Forum Moderators: buckworks
Now, recently, we've been designing pages so that we have more items on each page, thus cutting down on the number of pages (since there's a significant number of visitors that don't go on to page 2, page 3, page 4, etc.)
Then again, when you're looking at 50 product thumbnails per page, it can take quite a while to download the entire page, so it's entirely likely that more visitors see more pages overall, but perhaps not all the items on each page.
Is this the best way to do it? Is there a happy medium between number of pages and number of items on each page?
IMO you want to make your site something like a 1 way road system with every road leading to the checkout. A page with lots of different items is like adding a spaghetti junction to the 1 way system, it complicates matters and slows things down.
That's just about $0.02 worth there. :-)
Cheers
James
The idea is that customers are browsing for something that piques their interest; they aren't looking for something extremely specific (more like the general type of item) and there aren't really any options to compare between items in the same category. This is mainly because this is how our offline retail shows work. But good point, I had never really thought of too many options as being confusing, only a little slow on load times.
Forcing a user to click on many pages to see the various choices for a product type is a risk, IMO. Some won't bother, others will not realize there is more, etc. Even a fast-performing site will take some amount time to load each page.
Obviously, there are limits - you don't want huge pages, or to overwhelm and confuse the customer. But, all things being equal, I'd prefer to let the customer scroll down a screen or two than to make him/her look at an extra page or two.
I totally agree. I wasn't very clear about what I meant by different ways to navigate to the lower pages. Think in terms of groupings.
Take an example of footwear. One grouping could be boots, shoes, sneakers while another could be work, recreational, casual, dress-up and yet another could be leather, cotton, man-made. This method does mean you need to understand your audience well and how they're likely to browse. You do not need to choose only one grouping. Create several - create many.
If you have a programmer available you can build an interactive tool to help your users cut through the chaff and get to what the base selection they want to browse through.
I realize not knowing the exact product line we're talking about means these suggestions might be off-the-mark but I'd bet there are ways to narrow down to a selection set even in your product line.
The bottom line is that I believe you need to do what you can to help your customer focus in on the selection set they want to choose from as quickly as possible. Using predefined selections is one way of doing this.
There will always be, however, some who are quite happy - and may even want - to look through the entire offering on one (or a few) pages. I say make the option available to them as well.
You do not need to choose only one grouping. Create several - create many.
Then again, I'm not sure how it will take here. As I said, the way it's set up now is kind of based on our offline retail sales setup. The concept of multiple groupings is completely different from any real-world layout.
completely different from any real-world layout
That's the cool thing about a virtual store. Real stores wrestle with this all the time. I went to a megastore to buy a comb yesterday (probably not a great idea, but I was right there). I figured combs would be near the shampoo & hair care products. Wrong. Combs were in Cosmetics, a department that I don't usually frequent and to which I had to ask directions.
This same store also has at least three places where you can buy lightbulbs: hardware (for serious bulb shoppers), lamps (for purchases with lamps), and grocery (for convenience to general shoppers). To make it more confusing, not all sections stock all kinds of bulbs, so you may end up trekking across the store to find the exact kind you need. (From the store's standpoint, maintaining multiple locations probably requires twice as much inventory as is really needed from a volume standpoint.)
Your virtual store can solve all of these issues if your software is flexible enough to slice & dice different ways.
In our world (virtual) we have databases which make the presentation of the same data in multiple ways (groupings) so easy. In the real world a store only has so much stock on-hand and only so much space so they pick and choose what's the best way to display it. In our world - once the stock has been entered into the db, we can customize the cart to display it any number of ways with just a bit of recoding. If it doesn't work or we don't like it - trash it and try something else!
Hello,
I offer products by category and then show different graphic designs. Would offering different graphic designs on the same product be a bad idea in your opinion?
Paul
