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My friends and I have recently launched Midtown Row, an online marketplace focused on acclaimed specialty brands. We want to make sure navigating the site is easy for our users, and that we're also communicating the most critical information up front.

Currently, we've organized the navigation on the following logic -> a selection of products, detailed info on a single product, then opportunities to get more information about the brand. This is more of a "traditional" structure for an ecommerce site (e.g., balance sales and conversions from page to page). One of the challenges with specialty brands is that they're often new to users, even if they're highly, highly acclaimed.

Thus, we're wondering would users prefer to flip it around --> a selection of brands (with similar representative product pictures), detailed information on the brand (e.g., reviews, history, owners), and then the opportunity to explore products?

Would really appreciate getting your guys' thoughts! Thanks

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I have voted to close this, I think it would be better suited on ux.stackexchange.com – Joel Friedlaender Oct 26 '11 at 1:48
I completely disagree, Joel. This is a marketing question, not a UI question. – user2757 Oct 26 '11 at 2:33

closed as off topic by Joel Friedlaender, TimJ♦ Aug 21 '12 at 20:05

Questions on Answers OnStartups are expected to relate to startups within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

3 Answers

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My assumption is that you are using some sort of CMS and that the products are individual element and that the navigation is the sorting and presentation of those elements based on assigned variables.

If that is the case: why choose between the two? Can't you do both?

And if you can't do both on the same site -- then run two versions and A/B test the results.

I personal prefer the product base, because when i shop online I am looking for a product. I normally don't care about brand. But it sounds as though your target market is very brand conscious and therefor it might make a lot of sense. It seems like a lot of time and conversation could be wasted trying to figure it out -- when the only people who can answer it are you customers.

Or. . . your competitors. When I was trying to facilitate the structuring of the online store for a client that had grown organically and was trying to "jump" into the big leagues I went and visited the websites of all of the top competitors he imagined himself competing with. Ironically they all had the same basic structure for their sites. So -- we copied that basic structure. Immediately customers started complementing us on how easy it was to use our site. Why? Because it wasn't new-- they felt comfortable there because they had -- at the last three sites they had visited!

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hi joseph, thanks for your thoughts! to your point, we are very flexible in terms of how the elements are sorted. a/b testing is definitely on the list of to-dos, particularly once we can easily get enough data points from it. we've seen others do it both ways (successfully), though the product view is used quite a bit more - we're somewhat of a hybrid of our competitors in terms of product, curation, etc. what's interesting is we've indeed gotten great feedback on ease of navigation - that said, we're wondering if it's the right lens for the product we're offering (for conversions) – Kevin Cho Oct 25 '11 at 19:26
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Questions I would pose are:

How do your visitors find you? Why are they there? Are people showing up because they read somewhere that your site carries acclaimed brands? Or are they there because you placed a paid ad somewhere for particular merchandise?

And what is the value-add of your site?

Perhaps any of these thoughts would point the discussion in the right direction.

I think Joseph is right, you should have multiple ways to navigate.

Since your site does not seem to be specific to a particular type of merchandise, I think you should have broad categories of products that narrow down to finer grained categories.

At the top level (an example):

Sports and Outdoor Recreation

Auto Enthusiasts

Cooking and Dining

Wine and Beverages

Entertainment

Computers

Mobile Devices

Personal Care

Clothing

Fashion Accessories

I'm thinking your top level categories would resemble an old fashioned department store directory. Each category, when selected, could show a slide show or a user spinnable selector that shows examples of the category.

It goes without saying that you also need ways to find by product name, keyword, brand, price, etc.

I think the category approach would work well for, say, someone wandering in looking for a great Christmas present or gift.

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Short answer - ask your users. In the end it is all about making your users happy. Don't try to guess what they want.

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