This week’s featured Magento website is Tom’s Shoes & Eyewear. This website is proof that you can keep it simple while having style. If you are looking to have a new Magento website developed, or hoping to modify your existing one, pay close attention to the following things:
Simple Layout Without Compromising Style
This website offers the standard ‘structure’ that most Magento websites use; Slider on the homepage, top pull down navigation, footer blocks at the bottom and left navigation block on product or category pages. What separates this website from other ‘simple’ stores, though, is that it uses a wide array of unobtrusive colors and background images in their navigation that give the website a nice visual touch.
If you look at the top navigation, you will notice all navigation links related to shoes have a blue/aqua background texture while the shoes navigation link stands out with a brown/orange background. The texture looks like material you would see on shoes and helps create a visual theme consistent with the website without being over the top in terms of overloading the web page with too many visuals or trying to be too cute. It is simple, but stylish. And the color scheme, especially on the navigation, serves a purpose. It would be easy to overlook the Eyewear navigation link without the brown/orange image background
The rest of the website is styled simply with plenty of white space and light blue buttons which appear throughout the website. Sometimes you will find websites that overload you with images – this can work for a holiday theme or a candy store – but for a website dedicated to shoes and eyewear, it would not be necessary. Thanks to a design scheme that is easy to navigate and read through, you can find what you are looking for within a second or two instead of viewing a home page that overwhelms you with too much content.
Catalog Page ‘More Info’ Feature
If you are on any of the category pages you will see that there is an option to receive more information about a product before you click on the product image or title. This ‘quick info’ feature is brilliant because it makes it possible to learn about a product, as well as add it to the shopping cart, without having to take the extra step and visit the product page. Saving steps in the sales process is paramount to having a successful website and this website offers this feature for that very reason.
Dynamic Product Filter
Unlike the pull down ‘sort by’ product filter that exists on most Magento category pages, this category page offers a javascript solution which lets you sort by multiple product options and loads the product sort result instantly without having to refresh the page. This is a terrific way to save time on delivering products to your customers without having to incur more bandwidth costs by requesting a refresh each time they want to sort through your product list.
The Perfect Product Page
When you visit the product page, of any product, you will see that it takes full advantage of what Magento has to offer. You have reviews, multiple views of each product via thumbnail images, content tabs to help inform customers about returns/exchanges as well as sizing. Everything a customer would need in order to make an informed decision is available to them while being able to hear from other customers. Another nice thing about their product page is how noticeable the ‘add to cart’ / ‘add to wishlist’ section is. It is not a small button hiding on the right side of the page or further down on the page where you have to scroll to see it. It is very clear how to learn more about this product, as well as add this product to your cart, should you be ready to checkout.
Shipping Information Easy To Obtain
While browsing this website you may notice that, at the top of the page, there is a link to learn more about shipping with UPS Next Day Air for $15. Having this made available to the customer on every page ensures that you create less ‘actions’ for them to perform in order to know what shipping options or specials are made available to them. Many websites wait until the customer is checking out to inform them or, at best, they provide a ‘Shipping & Handling FAQ’ link at the footer of their website.
Summary
Take note of what makes this website easy to navigate and consider incorporating some of these features for our own website. Please note, some of the work performed on that website such as the advanced product filtering, would take custom work but at least that functionality shows you what possibilities exist in making things easier for your customers to do business with you. To learn more about how your website can benefit from Magento, or how an existing Magento website can be improved, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would love to hear from you.
Magento Development Lead
