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How to Use Minimalism on Your E-commerce Website to Beat Your Competitors

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TransForm Solutions

Minimalist product descriptions, simple titles and clutter-free product pages can all help increase sales on your e-commerce website.

Chances are, your competitors' websites and online stores are more minimalist than yours, giving them an edge. In the context of an e-commerce website, only the most necessary web and content elements should be presented on the front end, while eliminating everything that seems excessive or unnecessary.

Find out if your competitors' product details are more minimalist than yours by implementing e-commerce competitor analysis.

E-commerce competitor analysis can help you find out if your competitors are already using minimalism to present product details on their websites. This insight will help you to get rid of clutter on your own website and outpace your competitors in terms of keeping things simple.

What is minimalism?

Minimalism is a design philosophy that arose as a reaction to the excesses of capitalism and the World Wars during the first half of the 20th century. It became popular during the 1960s in the US.

Today, minimalism is used as a design strategy by savvy e-commerce business owners who not only want to keep things simple, but also make their products sell better.

Use of minimalism improves user experience, and customer satisfaction and reduces costs. In fact, people perceive products on a minimalist website to be more luxurious or premium than when they encounter the same product on a more cluttered website.

Implement minimalism by learning from competitors

E-commerce business owners often wonder how to keep product descriptions simple and images attractive. A quick way to understand what customers don't want is to look at what your competitors are doing to keep their product pages neat and pretty.

Competitor analysis helps you to get a clear picture about how your competitors are presenting products on web pages to increase their sale-worthiness. This can help you to eliminate content and media that are dragging your products' pages down.

Here are a few ways product research helps you to adhere to minimalist ideals:

1. Does your product page look as attractive as others'?

One of the main reasons why people choose to purchase a certain product is because it looks attractive. Whether it is the product's packaging or the website it is featured on, aesthetics and beauty are important decision-making factors for customers.

In the age of e-commerce, how attractive a product appears on a web page also determines whether it will be bought easily. This study shows why keeping products aesthetically attractive are so important for marketing success.

Competitor analysis helps you to objectively look at how your competitor is keeping product description, product page, and product images attractive. You can eliminate everything that is unnecessary and make your product page look simple, clutter-free, and attractive.

2. Does the product description list unwanted features?

Have you ever wondered why no matter how lengthy and creative your product description is, your competitor always seems to outsell your products? Chances are, your competitor is keeping content simple and does not list features that may distract the buyer from checking out.

Manufacturers are surprised to learn that only 7% of features are always used by customers. A whopping 64% of features are rarely or never used.

Focus only on the features that are important to the customers and write simple product descriptions highlighting these important features. Avoid listing or writing about features that may confuse or distract the buyer. Don't write complex product descriptions in flowery language. Keep things simple.

3. Are your competitors offering better products?

Many store owners focus so much on keeping their websites clean and simple that they forget to improve the quality of the products they sell.

At the core of minimalist philosophy is the superior quality of products. If you do not ensure that your products are of the highest quality, you are not really being minimalist.

59% of consumers feel the quality has either already declined continue to decline further in the next five years.


Fight this negative perception by critically evaluating your products and comparing them with your competitors. This sort of competitor analysis helps you to not only improve your e-commerce store, but also the products sold on it.

4. How simple and accessible is your customer support?

If you asked customers which are the most important feature of a given product, they will tell you that it is always the customer support they receive post-purchase. This also includes the actual buying experience and how they were treated by staff or employees during various customer interactions.

Though your products are great, your customers probably prefer a rival brand because they are easily accessible and their queries are resolved without any friction.

Use e-commerce competitor analysis to find out how your own customer service fares against similar e-commerce stores. Seamless communication and prompt resolution of issues and queries are the hallmarks of minimalism. Try outshining your peers by offering simple, honest, and empathetic customer service.

Minimalism helps you do better product research

As you can see, minimalism is probably why your competitors' websites register more traffic and why your sales are dropping even when you try hard. Study your competitors' product pages and try to implement minimalism even if they have not started doing it already.

Minimalism helps your website's aesthetic appeal increase, helping you to project a premium image. It also makes it easier to increase the number of sales and offer excellent customer support. Consequently, you will notice that your customer satisfaction scores increased.

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