Tips to Plan the Theme Color of your E-commerce Website for Success

Do you know colours play an important role in our lives? 

What? You don’t believe me?

Think of the last time you were in a physical store. Remember the appealing colours of the store that reflected not only the products but also the emotions the store wanted to evoke? That is the effect colours have on us.

Something similar happens with websites. By selecting the right colours, you could not only create an online store but also grow a successful business.

With each passing day, more and more people are shopping online. They love it so much that it has become a part of their daily lives. With time, that click of a button has grown into a real-life experience for the majority of online shoppers.

That’s why choosing the right colours while designing your website has become so important. It has grown much more than just making the design look good and enticing. Having a perfect theme colour for your online store can help-

• Grab the attention of your audience
• Make the visitors of your ecommerce website fall in love with your brand
• Turn prospects into customers
• Make the otherwise dull search process into something fun
• Promotes word of mouth publicity

Whenever some prospect lands on your website, all the different elements on your platform play their role to affect his decision. Primary among them is the choice of your theme colour.

So choose wisely. But, before that, let us understand- 

The Psychology Behind Colours

Understanding the psychology behind colours and how you can use it to your advantage is of utmost importance if you are planning to create an online store. 

Scientific studies conducted over the years have found that different colours evoke different feelings and emotions in us. Plus, as per our mood, these colours can have varied meanings and interpretations. Let us see how our brain reacts to these 12 most common colours.

1. Red- passion, aggressive, boldness
2. Orange- playful, energetic, cheap
3. Yellow- happy, friendly, warning
4. Green- natural, stable, prosperous
5. Blue- serene, trustworthy, inviting
6. Purple- luxurious, mysterious, romantic
7. Pink- feminine, young, innocent
8. Brown- earthy, sturdy, rustic
9. Black- powerful, sophisticated, edgy
10. White- clean, virtuous, healthy
11. Grey- neutral, formal, gloomy
12. Turquoise- spiritual, healing, protection

These colours have given meanings to brands for centuries. The time has come to give your ecommerce website the meaning as well, the one you wish to convey through these colours.

Now that we understand which colours trigger what emotions, let’s move on to-

Choosing colours for your online store

Often times, even with a fair understanding of how the colour psychology works, we fail to choose a good theme colour. 

Sometimes because we are not confident of our colour coordination ability or sometimes simply because of a feeling that we are not a skilled designer anyway.

We at StoreHippo understand that picking colours when you create an online store is a tricky game. The results can vary between a harmonious mix or some scene out of a horror movie!

So, with the help of our experts, we have put together this guide to help you with the colour selection process. Let’s see-

• Choosing the dominant colour for your website

As we already discussed, different colours have different feelings or emotions attached to it. For example, the Coca Cola logo is red in colour because it wants to trigger the feelings of passion, boldness, etc. 

So, if you already have a logo for your ecommerce website, make sure one of the primary colours of your logo is using the dominant colour. Do so while keeping in mind not only the emotions these colours evoke (as already discussed above) but also the colour preferences of both guys and girls.

• Combining colours to create a perfect color scheme

It’s quite boring if you have just one single colour throughout your website.  You need to combine complementary colours to highlight certain attention-worthy parts of your website to make your website look interesting.

We know colour matching and mixing wasn’t in your mind while creating an online store. And to be honest, it actually scares a lot of people because most of us aren’t a PhD in colour theory or even have decent knowledge on how to approach.

Fortunately, there are many tools available in the market to help you out. Okay, a word of clarity here. Many of you might think that these tools need expert help to operate. But once you start learning, you will realise they are a pretty simple tool to use. So, get going!

• Choosing the right background colour

Choosing the correct background colour for your ecommerce website is similar to choosing the wall colour of your house if you ever painted it.

You want the wall colour to make you feel comfortable. You want it to be soothing enough to make you spend hours without being overwhelmed by it. Now, isn’t it something you want for your website as well?

Of course, you do. That’s why we recommend you choose a background colour depending upon what you want your visitors to focus on. Think of the purpose you had when you created an online store and make the choice. 

• Using colours incorrect places like a pro

So, what other places you need to focus on for colours. Let’s see-

• You can start with the background colour of your product images. Here, use the colours that accentuate your catalogue.
• Next thing you can work on is the colour of a button. It is important since it is a turning point in the lead conversion process.
• Lastly, comes the headers. Highlighting the headline of an ecommerce website helps grab attention to the points you want them to focus on.

And while we have finished choosing colours for your online store, let’s move on to-

Researching your products and your competitors

Not only the products that you sell matters but also space within which you operate. 

That’s why it's recommended for you to visit the other online stores in your industry and examine their colour schemes and other visual elements.

Now, we are not suggesting that you steal your competitors' theme colour. But when you create an online store, you should have a clear sense of what’s happening within your industry.

By glancing around, you might come across a particular colour that is used way too much in your industry and you might decide to take an alternate path just to differentiate your product from others.

By knowing what’s out there in the market, you will take action accordingly and not by accident, which brings us to our next trip-

Analyze your audience

This is another crucial step that involves considering people with different colour preferences. In other words how people will respond differently to visual cues on your ecommerce website.

So, if you are targeting a broad demographic, choosing an appropriate colour scheme can be quite tricky. The key factors that play an important role in colour preferences are gender, culture and age.

For example, if you are targeting both male and female, then using only masculine or feminine colour will isolate either one or the other half of your prospect pool. You will get similar results with age and culture.

Here you need to consider the people you will serve when you create an online store. The key here is to define all the demographic factors that represent them and make your decisions based on that.

Last but not least,

Take user experience into account as well

We don’t need to tell you the importance of user experience, you are already well aware of it. But do you know that readability is one aspect of user experience that is most affected by colour?

You can try it yourself for yourself. Just paint yellow text on a white background (or some such distasteful colour combination) on your ecommerce website and see how quickly you scare away your audience.

But you can avoid this mishappening by choosing colours high in contrast. You can use black text on a white background or do experiments on your own. Just make sure they complement each other by checking the contrast value on the colours.

Bonus Tip

The fonts on your website matter too

Fonts are often used in images, logo and other content. The font can not only make or break your image but can also influence how people feel about the message on your ecommerce website. So, choose wisely as different fonts impart different feelings or ideas. Let’s see-

• Serif fonts (Times New Roman, Bodini, Georgia, etc.)- authority, tradition, respect

• Slab Serif fonts (Rockwell, Courier, Museo, etc.)- bold, strong, solid

• Sans Serif fonts (Helvetica, Verdana, Arial, etc.)- is clean, modern, objective

• Script fonts (Lobster, Zapfino, Pacifico, etc.)- feminine, elegant, friendly
• Modern fonts (Infinity, Eurostyle, Majoram, etc.)- fashionable, stylish, intelligent

Think of your fonts this way and you can easily get your message across.

Conclusion

So, it must be evident by now that colours play a pivotal role in a customer’s buying decision and also to maintain his/her brand identity. With the tips given above, I hope you will be able to develop a good colour scheme and branding experience when you create an online store. 

However, to implement these tips you need a flexible ecommerce platform with the customizable theme design. We at StoreHippo offer our clients a rich library of design themes to choose from. These themes can not only be customized but can also be easily changed using the drag and drop feature.

What ‘s more! You can mix and match the various design elements such as the header, footer, etc. and create new themes in no time. And it doesn’t end here, you can even create a variety of layouts and themes out of the old ones (themes) just by mixing, matching, and rearranging the elements.

Check out our themes library to discover a range of beautiful colour themes for your ecommerce website. Pick an existing theme or tweak it to suit your brand’s requirements. Start your 14-day free trial and begin experimenting with colours and themes right away!