I am using the theme called Savor. And I gotta admit, I love it and hate it at the same time. Its a nice theme however I can’t stand the way the catalog works. Instead of it showing like 25 products (or whatever number it shows) then you click on the next page, this theme seems to continuously scroll down. Then when you want to scroll back to the top, its just as slow. Id rather customers click on the next page. I dont know what the technical names for this stuff is so I hope this makes sense. Any idea how to set it up so it after showing so many products, you click on the next page? I think that type of catalog is easier to use. Or is that something you cant do with this particular theme?
If you’d like to see what I am referring to, you can visit my website at www.howlingwolvesmerch.com and enter password abc123. Hoping to get the store up and running in the next few days.
@JSPENCER0203 the way it is now is called as lazy loading and the you WANT is pagination.
Open catalog page in customize settings and check options, you should have an option to change lazy loading to show pagination. If you find it difficult then I can check it for you, I will need collab code to send request.
From the UX standpoint, infinite scroll (what you have now) is not inherently bad and has its uses, and might be good for discovery, i.e. when users are casually browsing or so as it reduces friction and actions they need to take, and might be worse for when they need to find a specific product.
Since it seems you’re referring to general product discovery, it might actually be a valid use case. Just food for thought.
Check the themes settings or it’s docs by it’s developers.
If the theme doesn’t have a setting then it’s an advanced theme customization to correct that and or add and style custom pagination.
You can each out to some of the contributors here for customization services.
Infinite scrolling is the patterns name, but also in your own words can be referred to as continuous scrolling.
Pagination is clicking/navigating, as covered by other posters.
Infininite scrolling is an anti-pattern on ecommerce sites.
When customer has to scroll more than a few pages to find what they are looking for that business has failed in their information architecture in multiple ways.
Patters like infinite scrolling is bad because it’s immediately abusable, comes with a bunch of bad child anti-patterns, and the reasons for it’s inception and proliferation are disingenuous from the jump.
Social media engagement anti-patterns got cross pollinated into ecommerce in specific contexts til everyone started thinking it was a must have as a default behavior even for SMB.
Give customers the proper tools not engagement bait mechanics you don’t want them scrolling you want them finding what they want and buying.
It’s right up there with cramming slideshows on a homepage.
@PaulNewton it all makes sense the way you put it, but I wouldn’t necessarily discount infinite scrolling for all of ecommerce.
Yes it has it’s drawbacks and can lead to difficulties finding items they are looking for, slow down the website, etc, but it does provide a more natural browsing experience on mobile devices than pagination, and I reckon more traffic nowadays are on mobile devices, at least for things like clothing.
Plus, I’m not convinced that customers come looking for one specific thing in every online store, especially in the niche OP is in, so infinite scrolling does feel like it could work ok? There might be a big difference between a homeware store and a clothing store, in the customer persona and how they browse.
Take reputable brands like ASOS, for example, or many other mobile clothing brands - they still use infinite scrolling, with relative filters that helps customers narrow down what they’re looking for.
Large brands that can test for fit and importantly have devs/teams.
And that’s what I mean about “pollinated into ecommerce in specific contexts”.
When the things bigger businesses are doing gets forced on SMB as some sort of default truth that’s a big mistake for the merchant and internet users in general.
It’s like wanting to copy everything amazon does treating the copying as the path to riches, it just doesn’t work that way.
I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m sure this feature wasn’t built by OP as well. Shopify or the theme devs built it, right? Whether that’s buggy is another question and a store owner can easily test that, they don’t need to be a dev.
My point is that it’s quite common AND convenient to scroll clothing items when you’re browsing. I personally shop for clothes on mobile, and I hate clicking little pagination numbers on my screen, it feels interruptive of my flow when I didn’t come there for anything specific. Yeah, I came there to find a hoodie, but I’m not sure what I’m going to like, so I’ll scroll past many items until something grabs my fancy.
OP’s shop seems quite performant and easily scrollable. Only thing is that I’d like to see as a customer is probably size/color filters, and favoriting item functionality - without that, pagination probably would make it easier to get back to a specific piece I saw earlier.