Ecommerce is an ever-growing industry that is convenient for both seller and buyer. Shoppers can buy products without leaving the house, while merchants can manage a website rather than an entire store. But when developing your online store, you should approach its design the same way you would a physical store, and think about what your customers will want to see. Excessive clutter and confusing navigation will turn visitors away; quality product photos and a clean layout will draw them in. The success of your ecommerce site relies on the functionality of the store, as well as an attractive and professional look.

This is a collection of twenty ecommerce websites that are especially appealing in the way of aesthetic design. While different in the way that they reflect their own unique brands, they share certain characteristics – subtle background textures and colors, attractive typography, creative layouts, white space and quality imagery – all resulting in beautiful, minimalistic designs.

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01. Shoe Guru

02. The Few Gallery

03. My Own Bike

04. Tatchies

05. Noon Style

06. Spyder

07. Hunter’s Wine Shop

08. Hard Graft

09. Soho Fixed

10. Habitat Footwear

11. Von Dutch

12. Wire & Twine

13. Storyville Coffee

14. Famous 4th Street Cookie

15. Converse

16. Winestore

17. Tinkering Monkey

18. Blik

19. Narwhal Co.

20. Inkefx

If you notice the trends throughout this assortment, you’ll see that dramatic imagery often speaks for itself, without any need for overly flashy design elements. Large numbers of products are sorted without cluttering landing pages, and unobtrusive backgrounds emphasize products. High quality product photos give users strong visual impressions in place of a tangible experience. Minimal is effective when it comes to web design, especially ecommerce. Any online shopper would likely be pleased to enter any of these sites, and be tempted to look through them further.

You may also notice certain elements that make these sites function as stores: search bars, shopping cart icons, calls-to-action and payment systems. Functionality is the other half of ecommerce design. Without good usability, your store will suffer from bad user experience. If you’re less crafty with backend design than with visual creativity, there are ecommerce services that quickly implement these necessary items for you.

Take these examples as inspiration for your own clean and minimalistic ecommerce design, and you’ll be on the road to success!