Ecommerce Product Navigation - Left or Top

any one tested this or has experience?

[icedout]

I'm in the process of having my ecommerce site with about 60 products redesigned. Currently I have my product navigation menu (for categories) on the top in a horizontal bar, but it's very limited space wise (and I don't want to do the javascript dropdowns) so I'm considering switching to having the whole menu to the left side and only keeping information links at the top.

Any one have experience with which type of navigation works best - placed in the left column, or top horizontal bar?

Thanks guys!

[OvertureUser]

Very similar situation. With my site, which offers ~50 products, the category menus were first spread horizontally across the top. The left column that I had was for important info like phone/fax number and credibility icons like verisign, credit cards and the such. Eventually I tried swapping the horizontal category bar to the vertical column and put an info link along with some others horizontally. The verisign was moved to the bottom of the home page above the fold. Everything on my site is above the fold, even checkout. This process drastically decreased the number of 30s-1min bounces (people just leaving the site and not navigating anywhere else). I guess the moral of the story is: keep it simple. People want to see what they are used to seeing. I think the problem was that after they came to my site via PPC, they couldn't find the menu quick enough to see what else I had to offer so they left. Now, I have seen a couple of sites that have the category menu all the way on the right side. And common sense told me right away that wasn't a good place to have it. I don't know why I didn't realize that the horizontal category bar doesn't work as well as the standard.

My suggestion: Put your categories on the left side.

[DrDoc]

I second that. Related topic: [webmasterworld.com...]

[icedout]

thanks, I was thinking along those same lines as well.

[Wlauzon]

We actually use both, or all 3..

Our main nav and product menu is always on the left - that is where people expect to see it.

But we also have a few broad category CSS type link on top, and sometimes have specific product links on the right.