Today I came across an absolutely great color design that makes tons of money. Really?
Yes, really.

This report:
internetretailer.com
says proflower.com has the highest conversion rate of all e-commerce sites, a staggering 30%. In other words: one out of three visitors actually makes a purchase.

Looking at the site I'm not surprised. The site is very, very well designed. All the relevant information is readily available and everywhere you go on the site you're only a few clicks away from actual purchase. Very neat.

But also the colors are a very important part of the marketing mix. Here's an analysis:

• First of all take a good look at the homepage to see how much junk it contains: disclaimers, links, more links, terms of use, awards, mission, etc, etc. It's incredible. Even more incredible is that all the information doesn't clutter the homepage. How come?
All the relevant information is highly contrasted on a white background. All the less relevant information is much less contrasted on a green background. Real simple.
The white background 'frames' the relevant information. Within that frame, you see flowers first, 'buy now' buttons next. All the rest hits the eye only later. Why do you see the flowers first? Because they're not white. They are the opposite of white: an explosion of expressive bright colors. Note that this wouldn't have worked on -say- a red background. It's not about the colors, it's about how the colors relate to one another.

• One big button stands out: the big red 'Save' button. And so it should. It stands out not because it is red but because it is NOT green or white.

• The palette is very well picked. The background is green. Duh, it's a flower shop. But how many online flower shops do actually have a green background? Try a Google search and you will see it's actually not that many. And then against the white backdrop of the main frame, the bright colors of the flowers stand out really well.

There's an effective litmus test for good color design: change any color in the design and see what happens. If it diminishes the quality of the design, the color is well picked. If it doesn't make much difference, it's a lousy design. Try that on the design of proflower.com. You will find that each and every color has it's place and function. You simply cannot change any color without diminishing the website. While that may seem quite simple and obvious, it is really hard to achieve.

PS:
I haven't been blogging much lately. Sorry about that. It's not that I have little to say. It's the opposite: I have so much to say that I feel I need another kind of website to do it properly, another way of spreading the knowledge. Stay tuned because I'll announce it here it due course...