The ways the aesthetics of an e-commerce website influence a customer’s purchase decision

Abstract: More and more people choose to shop online in favor of physical stores. E-commerce websites are facing several challenges today including conversion rates and customers leaving the online shopping cart without making any purchases.  This thesis looks closer into how the aesthetics of an e-commerce website can lead to purchases and fewer abandoned carts. The goal is to answer how web aesthetics can influence customers’ desire to complete a purchase.  To answer the research questions a literature review has been carried out together with an empirical study. For the empirical study, three different designs were created, with one adhering to design principles and other two were not. Then, we conducted interviews to collect participant’s opinions about three designs and influence of their purchase decision.  The result showed that the aesthetically pleasing design was most liked by the par- ticipants. When comparing the three designs, 92% of participants preferred to buy from the good-looking design.  Through our research, we conclude that website’s aesthetics plays a significant role besides pricing and supply, that leads a customer to not abandon the purchase. In conclusion, customers value web aesthetics as it does influences their decisions. It can be argued that dislike of website design poses a risk that they leave the website without making any purchases.