A skincare website is harder to design than most stores. The products look alike. The differences are inside the bottle. And the customer is often not sure what they need.

So the design has more to explain than usual. I look after one of these stores, Skin Boutique Online, which sells medical-grade skincare in Canada. The examples below come from that store, because I can tell you why each thing is there.

1. Say what you are in one line

Skincare brands love a soft headline. “Reveal your glow.” “Your skin, renewed.” You could put any of them on any brand.

The first line should say what kind of skincare this is and who it is for. Medical-grade, natural, for sensitive skin, for men, made in a certain place. One of those is the reason someone chooses you. Lead with it.

2. Start with the concern

Most people do not arrive looking for a product name. They arrive with dry skin, dark spots or breakouts.

On Skin Boutique Online the homepage asks for the concern right after the opening: ageing and fine lines, dark spots, acne and breakouts, dry and dehydrated skin. Each one leads to the products that fit.

This is the single most useful thing a skincare homepage can do. It turns a wall of similar bottles into four clear doors.

3. Show routines, not just products

Skincare is used in steps, and people buy more confidently when they see the steps.

The store puts complete routines together for each concern, so the products appear in the order they are used. It sells more than one product at a time, and it does so honestly, because the products do belong together.

There is also a routine builder for visitors who do not know where to start.

4. Give brands and ingredients their own way in

Some customers know exactly what they want. A brand their dermatologist named, or an ingredient they read about.

So there is a second way in by brand, and a third by active ingredient: retinol, niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, peptides. A short section explains what each active does in plain words.

If you sell only your own brand, the ingredient route still matters. People search for ingredients.

5. Put the facts in the same place on every product

On the product page a customer wants to know how to use it, what is in it, who it is for and what goes with it.

Those facts should sit in the same place on every product. When each page is laid out differently, people stop looking.

Claims need care here. Use wording that has been approved, and do not let the design invent a benefit. The design is there to make the information clear.

6. Put proof near the top

Skincare runs on trust. People are putting this on their face.

Reviews, press, certifications, where the product is made, whether it is the authentic product from an authorised seller. Choose the strongest and put it high on the page, in plain words.

7. Make it work with one thumb

Most visitors are on a phone. Check how many taps it takes to reach a product, whether the photos swipe easily and whether the add to cart button is buried under a long description.

What a new design will not fix

It will not fix weak photos. A cleaner layout shows them bigger.

It will not write your product information. Someone has to.

It will not fix price or shipping.

I say this early in every project so nobody expects the layout to do a job it cannot do.

The look comes last

You will notice I have not mentioned colour or typefaces. They matter, and they are the part people notice first. But a beautiful store that fails at these seven things still loses the customer.

Get the structure right, then make it beautiful. In that order it is also much faster.

If you want help

Send me your store address and tell me what your customers find hard. I will tell you which of these seven I would work on first.

Here is how I work with skincare brands, and here is a guide to choosing a Shopify theme for skincare.