The e-commerce industry in Pakistan is witnessing a growth surge due to the increased use of the internet, use of inexpensive smartphones, and the ease offered by online shopping. Statista reports, by 2024 Pakistan’s e-commerce marketplace will reportedly reach an astonishing USD 6.3 billion, this makes it a considerable growth area. As a result of this competition, the aesthetics and usability of the online stores become a priority and this is where graphic designers come in.
The graphic designers create a thriving e-commerce environment by designing websites that are visually appealing, structurally intuitive, and incorporate powerful functional elements which can increase customer response. In their case, for the businesses in Pakistan, it is not a matter of choice, it becomes a compulsion for them to engage competent graphic designers to be competitive in the digital economy. This article discusses the role of graphic designers in e-commerce, the tasks they perform, and how their skills can be utilized by companies in Pakistan.
Also Read: The Importance of Hiring a Skilled Designer
The Role of Graphic Designers in E-commerce
The graphic designers are responsible for all the images and visual presentations of e-commerce sites. These include the following:
- Website Layouts and Interfaces
When appropriately placed, a well-structured layout facilitates navigation, making the shopping experience better. Wireframes and prototypes are used by designers to lay out the site’s architecture in such a way that users can effortlessly look for the products and carry out transactions without much difficulty.
- Product Imagery and Graphics
Because online visitors cannot touch or feel the products, the use of images, charts, and other visuals becomes very important. Product images are modified by graphic designers, along with other illustrations, and key moments and promotions to be featured on banners.
- Brand Identity Development
Graphic designers create uniformity within a brand by maintaining the same color patterns, fonts, and logos throughout the website. This ,in turn, provides a clear identity to customers and enhances confidence with the brand.
- Interactive Elements and Animations
Interactive elements such as a hover effect, animations, and ad banners that move encourage users to keep looking for more content around the site.
- Mobile-Responsive Design
Mobile devices make 64% of e-commerce traffic in Pakistan (Hootsuite, 2023) and therefore, it is very important to have a mobile friendly design. Graphic designers adjust and optimize layout settings and spaces to ensure a flawless experience across devices.
How Graphic Designers Help in the Development of E-commerce in Pakistan
- Selling Products by Graphics Designing
Research indicates that 93% of consumers base their making in general on the graphics providing reasons on purchasing. In Pakistan’s cut-throat e-commerce environment, good websites will always be more visible and have a higher conversion rate. Thanks to professional graphic designers, product pages do not only look good but also project a sense of importance and confidence.
- Optimization of User Experience (UX)
A graphic designer possesses significant knowledge on how to design clear and easy-to-use elements of the website. If the website does not function as required the layout will make users angry causing them to abandon their carts thus losing sales. Designers fine-tune the funnel with features such as fast load time, clean website flow, and proper page designs.
- Enhancing Brand Trust
When trust is paramount in an instance, that is where brand identity can create the difference. Graphic designers maintain uniformity in the company profile on the website, in social networks, and advertising the engineering services company. Apart from enhancing recognition, it builds up allegiance among clients.
- Localized Design Elements
Cultural orientation and sensitivities of Pakistani consumers are distinctive in nature. Designers who know the geography touch the right chord by including culturally appropriate graphics themes, bilingual options (Urdu and English), and region-specific visuals to appeal to a broader audience.
- Assisting in Marketing Activities
The major focus of online marketers is on the advertising of their products through social media platforms, emails and utilizing search engine optimization techniques. Graphic designers are responsible for creating and designing eye-catching images and promotional materials for marketing purposes.
Hiring the Right Graphic Designers in Pakistan
To start with, we need to look at the hiring process of graphic designers working in Pakistan and how they operate. There are two ways to go about it. First, you can hire a freelancer, or hire a design agency for your business operations.
- Looking for Graphic Design: Basic Requirements
So if your business is operating in Pakistan, here are some basic skills to look for when hiring a graphic designer.
The primary goal for hiring graphic designers can help a business in terms of revenue while being cost effective. For the employment of graphic designers, the required skill set would include commercial grade proficiency in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch programs. Having an understanding of UI and UX would also be critical for basic requirements of an e-commerce business. This would give a competitive edge over others.
Graphic designers already having experience in previously doing graphic designing for other e-commerce websites would be helpful.
- Hiring a graphic designer – Operating Costs
Average cost of Hiring a Pakistani Graphic Designer:
Cost of a freelance graphic designer who is able to completely show his portfolio in designing starts from around 20,000 PKR, and other e-commerce related duties ends at 80, 000 PKR but with greater experience level in contact graphic designers can charge higher fees.
Benefits for Companies
- Enhanced Conversion Rates
Like many other elements, one can assume that call to action, a product carousel, and banners fall under the category of professional design elements and if engineered aptly, they can improve the conversion rates.
- Higher Search Engine Ranking
Well designed SEO, relevant images and quick websites that are crafted by competent designers, in turn helps improve the search rankings of the website and by extension increases the organic traffic towards it.
- Growth Potential
As more categories and new promotions are rolled out, there is a need for the e-commerce firm to have new design templates that are suited for those promotions or events and a competent graphic designer can make sure that is the case.
- Advantage Over Rivals
In this scenario where the platforms are blatantly similar to many consumers, the only advantage that a consumer can leverage is a better looking website.
Conclusion
Needless to say, there is a critical juncture between graphic designers and e-commerce platforms in Pakistan. Their work ranges from improving customers’ usability to augmenting the sales of the business which they directly facilitate the expansion of the businesses and their profitability. For firms who are positioned in Pakistan and want to penetrate into the growing e-commerce sector, employing competent graphic designers is a reasonable approach which offers considerable benefits in the long run.
The right graphic design personnel make the difference in making e-commerce platforms attractive, useful and successful in this fast-moving technological time. With the changing dynamics of the market, the importance of graphic designers will increase making them one valuable asset of online businesses in Pakistan.
To conclude, graphic designers are vital for the e-commerce landscape in Pakistan. They improve the user experience, increase sales, and strengthen the brand identity, allowing firms to compete in the market as well as attend to the changing needs of online buyers effectively.