E-tailer No-brainers – 5 Essentials For Online Stores – Part 2 November 24 2013 / Posted By: Melissa Priest
Last month we started a series of posts on online shopping and some essentials for online retailers. In case you missed it, here is a link to part 1. Now for part 2 (and I apologise in advance for any harsh or abrupt words, this is something I feel strongly about!!!)….
2. FINDABILITY – SITE NAVIGATION AND PRODUCT CATEGORISATION
When it comes to managing your online store, take a step back and ask yourself ‘what is my primary objective?’. Hopefully the answer is to sell products.
If that is the case, then your products need to be the focal point of your online store, and very easy (for your customers) to find.
Is there a clear path to your products, and how many clicks does it take to see a chosen product? Your products need to be as easy to find, in the least amount of clicks as possible.
I’ve seen online stores where products are buried 18 pages deep (maybe a slight exaggeration) with no categorisation! Alarming. You are really making your customers work to find your product.
Your customers are time-poor, and your competitors are just a click away, so make it simple.
Splash Pages / Intro Pages
As pretty, funky or creative as they might be, most customers don’t need to see the fancy ‘splash’ or intro pages that your graphic designer thought would be a great idea at the time. They want to get right to the products, pronto.
Product Categorisation
The way your products are categorised, labelled or organised on your site, plays a major part in a user finding what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Poor product categorisation can lead to frustration from your potential customers, which means loss of sales.
Examples Of Poor Product Categorisation
Categorising By Your Own Generalisations
I love handbags, all types of handbags, I have a wardrobe full of them, but that is of course never enough. Sometimes I don’t know that I ‘need’ a new one until I see it, so online I go. I come to your handbag site for a ‘browse’, and ideally would like to see your entire range at the click of a button, but no no no. Instead, before seeing a single handbag, I have to decide, based on the categorisation that YOU have created as to which type of handbag I may want.
So now I need to work out… am I interested in a day bag, a shoulder bag, a clutch, a hobo…hmmmm meh too busy, bye!
Lost business due to bad product categorisation or site navigation is common.
Another example, I’m after a dress, I come to your site and before I can see a single dress I need to decide whether I need to click on party dresses, day dresses, evening dresses, blah blah just show me a dress and don’t make me have to think about how YOU have categorised it before showing me anything.
By categorising your products this way you are forcing me to click into each category to see what is behind each one before seeing a single product.
If you insist on categorising your products this way, at least let me click on ‘All Handbags’ or ‘All Dresses’ rather than have to guess whether my idea of a day dress is the same as yours.
Here is an example from a well-known handbag retailer. At first I question the homepage not showing any products as it would be my preference to see product straight away rather than messaging.
I also question having to choose from their wide range of choices in their big menu with no option to select ALL BAGS!
However what I do like is once you have made a choice (assuming you get that far before you leave and head to one of the thousands of other handbag sites) is that you can then tick checkboxes to refine your search. I like this a lot! You can not only select or deselect as many choices of handbag styles as you wish, but you can also refine by colour, material, brand, price.
Categorising by Collection only – I have seen many designers categorise their images according to how they have named their ‘collection’. In most cases as an online shopper I couldn’t give a damn about some fancy, deeply inspired name you came up with for your collection (sorry), I just want to see Rings, without having to click into each collection to see if there was a ring in that collection……
Categorising by Brand only – I am interested in some new shorts, I don’t really care which brand, I just want to see shorts and lots of them, don’t make me click into every brand to see which ones have shorts before I can see shorts!!!! ARGH 
Good categorisation
In my opinion good categorisation gives me broad options. It lets me view all products as well as making a specific selection if I know what I’m after….
- new arrivals – most people want to know what’s new, but make sure your new arrivals are actually ‘new’. I know a site that has had the same 180 new arrivals for the past 6 months!
- top level category clickable as well as sub categories – sometimes I just want to see everything in that category, please.
- if you are going to categorise by collection, provide another option to categorise that product by its product type as well
- categorise by brand (as well as product type)
- if you must categorise by your own assumptions of day dresses vs evening dresses etc, at least provide a link for ALL DRESSES
- ability to start by viewing all stock, with options to Refine
Stay tuned for our continued coverage of essentials for online stores. In the meantime if you have any questions please contact us.