Shop Website Design
Websites for independent shops that sell in store, online or both. We design and build custom websites for shops across the UK, from a single high street store to a retailer with several branches, with the product pages, opening hours, click and collect and checkout that turn a search into a sale or a visit.
A Shop Website Has to Sell and Bring People Through the Door
Someone searching for a gift shop in your town, a stockist of a brand they love or a product they want this week is on a phone and close to a decision. They want to know whether you have it, what it costs and when you are open. A shop website that answers those questions in seconds wins the sale or the visit. One that shows a stock photo and a phone number sends them to a marketplace.
That makes a shop website a different design problem from a brochure site. It is a catalogue, a shopfront and a till at once. Products need photographs, descriptions, sizes and stock levels. A checkout has to take payment securely and give customers the delivery, returns and cancellation information the law requires before they buy. And because many people who find you online will still come in, hours, directions and a Google Business Profile that matches the site matter just as much.
DigitalPod is a UK web design studio that has built e-commerce websites as well as sites for trades, professional firms and membership organisations, working with you online from first call to launch. Every shop website is designed from scratch around your products and customers, then hand-coded so it loads quickly on a phone in the street outside. Shop websites start from £2,400, with checkouts quoted on scope and a fixed price agreed before we begin.
What We Build Into a Shop Website
A Checkout Built Around Your Range
An online checkout designed for the way you sell, whether a handful of hero products or a full catalogue, with payments handled by a provider such as Stripe so card details never touch your site.
Click and Collect and Local Delivery
Let customers reserve or pay online and pick up at the counter, or choose local delivery within your area, with confirmation emails telling them when the order is ready and what to bring.
Product Pages That Do the Selling
Clean product pages with room for several photographs, a proper description, sizes, colours and stock status, structured so Google can show your products in Shopping results and shoppers can compare at a glance.
Opening Hours People Can Trust
Your hours on every page, including late nights, Sunday trading and bank holidays, kept in step with your Google Business Profile so nobody drives over to find the shutters down.
Gift Vouchers Sold Online
Digital or printed gift vouchers that customers can buy at midnight on a Sunday and redeem in store or online, with a simple way for you to check them and mark them as used.
Newsletter and Instagram Built In
A newsletter sign-up connected to your email service, your latest Instagram posts on the home page and a new arrivals section, so customers you have already won hear what has just come in.
The Pages a Shop Website Needs
- Home. What you sell, where you are and when you are open, with your best-selling or newest products on the first screen and a clear route to shop online or plan a visit.
- Shop and product categories. A category page for each part of your range, such as homeware, gifts or clothing, so a shopper looking for one thing is not wading through everything else you stock.
- Product pages. One page per product with photographs, a description written for the customer rather than copied from the supplier, the price including VAT, variants, stock status and the delivery estimate.
- Delivery and returns. How much delivery costs, how long it takes, how click and collect works and how to return or cancel an order. Customers read this page before they trust you with a card.
- Opening hours and directions. Address, a map, parking, public transport and opening hours, with photographs of the shop front and interior so a first-time visitor recognises it from the street.
- Our story and brands. Who runs the shop, why it exists and the brands you stock, which matters for "stockist near me" searches and for customers who want to buy from a real person.
- Contact. Phone, email, a short enquiry form for stock questions and special orders, your social channels and the business details UK law requires, plus a privacy policy for the forms.
Not sure how many pages you need? Our guide to what pages a business website should have walks through each one, and every project starts with a page plan agreed before any design work begins.
Trust, Accreditations and Compliance for Shops
Buying from an independent shop online means trusting a business you may never have visited with your card details. Your website has to earn that trust quickly, and for online sales UK consumer law decides a good deal of what it must say:
- Information before the sale. The Consumer Contracts Regulations require online sellers to set out, before the order is placed, who you are, what the goods are, the total price with delivery and how to cancel. We build this into the product pages and checkout.
- The 14-day cancellation right. Most goods bought online can be cancelled within 14 days of delivery for any reason, with exceptions such as personalised or perishable items. Your returns page explains the right, the exceptions and how to use it.
- Faulty goods. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says goods must be as described, of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose, online or at the counter. A returns page that reflects this, rather than a blanket "no refunds" line, reassures careful buyers.
- Prices including VAT. Prices shown to consumers must include VAT, and delivery charges should appear before the last step of checkout rather than as a surprise. We design the basket so the total is never a mystery.
- Secure payments. Card payments are handled by an established provider such as Stripe or PayPal, so card numbers never pass through your website, and the whole site runs over a secure connection.
- Business details and reviews. Your trading name, address, email, company and VAT numbers where registered, a privacy policy for the checkout and forms, and genuine Google or Trustpilot reviews beside photographs of the real shop rather than stock images.
How People Find Shops Online
Shop searches split in two. Local searches such as "gift shop [town]" and "[brand] stockist near me" are made on phones by people who intend to visit, and they are decided by the Google Business Profile listings in the map pack: hours, photos, reviews and whether the website confirms you stock what they want. A site with a page for each part of your range feeds that listing and wins the visit.
Product searches behave differently. Someone typing a product or brand name into Google is comparing prices and delivery across every retailer that stocks it, and the results include Google Shopping listings, which independent shops can appear in by submitting a product feed. Well-built product pages, with the right titles, photographs and stock information, make that possible. They also matter for slower, considered purchases, where a customer reads the description twice before buying.
Marketplaces such as Etsy, Amazon and eBay bring buyers too, but they charge for every sale and keep the customer relationship for themselves. Instagram and a newsletter are where independent shops build the repeat custom that marketplaces cannot. A website of your own ties those together: it is where a follower lands when they tap your profile link, where your newsletter sends people on launch day and where a marketplace buyer comes back to order direct.
Every website we build includes the search engine foundations: page titles written around the searches your customers make, fast loading, mobile-first layouts, a sitemap and a structure that matches your Google Business Profile. Our guide to getting found on Google explains what to do after launch.
Already Have a Website? Signs It Needs Replacing
Plenty of shops have a website that was set up quickly on a builder during lockdown, or a brochure site from years ago that has never sold anything. If the signs below sound familiar, the site is sending customers elsewhere:
- The opening hours on the site, on Google and on the door disagree, and customers have told you so.
- Products are shown as a gallery or a PDF with no prices, so shoppers cannot tell what you stock or what it costs.
- There is no way to buy, reserve or order online, and enquiries about stock come by Instagram message or not at all.
- The site is slow on a phone, the photos are tiny and the design looks nothing like the shop itself.
- You pay a monthly subscription for a template store that looks like a thousand others, and you could not take the site with you if you left.
Our website redesign service replaces dated or underperforming sites while protecting the search rankings you have built up, and the website redesign guide explains how to decide between a refresh and a rebuild. Launching a new shop instead? Start with our startup shops website design page.
What Clients Say
"Matthew was so helpful with the design and development of our new e-commerce website."
"Been working with Matthew at DigitalPod to apply and build upon our existing website. Our business needs to display the artwork and present it really well for our client, DigitalPod have completed every task we have asked of them and more. We have in the past suffered from bad website developers yet Matthew and his company are a total delight to work with and I can Highly recommend him and his company. We have also intrusted them to keep working on our website also to complete SEO projects and look forward to a long business relationship. Thank you very much indeed to DigitalPod."
"I was very impressed with the service provided by digital pod. They took my initial ideas and developed a website for my business that I am really proud of. We have noticed an increase in clients since the launch of the site and the support we have received from them has been exceptional."
Shops Website Design Questions
How much does a shop website cost?
A custom-designed shop website starts from £2,400 for up to around ten pages, which suits a shop that wants to show its range, hours and brands and take orders by click and collect or enquiry. A full online checkout is quoted on scope and usually means the website with admin dashboard package from £3,900. We agree a fixed price before any work starts.
Do I need a full online shop, or is click and collect enough?
It depends on what you sell and who buys it. A shop with mostly local customers often does better with a catalogue, accurate stock and a reserve-and-collect option than with a checkout competing against national retailers on delivery. If your products travel well and people search for them by name, a checkout opens up the whole country. Either way the site can start with click and collect and add a checkout later.
Can the website connect to my till or stock system?
Often, yes. Many EPOS and stock systems can share product and stock data with a website, so an item sold at the counter shows as out of stock online and an online order is reserved in the shop. Whether it is practical depends on the system you use, so we check that at the quoting stage. Integrations are quoted on scope.
What does a shop legally have to show on its website?
For any business, the trading name and address, and for a company its registered name, number and office. For online sales, the Consumer Contracts Regulations add pre-purchase information, the 14-day cancellation right and delivery and returns terms, prices must include VAT, and a privacy policy covers the data the checkout collects. We build the pages for all of this, and you approve the wording of your own terms. Check anything unusual against the current guidance.
I already sell on a marketplace or a template store. Can you replace it?
Yes. Our website redesign service rebuilds template stores and brochure sites as a site you own, moving your products and images across and redirecting the old addresses so you keep any rankings. If a marketplace still brings you sales, keep it and let the new site do what the marketplace cannot: your own customers, your own prices and a customer list that belongs to you.
More answers in our FAQ. See what a shop website costs on our shops website design prices page, or, if you are just starting out, read about startup websites for shops.
Guides to Planning and Costing Your Website
Other Sectors We Work With
We design websites for established businesses and new ventures across the UK. See how we approach other sectors.
Get a Fixed Quote for Your Shop Website
Tell us about your shop, your customers and what the website needs to do, or book a call with our senior software engineer to talk it through. Everything runs online, wherever in the UK you are based, and we reply personally with a clear, fixed price.