E-commerce Web Design in China

QPSoftware, a digital agency founded in 2009 and based in Shanghai, designs e-commerce websites for brands that sell to Chinese shoppers. We gave Montagut, the French clothing brand, a more contemporary and mobile-friendly online store with an updated visual identity. With more than 200 projects delivered, our e-commerce web design in China starts from the phone, local payments and the signs of trust Chinese buyers look for.

What Chinese shoppers expect from an e-commerce website

E-commerce in China is very different, and the strategies used in Europe or the United States do not transfer as they are. Chinese e-commerce design has its own habits, and a China e-commerce website needs a design made for this market.

• The phone comes first. According to CNNIC’s 57th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development, at the end of 2025, 99.6% of internet users in China went online with a mobile phone, 83.2% shopped online and 90.3% used online payment. We design the phone screens first: navigation that works with a thumb, light product pages and a short checkout.
• Payment methods they know. The checkout shows Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay, and our developers integrate Chinese payment methods into the store.
• Signs of trust. Clear delivery and return information, customer service that is easy to reach and, for a store hosted in mainland China, the ICP filing number at the bottom of the home page, as the MIIT filing measures require.
• A brand message adapted to China. For Lucrin Geneva, we adapted the brand’s message to capture the interest and trust of Chinese customers, with a user experience equal in every language.
• Links with WeChat and social networks. For Montagut, we added social login and sharing on WeChat, QQ and Weibo.

How we design your online store, from research to tested prototype

There are two ways to design an e-commerce website. The first follows the norms of the market and what the competition has done: a reliable path, but you can never be sure it is what your users and clients want to see. The second is the Core Model, which matches your business goals with what your users really want to find. It helps you sell through your store and gain the trust and loyalty of your clients. We run it in UX research and Core Model workshops.

1. Research. Your business goals, your users and the markets you target.
2. Structure. The pages your store needs and the job of each one. For the Ma France WeChat Mini Program store, the home page leads to product categories, the product page shows photos, a description, WeChat sharing and similar products, and the cart lets buyers adjust models, sizes and quantities.
3. UI and UX design. Designs for phone and desktop that respect your brand and include what Chinese users want to see.
4. Prototype and tests. A prototype of your store to assess the user interface and the user experience before development, so the result meets your audience’s expectations as well as your own.
5. Development. Our e-commerce developers in Shanghai build the store from the approved designs, sprint after sprint, following our agile methodology.

Your own online store, Tmall, or both?

Many shoppers know Chinese marketplaces such as Tmall, and your brand may already sell there. Designing your own platform to sell your products in China still matters: it builds your own name and brand, sets you apart from other sellers and grows your reputation.

The two work together. The brand website we designed for Erno Laszlo connects directly to its Tmall store, and the Coop Asia store redirects visitors to Tmall. Our team can also connect your store to Chinese platforms.

E-commerce and brand websites we designed

• Erno Laszlo. A brand website for China on WordPress that keeps the brand’s premium look, adapts some features to local consumers and links to the brand’s Tmall store. The brand’s China team called it “simple, elegant, informative”.
• In Vino Libertas. A streamlined Magento store that shows off a wine boutique’s collection of French artisanal wines, for France and Hong Kong, with UX strategy, UI design and on-site SEO. The case study reports a 500% revenue increase within a year.
• Montagut. A mobile-friendly e-commerce website with branded content in the shopping experience, several languages and a mobile loyalty program app.
• Lucrin Geneva. A localized store designed with Chinese consumers in mind, with an updated brand design guide and branded content in the shopping experience.

Further reading on e-commerce design in China

• Web design trends in China: why Chinese websites look different, and which design trends are growing.
• The best options for opening a mobile store in China: WeChat solutions, a mobile app or third-party platforms, and the features a mobile store needs.
• Top 5 practices to boost your Chinese e-commerce: private traffic, omnichannel retail, social commerce, KOC marketing, short video and live streaming.