After you have defined your product categories and how to structure them (see Usability and e-commerce Part 1) you are ready to define the product pages. Let’s start with the product overview page:

1. It is recommended, that the product overview pages follow all a consistent structure. This gives the user the chance to learn your site and with continuing navigation he can orient himself faster.
2. The amount of products presented should allow the user to gain a quick overview.
3. The most relevant questions the user has at this stage should be answered. This allows faster scanning of the products and saves the user possible disappointment on the individual product page itself. This includes the listing of the price and availability.
4. Especially with rather technical or complex products, an online product comparison option is essential to avoid lots of work for the call centre.
5. In addition, sorting functionalities support the user to “customise” the results to his personal needs, such as price, distance, weight, colour etc.

Let’s have a look at two examples buying a Sony Laptop and a new Esprit Jacket:

On the Sony Laptop overview page, the user receives all the essential data he needs.
They even consider the two target groups returning and new customer. The returning one can add the product directly to the shopping cart the new one can add the product to a wish list.
There is the option for product comparison and a sort option.

And the product comparison site: The user can delete rows or columns, start over, get the product advisor and create a PDF for print out and later use.

On the Esprit page as well, the product overview page answers the main questions such as: material, prize, availability, colour selection and new arrivals.

Check out the entire series:

Part 2) Product overview

Part 3) Product presentation

Part 4) Search

Part 5) Check out process

Part 6) The shopping basket

The real shop

Imagine you are in a convenience store such as Sainbury’s and you are looking for batteries. Where do you start to look for them? Kitchen supplies, the area where the stationary is, where could they be? Where the garbage bags are? You might walk around for a while and then ask a sales person for assistance.

Now online

Image the same scenario online. You click here, you click there. However, there is no sales person that can help and the competitor’s site is just one click away. That is why especially for e-commerce sites good usability is so crucial.

The above study shows, that a bad online shopping experience does not only mean that you have lost this one sale. The customer is also rather likely not to buy from you at all.

You suffer from:

1. Lost sales,
2. a weakend reputation and
   
3. it harms the perception of your overall brand.

Some common issues on e-commerce sites are:

Navigation and start page

You need to consider that you have to types of people visiting your online shop:

1. The ones who already exactly know what they want. They need to be guided directly to the product they are looking for. Structuring and clustering of the shop items in a clearly visible navigation bar is essential for them.
2. The others are the users who just want to browse your site or inform themselves. They might be looking for the special offer, new products or seasional trends. Visual teasers and images usually guide those the best.

Give the visitors also a chance to concentrate on your main items. Cluttered sites are likely to overwhelm the user. In an online shop users prefer structure and visual guidance and do not want to feel like being on a flea market.

Creating the right structure

1. Competitors’ analysis: Do you know what they are doing?
   Your users are very likely to also use other e-commerce sites. Over the last years, patterns of structuring, organising and labelling content have evolved. Your users have learned those patterns. Therefore we recommend not to re-event the wheel and to stick to conventions. The best way to find those patterns and conventions is a competitors’ analysis. In addition, a regular competitors’ analysis gives insight in new trends and strategies. You can only become the benchmark by knowing what your are up against.A competitors’ analysis can be done at any stage of the project. We recommend to perform it in regular intervals. Depending on the market every 1-3 months to at least once a year.
2. Card sorting: How would your clients structure the content?
   One basic method is card sorting. Card sorting is used to develop the structure of Web sites. How does it work?
   Product categories or product names are written down on individual cards. Then (potential) users of the site are asked to structure the cards into groups or to sort them into predefined metacategories.
   • Structure: This gives valuable insight into how your customers would structure the content and therefore where they would be looking for the information when navigating through your site. This aids to define the ideal placement of individual products and how to create useful product categories. Recall the example with the matches from the beginning? Where would customers look for them the most likely?
   • Wording: Though it is not always the wrong structure that misleads customers. Equally important is to find the right wording for the individual categories and navigation items.

In the next entries the following topics will be covered:

Part 2) Product overview

Part 3) Product presentation

Part 4) Search

Part 5) Check out process

Part 6) The shopping basket