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Sales at Sales
26 June 2009 21:30pm
Hello! my first post here. I did search for this topic but couldn't find an answer.
We are redesigning our retail store homepage:
Which is best
Horizontal navigation (like www.gaiam.com)
or
Vertical navigation (like www.Gardeners.com)
or
a combination of both?
We will have a similar number of categories as Gardeners.com (Gaiam has many more categories).
Our current store is here, built by my father and I: http://eartheasy.com/shop.htm We're going to redo this using Magento.
Thanks SO much for advice on this topic.
Director at The CogWorks
28 June 2009 08:09am
It really depends on how many top-level and level 2 categories you have really.
There is no right or wrong answer.
If you can fit all your top level categories along the top, then you can use the vertical nav for the sub categories, thereby drawing the customers eye to the top of the screen.
However, looking at your current site, you top level category names seem quite long, so you could maybe use the top nav for administration purposes such as login, account admin, shopping basket info etc and place all your categories in the vertical nav.
I wouldn't have all your categories listed out though as on http://www.gardeners.com/ becuase it is a little too long. I would just list out the main top-level ones as on http://www.amazon.co.uk/ so all your info is above the fold line of the screen. This will ensure your customers dont miss any of your products.
You can then either use an accordian styles menu that shows the sub categories when you click into it, or a JavaScript/CSS style menu as on Amazon. The choice is yours really.
Just ensure it is built in such a way that if style and JavaScript is turned off it can stil be seen i.e. <ul><li>menu item<li></ul>
I hope that helps
Adam
www.thecogworks.co.uk
Retail conusltant at Retail-Remedy
05 July 2009 03:28am
As per your choice you can then either use an accordian styles menu that shows the sub categories when you click into it, or a JavaScript/CSS style menu as on other shopping or ecommerce sites. Click on retail layout page here you get the good style.
Sales at Sales
07 July 2009 01:21am
Ok, great. Thank you Adam for the time you put into answering us. We'll likely do the accordian style nav w. javascript on the left. Thanks again.
Strategy Director at Blueleaf
08 July 2009 14:28pm
I'd go for the vertical navigation with those labels you have now - especially if you are planning to leave the learn, shop, etc aspects across the top as well.
With Magento, I would make sure that you know someone or seek someone out who knows Magento quite well as although it does a lot of things very well, our experience is that if you want to change anything too much you have to dig quite deep and so some experience can help