The importance of sensible merchandising
I got reminded today of a very amusing website – it only take about 3 minutes to watch and I heartily recommend it. It shows what could happen if a jumble of products had a bad interaction!
Obviously none of that’s really going to happen in cyber space (well not until web 100.x or something anyway!). And besides most retailers organise their products in a somewhat less haphazard manner – it’s unlikey the whisk would be next to an umbrella, or a piece of cake next to a xylophone.
On e-commerce sites the categorization of the products is often something that gets done once – as the site is built, and then left with new products being squeezed in where they fit best. This can either lead to some odd product placements, OR leave an illogical structure because of the organic growth of the range.
So it’s always worth re-evaluating the product category structure to make sure the products are organised sensibly. AND at the same time making sure you’re taking advantage of key search engine terms – if teapots and mugs are both big sellers for you have a page for each so you can take advantage of the keyword benefits.