B2C Web Design

Best Practices for B2C Web Design

Understand The User’s Buying Habits

There is a distinct difference in our approach to web design for B2C (business-to-consumer) projects compared to our B2B web design (business-to-business) strategy. A key difference is understanding the difference in user behaviour between the two industries.

B2B purchasers are more likely to request additional information and arrange a meeting or phone call before purchasing on behalf of their business.
B2C customers are typically more inclined to make an impulse buy based on a well-designed website or call-to-action (CTA). This impulse buy – more precisely referred to as conversions – happen without ever making contact with the website owner or a salesperson.

User behaviour and buying habits are just two of the many factors we consider in our web design approach for B2C projects.

Web Form Design is Critical to B2C Website Success

General consumers are much more likely to make a B2C purchase through a business’s website, even high-value purchases, without ever speaking to a salesperson. Typically, consumers absorb high-level information from a website through page content and user reviews before making a relatively quick decision about their purchase. In web analytics terms, this is called a conversion – when a user converts from a browser to a customer.

We usually do not have the opportunity to speak with most online consumers directly, so it is imperative that web designers ensure that the B2C website user interface design is clear and inspiring. This design approach includes the call-to-action that drives customers to the appropriate place on the website to convert or offer guidance through the conversion process.

Also, unlike B2B website users, B2C users show less hesitation when asked to hand over their personal information during the checkout process. With this in mind, our best Toronto web designers aim to create friendly and easy-to-use web forms that the B2C business depends on to gather information about their customers.

When designing web forms for B2C websites, we can often prompt customers to share a little extra personal information if we create a confidence-inspiring B2C website design that provides a compelling, smooth user experience.

Web Form Design Best Practices

Webform design requires careful thought and a thorough understanding of the target audience. To maximize conversions within a B2C website design, there are a series of best practices and recommendations we share with our clients:

• Web forms should be as direct and straightforward as possible within B2C website design. B2C users tend to have a shorter attention span than B2B users; you can hold their interest longer with subtle effects if you don’t interrupt the form completion process.
• Whenever possible, combine form fields to make the form faster and easier for customers to complete. Another nifty web form features our Toronto web designers recommend for B2C websites is auto-populating form fields with information from an earlier stage in the conversion process, or even based on geolocation if possible.
• Break longer forms up into multiple stages or even pages to give users a break and renew their focus.
• Use the most common web form labels and conventions to ensure the web form is predictable for the audience and allows the web browser to fill out the form fields from saved data automatically.
• Rather than forcing users to manually enter their personal information, wherever possible, design form fields as lists so that the customer can quickly select the information from a list instead of having to key it in.
• Create a clean B2C web form design that not only allows users to quickly scan but also indicates which fields are required to submit the form.
• Always ensure that your B2C web form design adheres to the latest web browser standards to avoid any functionality issues that may result in user frustration and loss of conversion.

For additional insight into the type of customer B2C business owners are attracting and how to improve their marketing strategy, more business owners are investing in third-party client relationship management tools such as HubSpot or Salesforce to generate and manage their web forms. CRM services are relatively straightforward for a B2C web designer to integrate into a branded website design, ensuring the user experiences a seamless interface and navigational flow. These services also offer automated follow-ups for hiccups in the user experience, such as shopping cart abandonment.

If your web designer is not on board with implementing outside APIs to help improve your B2C website marketing and seamlessly apply your custom web design, you’re falling behind the pack!