Just as important as the design and layout of your ecommerce solution, are the colours you use on it. Directly affecting the way a consumer interacts and feels towards your website, colour choices will impact the subconscious mind and influence customer experience. Similar to imagery, colours are a way of communicating a certain feeling or emotion without physically expressing it. Called colour psychology, the study of colours is shown to be directly affected by social conditioning and colour association. For example, the majority of the UK will associate the colour red with actions. Used on most warning and stop signs, the red expresses imminent danger and a call for attention.
Choosing The Right Colour For Your Website
As colours can dramatically affect temperament and experience, it is important to use the right colours throughout your ecommerce solutions. In order to choose the correct colour, you must first understand the different emotions that are evoked. Whilst there are variations in interpretations internationally, as a general guideline, colours in the UK and U.S mean:
- Red attention, stop, excitement, anger, love
- Yellow Happiness, enthusiasm, wealth, adventure
- Green Balance, health, envy, harmony
- Blue Honesty, corporate, masculinity, reliability, trust
- Pink Compassion, love, romance, gentleness
- Violet/purple Royalty, authority, creativity, mystery
- Brown Organic, natural, comfort, friendliness
- Black Sophistication, intelligence, expensive, grief
- White Innocence, purity, cleanliness, neutral, order, simplicity
- Grey/silver Timelessness, purity, refinement, contemporary
Using Colours To Your Advantage
Whilst colour psychology is not an exact science, it has been proven to affect the response of consumers. By using the impact of different colours to your advantage, you have the potential to target specific customers, and influence them to purchase. Using red as an example, it is possible to catch a customers eye more effectively. Displaying a red error message in your shopping cart will grab their attention and persuade them to continue with their purchase. Often retailers will use colours to influence customers to buy different product lines. Similar to the affect colour has on your brand identity; colour psychology can affect the buying impulse.
- Red often used for sales, it evokes a sense of urgency
- Yellow will grab the consumers attention, often used on call-to-action buttons
- Blue often used by banks, it creates a feeling of trust and security
- Green used to relax the consumer, it is one of the easiest colours for the eye to process
- Orange an aggressive colour, orange is often used call consumers to action e.g. subscribe or buy
- Pink romantic and feminine, it is one of the only colours that is very gender specific.
- Black creates a sense of luxury and power
- Purple calming and smoothing, it is the ideal colour for beauty products
There is a general consensus when it comes to using colours within the retail industry which says, orange, royal blue and black will prompt impulse buyers to purchase; navy and teal will appeal to those on a budget, and pink, rose and sky blue will attract repeat and traditional buyers.
Customisable Ecommerce Solutions and Website Design
If you are looking to create new ecommerce solutions or redesign an existing one, make sure to take colours into consideration. Specialists in designing visually stunning websites that achieve high conversion rates, Store Express can provide you with a comprehensive, brand specific ecommerce solution. Whether you are looking for logo design, full branding or rebranding or a new online presence, our team can help. For more information about Store Express ecommerce solutions, call 0845 050 3500.