This post is the first in a series about setting up and maintaining a Premium Shop on Cafepress. Go here for part two.
Layout and navigation is an important part of building a website. It especially applies when you are trying to sell something! You want your customer to be able to find what they are looking for in a timely manner without getting confused. I usually try to abide by the “three clicks” rule, meaning that I do not want my customers to have to click more than three times before they find the product(s) they are looking for.
Most shopkeepers agree that categorizing your store by design, rather than by product, is the way to go. If you use one of the pre-built premium shop templates, you will notice that most of them have a built in “Shop by Product” drop down menu. So if a customer wants to see what’s available on a tote bag, all they have to do is select “tote bag” from the drop down menu and it will bring up all the tote bags in your shop. With this feature, there really is no reason to categorize your sections by product as well. Categorizing by design gives the customer an alternate way to shop.
Example, if I were to build a sports themed shop I would divide all of my top level sections by sport. Football, basketball, baseball, etc. Then in each section I would create a new sub-section for each design, and use the design image for the section header. A visiting customer looking for football t-shirts would see the football link in the sidebar, click on it, and it would bring up all of my designs pertaining to football. They could then click on the design that interests them and see all the products available with that design.
I experimented briefly with dividing my products into separate sections for men, women, kids, and housewares, but found that it takes a lot more time to set things up that way, and I was worried that I might lose sales with the more confusing navigation.
There are a few exceptions that I make for myself though. I have a section that only contains greeting cards because I created specific designs for the cards that would not work on t-shirts or other products. If you have a design that only works well on one type of product, then it makes sense to have a dedicated section for just that one product type. But for most general designs, organizing by design rather than by product will streamline your shop, translating into less maintenance for you and an easier shopping experience for the customer.
Tags: sections
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