Understand the Layout of Your Ecommerce Store
Ecommerce is certainly not a simple thing. There are many parts that you need to know and understand. It’s always good to know the layout of an Ecommerce store. This article is going to explain to you the types of pages that when all put together, form an Ecommerce store!
Homepage:
The homepage is where your store starts, and is most often the first part of your store that your customers see. This is going to be where you explain your services, advertise popular products, and try to make a good first impression.
Your homepage is the default webpage that loads when you visit a web address that contains only the domain name. Let’s take a look at one of our our awesome client’s sites. We will go through the core pages of Stockpyle’s store.
Your homepage is where customers will start their experience, and will use the links on the homepage to continue to different parts of your website.
Category Pages:
Category pages are a collection of products, all being related to that one category. Category pages are very useful on Ecommerce stores that sell a lot of products because they offer a way to organize the products in a logical, non-confusing way.
Category pages are often linked to in the navigation menu so that they are a quick access point for customers.
Sub-Category Pages:
Sometimes it makes more sense to split your offerings down even more to specific categories. Instead of holding products, Categories could instead hold links to even more specific categories called subcategories.
ABOVE: Stockpyle’s navigation bar showing the “Office Supplies” category, with subcategories displaying in grey below.
Product Pages:
This is where your customers will view details, pricing, shipping, and anything else related to the product. The most important part about the product page is this is where your customer will decide to purchase or not purchase your products.
ABOVE: Here’s an example of a product page. You’ll notice in the upper left hand corner the “Home > Office Supplies > Universal ® Jaw Style Staple Remover”.
This is called the “Breadcrumbs” because it shows a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of the hierarchy of categories in the store. You can tell that this staple remover is of the “Office Supplies” category.
Shopping Cart Page
When a user decides they want a product, they will add it to their virtual shopping cart. The shopping cart page shows the user what is in their shopping cart, and it gives access to the checkout page.
The shopping cart page also sometimes gives other services to users, such as giving them an estimated shipping price, and applying discount codes.
Checkout Page:
The checkout page is the final step the customer takes to buy their purchases from your store. The checkout page is where the customer tells you their shipping and billing addresses, as well as enters their payment information.
The checkout page can be a multi-step process, or can all be consolidated on one page. This is called a “One Page Checkout” design and is becoming increasingly popular because it is very quick for the customer to fill out, meaning more chance of a sale for you.
ABOVE: This is the checkout page, and it is the final step for the customer before the order is placed. Stockpyle uses a one-page design for their checkout process.
Still Have Questions?
Feel free to ask us a question in the comments below, or contact us directly. We’d love to hear from you!
