Smashing Magazine

Despite any financial recession and economic stress, online purchasing continues to grow. Expansion of the market and evolving technology that simplifies our daily lives help to set the pace of e-commerce design. Customers want the shopping process to be quick and easy, and merchants want to increase sales by making their stores attractive and popular. Thus, e-commerce design tends to combine a look and usability that is at once unique and eye-catching. In this post, we showcase 35 attractive online store designs.

One of the trends we observed from this collection is a minimalist design style. Small details and accents (e.g. unobtrusive background patterns, icons, pictograms and typography) reflect a brand’s spirit and match the character of its products. Some websites, though, are unconventional, rich in visual effects. Please note that the selection of stores featured in this showcase was based more on design aesthetics than usability. But we made sure that the websites included here provide at least an easy shopping experience, even for foreign visitors.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #2 is Successful Freelancing for Web Designers, 260 pages for just $9,90.]

Showcase of Beautiful Online Store Designs

Blik
Blik manufactures whimsical removable graphics to spice up the walls of your home. Even though the “About” info gets a bit lost in the large product preview in the center, getting an idea of what Blik is all about doesn’t take longer than a couple of seconds. Aside from the stylish look, the easy shopping experience is what makes this design exquisite: all products are categorized by tags, the thumbnails are big, product descriptions are detailed and supported by decal outlines, and quick tips are placed here and there for maximum assurance. Vintage-looking faded colors and rotating logo add considerably to the elegance.

Fred Perry
Fred Perry’s e-commerce store has a contemporary and elegant look, conveying key features of the brand very well. The stylish grayscale color scheme, along with sparse text in Helvetica font, make an impact. The design naturally combines Flash and JavaScript. The mini-cart window, the readable layout of the shopping cart and checkout pages, the usable navigation and informative product descriptions all up to a slick and friendly shopping experience.

Nectar
The website for clothing and accessories boutique Nectar was designed by Sunrise Design studio. The website’s structure allows you to browse goods and make purchases with ease. A muted palette and slipshod watercolor strokes in the background give the layout a positive feel. By the way, if you visit the designers’ portfolio page, you’ll see that painted styles must be their passion.

Tommy Hilfiger
Another giant brand: Tommy Hilfiger. This design relies on simplicity, a comfortable shopping experience and its corporate identity.

Seibei
Now, that’s a design you will not forget! The site has a very simple, even minimal navigation combined with a striking “cartoonish” design. Product pages are clean and straightforward. Nice and unique design solution.

Bellyshades
The design of German club-wear and accessories store Bellyshades stands out for sure. The vibrant acid colors, insane typography and animals that stand in for shopping carts will leave you anything but cold.

Ten Little Monkeys
This design has a very strong visual appeal; vibrant colors work well on the dark background, the navigation is colorful yet intuitive (notice how the section for girls and boys are distinguished). Also, the choice of typography is appropriate for the shop’s main objective: selling branded children’s fashion and gifts.

DogCollars.ca
Here’s another beautiful e-commerce website: DogCollars.ca. It’s a simple HTML website with a neat grid-based layout, a warm chocolate color and big high-quality thumbnails. The design is minimalist but not plain, and it delivers a satisfying shopping experience.

’47
Premium sports apparel brand ’47 has an interesting history: “This is a classic story. It’s the American dream come to life…” Thus, the company emphasizes the individuality of its brand in its store design and associates that brand with a community. The website combines jQuery and Flash, which slows the loading speed, but given its objective, this is not critical. Creative visualization and a well-implemented shopping mechanism make for a wonderful e-commerce design.

Storyville Coffee Company
Creating an e-commerce Flash platform, let alone a good one, is challenging. In addition to the Converse store profiled above, our showcase includes another fully Flash-based online store: Storyville Coffee Company. This one sports a pleasant coffee theme (appropriately enough), an original table-like product viewing area and an easy shopping process.

Narwhal Co.
Accessories made from recycled ties? Yes! Narwhal Co. produces original jazzy merchandise from recycled ties, including wallets, wrist wear, covers and cases.  The tie theme in the website’s header and footer, the stylish icons and the inventive product slideshow on the main page give this design a special flavor.

The Famous 4th Street Cookie
Beautiful typography and high-quality images make this a tasty design.

Via Snella
The website of Swedish male fashion brand Via Snella is clean both in design and usability. The store itself is not very big, so the product gallery is not cluttered with the superfluous navigation bars, announcements and slideshows that are typical of large comprehensive online stores. Instead, the background of the fancy product thumbnail grid is made up of a classic black and white scheme, along with austere typography and plenty of white space.

Twelve South
Twelve South creates accessories exclusively for Apple computers. No wonder Apple’s style can be felt both visually and in the functionality, which is a compliment enough to Twelve South’s store design.

Godiva
High-quality food photography against a light minimalist background is quite effective for Godiva Chocolatier’s store design. Seeing those yummies on the main page is all it takes to hook you. Tons of products are available here, but the sophisticated navigation system and clean layout make shopping a comfortable experience. The shopping cart and checkout pages adhere to principal usability standards.

Marc Hansen’s Comic Book
An original, striking and beautiful design that perfectly sets the atmosphere and communicate the style of the designer and his main product – a comic book.

Vanilla Vanity
Now, that’s a weird web design. The products offered in the shop are just as weird, by the way. An original, unique design which deserves a spot in this showcase.

Atom Bicycles
A very simple, clean and stylish design with unusual navigation and good-looking product pages.

Converse
One would expect a great design from top-class brand Converse. Our expectations are met. Despite being entirely Flash-based, Converse’s online store is quick to load and easy to navigate. We see no heavy graphics or fancy Flash transitions here. Converse’s brand is communicated well by means of simple effects, including concrete and jeans textures, hand-drawn product selection frames and grungy graphics. The buying process is similar to the famous sneakers themselves: comfortable and painless.

Steve & Co.
Aside from its refined and clean appearance, the website for leather accessories store Steve & Co. is remarkably usable. For instance, the whole shopping process requires little jumping around: you can browse and preview products, add them to the cart and review purchases without reloading the page.

iWorkwear.nl
This design has plenty of white space, making the black and yellow scheme especially appealing. There is no visual appeal, but the site works very nicely and it is very user-friendly. Even if you don’t speak Dutch, getting your bearings on iWorkwear.nl is easy because of the intuitive placement and highlighting of elements. A transparent table of brands sold in the right sidebar helps us easily find clothing without having to use the main navigation panel, which is in Dutch.

Sony Style USA
Sony Style USA is a pearl in our collection. It would be hard to find a more comprehensive, sophisticated and seamlessly designed e-commerce website. If you are looking to buy a laptop, you can read exhaustive product overviews, compare and browse reviews of similar products and even configure the computer you’ve selected, all without leaving the website. Even with the variety of products, the store is well organized and easy to navigate. The dark and light colors, along with the Flash and jQuery, perfectly fit this online store.

Abel & Cole
The spirit of a small, environmentally friendly neighborhood grocery store is well reflected in this design by means of charming sketches and hand-drawn typography.

Hollister Co.
Hollister Co. sells Southern California-inspired casual wear. The store has a cool vintage style. Products are displayed horizontally; hover over an item to see its price and available colors without leaving the page. How usable! Warm sand colors and sepia-toned beach photos reflect the “SoCal” spirit of the brand. And we sure like those “Dudes” and “Bettys” categories!

Gargyle
Gargyle online warehouse website is simple yet cute. Blue dotted lines and lovely icons wonderfully reflect the old country-club lifestyle that Gargyle that aspires to.

Giraffe
A colorful design for young families and children. The design perfectly sets the atmosphere for the shopping experience. Notice how well PayPal-payment is communicated.

farfetch.com
Well-known fashion boutique farfetch.com has an elegant black-and-white design. Nothing gets in the way of a pleasing shopping experience here. The auto-detection of your location and currency are stylish features.

Winestore
Everything here is about elegance, style and creativity. Vibrant pink against a white background makes for a vivid yet clean website. Beautiful typography and the “bar code” header complement the company’s image well. Pictograms with information about the wines’ color, body and flavor are a smart addition.

Ork Posters!
This one will interest all those who love typography, print design and data visualization. Ork Posters is the brainchild of Jenny Beorkrem, whose original typographic neighborhood posters quickly became a success. The online store is nothing short of a manifesto of typography love.

laPatate
Belgian t-shirt store laPatate has a creative and funny design (the men’s tee samples enjoy the lion’s share of laughs). The website is available in French only, but clear cart icons and a standard check-out page make for an intuitive shopping environment.

Snupped
Snupped is a nice dark-themed store that sells laptop sleeves. You can buy pre-made sleeves or build your own design, configuring the size and choosing from a number of funky patterns. The products are not tagged or grouped into categories, but this is hardly an oversight given the store’s small size.

Cellarthief
Cellarthief is a beautiful online wine store that sells only three wines at a time. The Apple.com-inspired content blocks against the real-looking wood background shows how the classic spirit of the wine industry is fused with modern design values.

Harry Winston
A lot of glamour, shine and luxury is in this one. Harry Winston’s jewelry store features an amazing design with images that mix typography and jewelry.

Olive & Myrtle
Olive & Myrtle produces beautiful sustainably developed goodies. A clear layout, soft natural colors and subtle typography make this website look modern and eco-friendly.

Hokey Croquis

CuCuu
CuCuu is a charming little store that sells bags and accessories made from recycled materials. The design is minimalist and the shopping experience simple.

Teez
Rules and standards are made to be broken from time to time. You don’t have to speak Russian to tell that the design of Ukrainian t-shirt store Teez is far from ordinary. A chaotic mash of text and images is obviously a new trend in Web design. Despite all of this, the shop looks and feels pretty darn awesome. Take a minute to explore the website and you’ll see how easy it is to shop there. Off-the-chart creativity!

Kinki Micks
This small store sells exclusive car wheels and vintage riding accessories. The design has a simple retro style that perfectly fits the company’s profile.

Red Is White
Red Is White’s design is bright, and the shopping process is pretty solid (the power of inspirational Web design in practice!). A carefully arranged grid, unobtrusive colors and a smooth corduroy-looking texture make the website visually eye-catching, yet they do not eclipse the products. The way the t-shirt thumbnails are displayed is quite handy: just roll over an image of a print to see how it looks on a model.

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