post with them.

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By Gregor Saita

Co-Founder / CXO

@gregorsaita