online store design

If you are using a script such as OSCommerce or Zencart, you can purchase premade themes from certain designers.

If you are actually designing one, easy navigation, good looking site never does wrong. Look around your competitors online to see how they do it.

I've never ever been to a website and thought 'this would be more usable if it was 3d'. The only thing 3d is good for is for product demos (like apple use extensively on their website)

It's very hard to convey any useful information in three dimensions, and the internet is all about providing information. Personally, I don't see web pages becoming totally 3D any time soon.

Maybe it's telling that signs on roads, menus in restaurants, TV listings and newspapers are effectively giving 2D information . . . maybe this suggests it is the way to go lol

Could you imagine how hard it would be to make sense of road signs if the 'icon' was three dimensional? - 2D is definately better to convey information quickly and easily. I think 3D takes the human brain far too long to process, especially if you (or it) are moving at the same time!

I would agree with void, make the site as user friendly as possible, depending on what you are selling, you will find most e-shoppers have already done thier homework on the product already, 3D solutions is great but I think its a bit of a overkill in my opinion unless your product is unique.

All that matters is the process of selling. If you design an e-commerce site thats easy to navigate in then you've done the first important step. Most problems with e-commerce sites are the way the shopping cart works. What matters is how easily a buyer can check out. Once you get the basic framework to work flawlessly then your on your way.

But that doesn't stop there. You have a great site, but without promotion you'll never get to sell your stuff. The biggest step would be getting the word out. Getting them to at the very least browse your products, and finally sell it to them, and deliver the goods. If they get the best experience the first time, they won't hesitate to come back or even recommend you to others...

From my experience, the kind of people that buy sewing machines (mostly older folk) aren't usually very net savvy, so the site needs to be really REALLY easy to use. Don't make any assumptions about the user's capabilities and don't bother with silly unnecessary things like signing up for accounts - it should be a case of find the product, go to checkout, enter delivery details, pay, finished.

Unless you sell accessories like needles and thread etc, I don't even think that a shopping cart would be neccessary, just select the product and go straight to checkout (what's the likelyhood that someone will buy more than one sewing machine in a single session?)

Also (and I'm sorry to make generalisations about old folk here) you can be pretty sure that thier eyesight won't be that great - so go for larger font sizes and nice big pictures by default and allow users to enlarge the pictures as well.

I will agree with Andy on the shopping cart exclusion but I would also say that if you are selling sewing machines you can also provide the different kinds of accessories which are used by anyone who uses a sewing machine. You can make your site a single-stop e-shop for the customers looking for the particular items related to sewing machines.

Comparisons between different brands should be shown in terms of their usage, quality, price, warranty and things like that so that the customers have a clearer picture of what they are buying without any doubts in their minds which will also help you in winning the trust of the prospective buyer.

Anything different with a new concept and idea will definitely get buyer’s attention, that will be the thing which will make your site stand apart from others. Also the content which you‘ll be providing for the visitors will make your site SE friendly and the user would want to visit the site again if they find anything informative and interesting.

Good content with usable advice is always a plus. At the least, visitors who like the articles may bookmark the site, making it likely they'll revisit in the future.