- Design & UX
eCommerce Web Design Built Around the Decision to Buy
User research, information architecture, wireframes, a design system and accessible templates for online stores — designed by the team that then has to market the store and defend its conversion rate. We are an eCommerce web design agency that measures the work, not a studio that presents it.
- Research before layout: your own session data, search queries and funnel drops
- A design system handed over as components your developers can actually build
- WCAG 2.2 AA as a build standard, not an audit you fail after launch
Research
Before a single layout
WCAG 2.2
AA as the build standard
Components
Handed over, not screenshots
Mobile first
Designed on the handset, not the monitor
- The Problem
Why eCommerce stores get redesigned and convert no better
Eight reasons a redesign fails to move the number. Almost none of them is a taste problem, which is the difference between an eCommerce design agency and a studio that delivers a beautiful homepage and no category template.
It started with the homepage
The page that gets the design budget is the page that carries the least revenue. Category and product templates are where buying decisions happen and where the work usually is not.
No research went into it
A redesign based on internal preference and a competitor screenshot. Nobody looked at the session recordings, the on-site search queries or where the funnel actually drops.
Designed on a desktop monitor
Signed off at 1440px by people on fast connections, then shipped to an audience that is three-quarters mobile on mid-range handsets.
Delivered as pictures, not components
Flat mockups of twelve screens, handed to developers who then invent the other two hundred states the catalogue actually needs.
Accessibility came up after launch
Contrast, focus states, target sizes and keyboard order treated as a remediation project rather than a design constraint. It costs several times more to retrofit.
Nobody designed the empty and error states
Out of stock, no search results, a declined card, a slow image. The states nobody mocked up are the ones that lose the order.
It is unmaintainable by marketers
A design that needs a developer for every landing page means the team stops shipping, and the site slowly diverges from the system it was designed around.
No baseline was measured first
Without before-and-after numbers per template and per device, nobody can say whether the redesign helped, and the next one will be argued on taste too.
- What We Do
Our eCommerce web design services
Eight services covering the experience layer of an online store. Scope what you need from the audit rather than from a package — most engagements are a template programme plus a design system, not a full rebuild.
UX Research & Funnel Review
Session recordings, heatmaps, on-site search queries and funnel drops read per device, before any layout exists.
Information Architecture
Navigation, category hierarchy, filtering and on-site search structured around how your customers actually search rather than how the catalogue is organised internally.
Wireframes & Prototypes
Low-fidelity structure agreed before visual design, then clickable prototypes tested on real handsets.
Template & Page Design
Category, product, basket, checkout, search and account templates — including the empty, loading and error states.
Design Systems
Tokens, components and documented states, handed over as something your developers build from and your marketers can extend.
Accessibility Design
Contrast, focus states, target sizes, keyboard order and screen-reader semantics designed in to WCAG 2.2 AA rather than remediated afterwards.
Replatform & Redesign Design
The design half of a migration, mapped template by template so nothing that currently converts quietly disappears in the move.
Landing Page Design
Campaign and paid-media landing pages built from the system, so marketers can ship them without a developer.
Design sits between three things rather than replacing any of them. eCommerce development builds what we design; conversion optimization tests it once it is live and tells us what to change; creative and content produces the imagery, video and copy that fill it. If you only need one of the four, the audit will say which.
- Coverage
The templates that actually decide the sale
A store is a small number of templates producing thousands of URLs, so design work is template work. These four carry almost all of the revenue, and they are ranked here in the order we normally take them — which is rarely the order a brand expects.
01
Category & listing
- Filtering and sort that works on a phone
- In-stock products in the first row
- Orienting copy above the grid
- Buying guidance below it
02
Product page
- Price, delivery date and stock above the fold
- Imagery that answers scale and fit
- Specifications and objections, not a blurb
- Variant selection that cannot be misread
03
Basket & checkout
- Delivery cost and date shown before the final step
- Guest checkout with equal visual weight
- Every field you do not use, removed
- Error and decline states designed, not inherited
04
Search & account
- On-site search results that handle no-result queries
- Order tracking without a support ticket
- Returns initiated in the account area
- Reorder from history in two taps
Designed per breakpoint
Mobile
Designed first, on a mid-range handset
Tablet
Where most grids quietly break
Desktop
More room, not a different experience
Dark mode
Handled in tokens, not retrofitted
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA across every state
Performance
Image and layout budgets set in design
Localisation
Room for longer strings and RTL
- Deliverables
What you get as an eCommerce UX agency engagement
Twelve deliverables. Everything here is handed over in a form your team can use without us — editable files, documented components and written rationale. An eCommerce UX agency that gives you a PDF of screenshots has handed over a document, not a system.
UX research findings
Funnel analysis per device
Information architecture map
Wireframes
Clickable prototype
Category template design
Product template design
Basket & checkout design
Design system & components
Accessibility annotations
Landing page kit
Developer handover pack
Not every engagement needs all twelve. A template programme on an existing store is usually five or six of these; a replatform design is most of them.
- The Process
Our eCommerce design process
Six stages. Stage one is measurement, and stage six is measurement again — without both, a redesign is an opinion with a budget.
01
Baseline
Conversion rate, revenue per session and funnel drop-off recorded per template and per device before anything changes. This is the number the redesign will be judged against, agreed in writing first.
02
Research
Session recordings, heatmaps, on-site search queries including the ones returning nothing, support tickets, and a usability pass on your current templates on real handsets.
03
Structure
Information architecture, navigation and wireframes agreed before any visual design exists, because arguing about layout and colour at the same time is how both decisions get made badly.
04
Design
Templates designed mobile-first, every state included, against a design system rather than as one-off screens. Accessibility and image-weight budgets applied as we go.
05
Handover
Components, tokens and documented states handed to whoever builds it, with annotations for behaviour that a static file cannot show. Our development team can take it, or yours can.
06
Measure & iterate
The baseline re-measured per template after launch, then conversion testing on what the data says to question. A redesign that is never measured cannot be defended or repeated.
- Accountability
How we judge whether the design worked
This is where we differ from a conventional design studio. A redesign is a change to a revenue-generating asset, so it is measured down the same funnel your media buyer reports on, per template and per device.
What we design against
- Information architecture
- Filtering and on-site search
- Above-the-fold hierarchy
- Variant and stock clarity
- Delivery and returns messaging
- Empty, loading and error states
- Target sizes and focus order
- Contrast and type scale
- Image weight budgets
- Component reuse across templates
What we measure, per template
Conversion rate
Per template and per device, against the baseline agreed before we started.
Revenue per session
Because a conversion rate can be lifted while the business earns less.
Funnel progression
Category to product, product to basket, basket to order. The biggest relative drop is the work.
Core Web Vitals
Design decides most of LCP. A heavier page is a design choice, not just a build one.
Accessibility
Automated and manual checks against WCAG 2.2 AA, including keyboard-only completion of a purchase.
Design work by business need
Conversion Is Flat
Template programme, not a rebuild
Mobile Converts at Half of Desktop
Mobile-first template redesign
Replatforming
Design mapped template by template
Every Page Needs a Developer
Design system & landing page kit
Failed an Accessibility Review
Accessibility design & remediation
Catalogue Has Outgrown the Navigation
Information architecture rework
Brand Refresh Landing on the Store
Design system rollout
Nobody Can Agree on a Redesign
Research and baseline first
- Why Us
Why choose our eCommerce design agency
Eight things that separate this from a studio engagement. The questions worth asking are the same whether you are weighing an eCommerce website design agency, an eCommerce website agency or a freelancer against us: who does the research, what actually gets handed over, and which number is the work judged against.
We Measure the Redesign
A baseline per template and per device agreed in writing before work starts, and re-measured after launch. Most redesigns are never judged, which is why the next one is argued on taste.
Research Before Layout
Your own session recordings, on-site search queries and funnel drops come first. We are not redesigning from a competitor screenshot.
Templates, Not Pages
A store is a handful of templates producing thousands of URLs. We design the templates and their states, not twelve hero screens.
Components, Not Screenshots
Handover is a design system with tokens, components and documented states, so your developers build from it rather than interpreting it.
Accessibility by Default
WCAG 2.2 AA designed in across every state, including keyboard-only completion of a purchase. Retrofitting it after launch costs several times more.
Designed on the Handset
Mobile first on a mid-range phone on mobile data, because that is the audience. Desktop gets more room, not a different experience.
The Team That Markets It
The people designing the store also run its SEO, paid media and conversion testing, so nobody ships a template that cannot be marketed or measured.
You Own the Files
Editable source files, the design system and the written rationale, handed over whether or not we build it and whether or not you stay.
- Our work
Design work in context
Our published case studies include the design and template work inside each engagement rather than separating it out, because on a live store the design, the build and the testing are one programme. The portfolio and the case studies both show the before-and-after figures per engagement.
- FAQs
eCommerce web design FAQs
Eight questions that come up before most design engagements. More on our full FAQ page.
How is this different from your development service?
Design decides what the store should do and how it should behave; development makes it exist. They are usually bought together and they are genuinely different work: one produces research, architecture, templates and a design system, the other produces a working storefront, integrations and a release process. If your problem is that pages are slow or the platform cannot do something, that is development. If the pages work and customers still leave, that is this.
Do we need a full redesign?
Usually not, and we will say so. Most stores we review need three or four templates rebuilt rather than a full redesign — typically category, product and checkout — because those carry the revenue and are where the research points. A full rebuild is the right answer when you are replatforming anyway, when the navigation cannot carry the catalogue any more, or when there is no system and every page is bespoke.
What does eCommerce web design cost?
It depends on how many templates are in scope, whether a design system exists already, and whether research has to be done from scratch. A template programme on an existing store is the smallest piece of work here; a full replatform design is several times that; a design system on its own sits between them. We scope from the audit rather than quoting a package, and our pricing page explains the approach.
How is this different from hiring a design studio?
A studio optimises for the work looking right, and it is usually judged at presentation. We optimise for what the templates do to conversion rate and revenue per session, because the same team runs the store afterwards. In practice that changes three things: research comes before layout, every state gets designed rather than just the happy path, and we agree the number the work will be judged against before we start.
Do you build what you design?
We can, and often do, but it is a separate decision. Our development team works on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce, and taking both halves means nobody argues about whether a handover was complete. If you have an in-house team or an existing agency, we hand over to them and we do not make that awkward — the design system is documented for exactly that case.
What do you hand over?
Editable source files, a design system with tokens and components, documented states for every template including empty, loading and error, accessibility annotations, and the written rationale for the decisions we made. Not a PDF of screenshots. The test we hold ourselves to is whether a developer who has never spoken to us could build it correctly from what we handed over.
Is accessibility really necessary?
Yes, for two reasons. It is a legal requirement in a growing number of markets, and the exposure sits with the retailer rather than the agency. Commercially it also overlaps almost entirely with good design: contrast, target sizes, focus order, clear labels and keyboard operation help every customer on a phone in bright sunlight, not only screen-reader users. We design to WCAG 2.2 AA because retrofitting it later costs several times more than building it in.
How is a redesign measured?
Against the baseline agreed before we start: conversion rate and revenue per session per template and per device, funnel progression between steps, Core Web Vitals, and an accessibility pass. We report the templates that got worse as well as the ones that improved, because a redesign almost never moves everything in one direction and pretending otherwise makes the next decision worse.
Find out which templates are costing you
Get a UX audit. We will walk your category, product and checkout templates on a real handset, read your funnel per device, and tell you which two or three templates are worth redesigning — whether or not you hire us.