The most recent web design project to hit the Five starting line-up is for the Minnesota Twin’s own Joe Mauer and his Quickswing baseball training product.  This e-commerce website sells the signature Joe Mauer baseball hitting aid and other batting tools to develop an All-Star swing.

A Focus On E-commerce Fundamentals
Mauer’s Quickswing has been selling their baseball training products online for years, but their former e-commerce site had holes in it.  We took the Joe Mauer approach and focused on the fundamentals:

• An engaging, unique and clean custom web design
• Clear navigation, content and links to view and buy products
• Well structured and simplified product detail pages
• Search engine friendly build-out leveraging SEO best practices
• Easy e-commerce check out steps
• Flexible and easy back-end management for the client (SMC)
• Secure shopping with SSL & Merchant account services

We’re pleased with the overall outcome of the website and look forward to driving an increase in sales online for the Quickswing.  We’re not mad about having the Mauer team in our dugout of great clients either.

Check out the website: http://www.mauersquickswing.com

Our latest e-commerce web design projects come in a 2-pack and cater to the snow loving crowd. MotosportsGearUSA.com and SledGearUSA.com feature snowmobile clothing, gear and accessories for the snow and machine enthusiast.

MotorSportsGearUSA.com

The Motorsports USA Gear site is the flagship of this e-commerce network of sites.  The initial release of the site only lists snowmobile gear for sale, but will eventually offer ATV, Motocross and more.

Brand Focused Websites
The other aspect to this site is that we are producing product line focused websites.  The first one we produced is focused on Klim snowmobile clothing and gear.  The main site will feed product information to each of the brand focused websites.

E-commerce Website Features
These e-commerce sites feature the following:

• Custom e-commerce design (we also made the site easy to re-skin for the brand focused websites to follow)
• Product catalog & shopping cart
• Multiple navigation locations for category, brand & search
• Product preview & product detail pages
• HTML sitemap & product sitemap
• On-page SEO
• Product options & product codes
• Authorize.Net merchant account

We’re excited to release these new e-commerce web designs and make winter a little more fun.

• View http://www.motorsportsgearusa.com
• View http://www.sledgearusa.com

There is no doubt that e-commerce websites have their own set of rules.  The fact there is one defined goal for the website, to make a sale, adds a stronger focus to the website.

If you are considering launching an e-commerce website or about to redesign your website, keep these e-commerce web design tips handy.

1.  Keep It Simple
You have a simple goal and that’s to sell.  Make sure your navigation is easy to use and make multiple paths to your “add to cart” pages.  Simple and redundant navigation is the best thing any website can do.  We try to create as many, easy to use funnels to get to product info and purchase.  These navigation items should be your main navigation bar, internal links in content, bread crumb navigation, a product search and site map at minimum. Yes, all of those are basics to a good site.

2. Seeing Is Believing
Most e-commerce purchases are visual.  If you are selling any product that a user needs to have visual trust in, do what you can to have the best photos or graphics of that product.  Many sites loose customers because of poor photos of their product for sale. Some of the things you can do to stand out and ear trust are have photos with enlarge options, alternate shots of different angles and zoomed in photos of product detail elements.  Don’t let your photos kill the sale, let them win it.

3. Answer The Details
Organizing  and displaying the details of your product are a must.  Having “answers” on your product detail pages that clarify measurements, specifications, materials, uses, options and more will get you more sales.  When users can’t find that one last detail to make a purchase, they’ll jump to find another site that answers their need.

These 3 e-commerce web design tips are just the start to a succesful website selling online.  If you can be the best resource by having an easy to use website, with better product photos and endless details … you’ll find yourself with the sales you desire.

The holidays, no matter what the economy is doing still represents a time of gift giving. While the money spent may be less, the act of buying gifts on e-commerce websites and giving them will still take place.

If your business is getting ready to send out your holiday targeted email marketing campaign, consider these 3 tips for a successful email campaign. They are basic, but often overlooked.

1. Keep It Simple. If you feature specific products, make sure you do a small amount. Blasting out and email with 20 products will cause them all to loose focus with your recipient. Make sure your product feature links right to the page to buy it, not just your home page!

2. Give Ideas. Most people struggle to figure out the perfect gifts for the people on their list. If you can point out how an item is perfect for a mom who likes to travel, or a friend who is into sports, you have made their shopping easier. The power of suggestion!

3. Outline The Deadlines. Make sure that your email states when visitors/shoppers can order and still receive their items on time. Seems simple, but it’s often over looked.

Make sure these 3 easy tips are covered for your email marketing campaign this holiday season and you’ll find success converting recipients into buyers. The feedback from some of our clients on their holiday email campaigns this past week has been very favorable.

Those looking for all natural lamb meat and cuts can find great lamb packages on RanchlineAllNatural.com . Ranchline All Natural wanted an e-commerce website that not only offered the premium lamb meat from the Felix River area of New Mexico, but they wanted to offer their website visitors great lamb recipes, grilling tips and wine pairings.

You can see the web design is clean and easy to navigate around.  Many e-commerce web designs can make shopping and checking out a difficult task, so usability is always important when Five builds an e-commerce website.  The lamb product pages offer large and professional photos and specific details on the lamb cuts included in the packages.

This e-commerce website is built on our SMC content management tool that allows Ranchline to easily manage their product line, pricing, shipping options. As a reseller for Authorize.Net, we integrated their merchant account into the SMC’s checkout to automate the process for Ranchline All Natural.  The SMC also allowed us to create the site with SEO friendly URL’s and SEO friendly product pages.

Naturally, it turned out to be a fantastic web design project for us. Check it out!