Shopify Discussions

Thomas_Stimpson · ‎05-23-2017

Can anyone share examples of shopify sites that have a large number of skus? We have 1,000+ unique items and I'm wondering how others have dealt with navigation, categories, filtering, etc.. Thanks in advance.

Mike_Duquet · ‎05-23-2017

What you really want to do is focus the information architecture on the user experience. What are the primary pain points/needs of your target audience and what is the simplest way to get them in front of the product that solves that pp.

My suggestion? Map it out with a tool like mural.ly (which is dope and has a free trial) and create a number of use cases mapping to your audience.

The goal is to get your users to the specific options they're looking for in the most logical progression possible. Lots of people will tell you that it should be as QUICKLY as possible, but that's not necessarily the case. As long as people feel there's progression towards their specific needs, they'll go on the journey.

Without knowing more about your bidness, I'd suggest going with market leaders - if your SKUs/products are all different? Try sites like amazon, ebay, alibaba, etc. If your SKUs/products are all related, try zappos, 1800flowers, etc.

Also, might make sense to run your initial IA by a site like userinput or usertesting.com to make sure visitors can easily get where they're trying to go. As a bonus, usertesting has a free 5 minute video under peek.usertesting.com that you just need to give your email address for.

good luck!

Thomas_Stimpson · ‎05-25-2017

Thanks Mike. Great input. We're trying to find examples of sites with really large inventories that are using Shopify. The product looks great, but we're concerned about being limited in our filtering and navigation.