10 One-of-a-Kind E-commerce Websites That Put Ordinary Sites to Shame

This collection of creative e-commerce websites includes those that take a unique approach to creating a storefront, and each are discussed in light of what makes their creative designs work so well.

Hopefully, you too can find some inspiration in the collection below to help you in your own e-commerce website designs. Which of these made a big impression on you?

Mom and Popcorn

This vintage website is a very unique experience in that it jumps off the page and makes you forget what decade you are really in. Although not the typical clean cut design of most popular e-commerce sites, it remains easy to use and bursts with creativity. It is very easy to find what you are looking for and the prices are prominent. You don't have to click around aimlessly to figure out what to do next. Five stars for Mom & Popcorn!

The Affair

The Affair is a UK based, offbeat clothing company that makes no apologies; neither for its darkness and morbid atmosphere, nor for its unique shopping design. Although simple and uncluttered, it is anything but standard. For one thing it has a discreet but impossible to miss shopping cart link in the corner. When an item is added to the cart, there is an animation of the selected item dropping into the shopping cart. This is a great touch because so often people click several times to be sure their selection was made and end up with too much in the cart at the end. With The Affair's unique concept, there is no confusion. Another useful feature is that each product's thumbnail offers a 360 degree view so you can examine it from all angles. It's these details that make all the difference.

Storenvy

Storenvy is ingenious, both in concept and in execution. It takes social networking, Etsy, and Pinterest and combines them all into one with an interface as easy to use as Blogspot. It allows users to create their own store to sell stuff, or to buy by browsing hundreds of items from different sellers at once. It is able to pack a lot of information and products into a small space without getting cluttered or confusing. It comes with a built-in store creation wizard to make it super easy to get out there and sell your goodies. I only wish I had thought of it first!

Saddleback

Saddleback is a beautifully and meticulously designed website that sells all types of leather products. Every element of the site contributes to its design, which is a breath of fresh air from other designs that can be weighty and cluttered, even if nice looking. The attention to detail is what makes this rich site still completely practical and usable. One particularly nice touch is that it includes a list of the sites of their business rivals, making it easy to see that Saddleback is the complete package.

Heartbreaker Fashion

Heartbreaker has a pleasant design with a good use of patterns and textures, which is what makes it different from other creative e-commerce websites. The trend has been to avoid patterns because they can distract shoppers from the product. When done right, however, it can really enhance the store front. Heartbreaker also has a handy shopping cart box in the footer of the site as well as the top. Even though it breaks the mold, it is still very user friendly, and even stronger for it.

Oi Polloi

Oi Polloi is a retro site that sells clothes and footwear. It is surprising to find that it does not have a shopping cart immediately available - only once an item is selected does a shopping cart (here called a "Basket") descend as an overlay to the site, showing exactly what you bought, what size, and how much it is, as well as a subtotal. So there is not a separate page for the checkout, which is quite efficient in my opinion. Never be afraid to reinvent the wheel!

A Modern Eden

A Modern Eden sells prints, decals, and stuffed animals with strange angular designs. It makes use of trendy colors, and where normally the bright green background would be tacky or distracting, in this usage it is not only appropriate but adds greatly to the fun and feel of the site. The ribbon highlighting the shopping basket icon is a very nice touch as well.

Patrick Ervell

Patrik Ervell sells fashionable men's clothing with a really cool twist. Where expensive men's clothes can often appear stiff or uncomfortable, this site helps guys envision themselves wearing the clothing, with use of live moving models with every product! Normally this is a huge no-no. Animations can quickly become a very bad idea, especially if there is more than one moving item per page. But Patrik Ervell accomplishes it beautifully, with a sterile white background and simple, concise text only interspersed where necessary.

Marie Catrib's

Marie Catrib's uses vivid pastel colors; friendly, bold text; and interesting dotted lines and patterns to make the pastry and bread products come alive. Some unique elements include the ability to search by vegan or gluten-free, a toggle button to hide half the website to focus on browsing, most information in the footer, and having ALL the offered products on the home page of the site. Simple, easy to use, and captivating.

Brand Neusense

Brand Neusense breaks a lot of rules by being too crowded, having too many colors, and incorporating too many animations - yet, somehow it all works. First of all, the models look like real people, not - for lack of a better word - models. Even more so, though, this creative e-commerce website stands out because the homepage focuses more on the various brands it sells and on ads than it does on its product. It is designed thoughtfully for its target market, and that's all you can ask of a web designer.

So whether you have an upcoming creative e-commerce website design project coming up or you need to revamp your e-commerce site design, use the examples above in your decisions. Doing your research and noting what others do right (or wrong) is one of the best ways to create a website that puts ordinary to shame.

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Is Your Site Easy to Navigate? Six Ways to Put an End to Dead Ends

Site navigation is one of the more important pieces to successful website management. Unfortunately, there are far more ways to do it wrong than right. If users can't navigate or even struggle to find what they're looking for, they'll move on with the click of the "Back" button - one of those nasty navigation buttons that works all too well. Site navigation doesn't have to be complex, even if you have a great deal of content across lots of categories. With a few simple best practices in place, you can dramatically improve how your site visitors are able to find information and continue interacting with our site.

1. Search bar

Probably the most under-discussed and under-rated feature that every site should take advantage of is a search bar. This allows users to quickly type in product names or anything else they may be looking for specifically. Make sure you check your own search results on occassion to be sure that the feature works and is easy for users to work with. Also, put your search bar in a prominent place in or near the banner of your website. The search bar sometimes gets lost along a sidebar, which can be frustrating for users who just want to find information quickly.

2. Horizontal navigation tools

A common mistake in navigation design is to put the primary links only in a vertical menu in a sidebar. A navigation best practice for modern sites is to use a horizontal menu bar at or near the top of the page. You don't have to put every link to your site in the navigation bar. The key is to provide quick, consistent access to the main pages on your site. If you have an "About Us" page, make sure that this link is always in the nav menu. If you have sub-pages, you can list these links within the "About Us" page, for example, or in a drop-down menu.

3. Common naming

Avoid odd naming of links to primary pages. While this might seem interesting, it confuses some website users and all search engines. For example, avoid calling the "About Us" page something like "Our Info". This could mean your contact information, your address, your "About Us" page - "Our Info" could means lots of things. But we all know what an "About Us" page is. So stick with the standards on this one so that your visitors can find what they need right when they need it.

4. Use arrows for drop-down menus

If you use drop-down menus in the horizontal navigation bar, include a visual cue like a downward facing arrow for these menus so users know a drop-down menu is present. It's annoying when you go to click on an "About Us" menu item and it springs open to reveal several sub-pages, but it's too late - you've already clicked it and now the site is taking you somewhere else. The same goes for sub-sub-menus. You know, the drop-down menus that then open up into another set of options? Yeah, those. From a navigation standpoint, these are fine, but make sure the menu has an arrow that points to the right so users know another menu is about to open.

5. Breadcrumbs

If your site includes multiple categories or a progressive experience (such as filling out a multipage form or a shopping cart), provide breadcrumbs along the top but below the main navigation window. This allows users to tell where they are at in the heirarchy of your site and can quickly jump back a few steps without starting over.

6. Logo goes home

And for those visitors that need to zip back to your home page, make sure the logo links back to your home page. This is just a common practice, but studies are showing that this logo link is used far more often than realized. A common example is after a user has placed an item in their cart, they want to start over and find another item. While many users tend to just go to the search bar or use the breadcrumbs, another prominent set uses the logo link to get back to the home page and start over.

Conclusion

Site navigation is very important and these few, simple best practices can make navigating your site all the more easy. Often it just takes a few small changes to make a big improvement, so get out there, review your site's navigation, and make it easier for your visitors to find what they're looking for.

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