How to Use the Power of Colours to Boost Your Ecommerce Website

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A variety of things cumulate to make an ecommerce site attractive enough to draw in customers and make them shop. But one factor many ecommerce owners tend to ignore is the power of their website’s colour scheme.

How colours are used on your ecommerce website go a long way in convincing visitors to do exactly what you want on the website. The wrong selection of colours can lead to your website being regarded as off-putting or simply boring, while the right combination of colours can make your website the belle of the ball among competing e-retailers. According to Brendan Wilde of Umbrellar, what makes a website worth shopping on goes beyond its loading speed, security, or offerings. The website's aesthetics also plays a big part.

Since your competitors are likely already figuring out ways to use colours to their advantage, you also need to learn how to win over more customers and make your online store first choice with the power of colours.

Applying different colour schemes to improve your website

Before you decide on a colour scheme for your website, you need to first determine who your target market is and understand them. This is because what works for a particular group of shoppers will likely not work for a dissimilar one. For instance, what colour scheme works for women will likely not work for men.

Below are some colour scheme ideas and how certain shopping groups respond to them

1. Women like blue, purple, and green.

Women are big fans of purple, green, and blue, and tests have shown them to respond well to these colours when shopping. Thus, if your ecommerce website's goal is to satisfy the needs of those of the female gender, it's important to include these three colours into the colour scheme of your website.

On the other hand, women don't respond well to earthy colour tones. Thus, if you want your targeted female audience to be engaged by your ecommerce website, be sure to avoid the use of colours like orange, grey, and brown.

You might be wondering why the colour pink hasn't yet been mentioned since women are stereo typically associated with pink.

Well, while pink may suggest femininity in colour psychology, studies have shown that most women don’t like pink that much. In fact, only a tiny percentage of women choose pink as their favourite colour or respond to it as well as they to blue, purple, and green.

2. Men like blue, green, and black.

While men and women are often considered as polar opposites when it comes to personality, how much we have in common might actually surprise you. For example, men like blue and green just as much as women do. But the difference emerges at purple. Instead of purple, men prefer black. Women actually also like black but not as much as men do. If you’re marketing to men, blue, green, and black should feature predominantly on your website.

Another similarity males and females share is their aversion for the colours orange and brown. These colours as well as purple should be used minimally or not at all on your ecommerce site targeted at male consumers.

3. Black creates a sense of value and luxury.

Black is the colour of sophistication and suave. The darker and richer a colour tone is, the more it inspires perceptions of luxury. This is why you often see black being predominantly used on ecommerce sites that specialise in luxury high-end items. If you would like your website to communicate glamour and exclusivity, black is a great choice. Also, this colour can be used regardless if your target audience is male, female, old, or young.

4. Bright primary colours draw attention.

Bright colours such as red, orange, yellow, and green are very good at catching the eye. Because these colours are regarded as high-converting colours, they are best used for call to action buttons.

Colours like grey, brown, and purple are more mellow and thus don’t steal the scene as much as the brighter ones listed above. If you want the call to action buttons on your website to be impossible to ignore concentrate the use of red, orange, and/or yellow in them for high conversion results.

While it's true that male and female customers don't respond well to websites dominated by orange and yellow, these colours have proven very effective when used in specific portions of a website to draw the attention of shoppers to actions you would like them to take.

5. Blue inspires trust.

As earlier mentioned, almost everyone likes the colour blue. So much so that the colour blue is regarded as a colour that actually inspires trust in the mind of those who see it on a brand. Evidence of this can be seen in how a majority of banks and other financial institutions all across the world use the colour blue in their logos and brand name. Going by the findings of the research community, if you use blue predominantly on your website, it will psychologically influence your shoppers by inspiring in them feelings of trustworthiness and serenity. This is especially so if you use blue on your landing pages.

But keep in mind that if your ecommerce website is about food or generally about edibles, blue is not a good option. It might be welcome anywhere else but when it comes to food, blue repulses more than attracts.

6. Green is great for outdoor products.

This might seem obvious considering that the thought of green immediately evokes in the mind thoughts of thriving plant life and cleanliness. If your website focuses on the marketing of products that have to do with the outdoors, shades of green is a good choice.

But green isn't only effective for websites selling outdoor products. Websites that are also focused on environmental awareness or selling eco-friendly products can also make use of the colour green. So if your website as to do with organic products or keeping our planet healthy, go green.

In conclusion

With the right application of colours on your ecommerce website, you can enhance the aesthetic value of your platform and motivate your target audience to react the way you would like them to. But remember that in order to pick the colour that best stimulates your customers, you need to first identify who your customers are. This is the only way to avoid selecting the right colours for the wrong audience.