Four ways to reduce friction to purchase on your Store

Navigation is the method by which a shopper explores the Store and finds and purchases products. Simplified and organized navigation improves the overall experience for shoppers.

Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for simplified navigation on your Store:

The structure of the navigation menu is critical in helping the shopper explore the Store. Keeping it simple and consistent is the key. For example, short page names (labels) such as “Doughnuts” are more space-saving and customer-friendly than long descriptive names such as “Delicious glazed doughnuts.”

Your Store is the home for your brand on Amazon, where you can showcase all of your products in one place. It's important to make your brand story and values stand out on the home page, as many shoppers who visit your Store may be interacting with your brand for the first time. An ideal home page has the following:

• Header image: Contains the brand logo/name and brand tagline (if applicable) with design elements that complement your brand identity. You can also include hero product images or lifestyle images showcasing your products. The header image serves as the first visual impression of your Store, especially for shoppers who are not aware of your brand.
• USP (Unique Selling Proposition): Refers to the distinctive benefits your brand offers. This helps shoppers understand your brand’s purpose and product offering. Your USP should be included on your home page to maximize impact. See top tips for creating Stores copy ›
• Category tiles: Image or text tiles that lead to different product categories (pages) of your Store
• Product tiles and product grid: Adding product widgets on your home page gives shoppers the opportunity to view and shop the best sellers of your brand directly from the home page.
• Videos and shoppable images: These are dynamic and engaging components that enhance your Store’s design. They also help pique customer interest in your brand and product offering. Between July-December 2020, we found that Stores with at least one image and one video saw on average 26.8% higher shopper dwell time compared to Stores without at least one video or image.²

• On average, Stores with 3+ pages have 83% higher shopper dwell time and 32% higher ad-attributed sales per visitor.³ You can organize your Store into pages per category of products sold by your brand. Cluttered stores with unorganized products may create a confusing experience for shoppers.
• Store pages can be accessed from the navigation menu, but they can also be accessible from the home page as independent category tiles to promote better overall navigation.

• If the page contains subpages, then it should be designed as an access point to the sub-pages with the help of independent sub-category tiles. Subpages can also be accessed from the navigation menu.

• Sub-pages can be product-centric and display product tiles or product grids. If there are less than five products, consider using product-only tiles instead of product grids (illustrated above).
• Subpages can also include images, text, or videos that provide information about the product category. In cases of sub-pages containing only one product, such content can be used to enlighten shoppers about the product features or benefits.

• Product grids are a versatile and compact way to list all products contained in a product category (on pages and sub-pages). You can also include a product grid on the home page. This gives you the flexibility to choose best-selling products to feature and enables shoppers to shop directly from the home page with the Add to Cart functionality. The recommended number of products for the product grid on the home page is eight. Adding more products will force the shopper to scroll down the page multiple times, especially on the mobile version of the Store. This may discourage them from exploring the entire home page.
  
  Use the option ”Hide out of stock products” (products that are unavailable are automatically hidden from the shoppers) to avoid creating an unfavorable shopping experience. Shoppers viewing product grids will see a ”quick look” option to view basic product attributes like images, price, star ratings, and Prime availability, with options to select product variations, Add to Cart, or see more information on the detail page.

• The Featured Deals Widget can be added to your Store to make it easy for shoppers to find and shop your products with active deals. You can add a curated list of products, and the featured deal and product availability will update automatically. We recommend placing this widget on a separate page dedicated to deals

Engaging and quality content on your Store can pique customer interest and help portray your unique brand identity. An interested customer may be motivated to purchase products from your Store. Quality content can also help in building customer trust and loyalty. Here are a few tips to achieve this:

• Focus on tastefully designed, high-quality brand creatives. Here’s a great example of a well-rounded Store experience: https://amazon.com/mdesign
• Shoppers are going to explore your Store from different kinds of devices, like laptops, computers, tablets, and mobile phones. In 2021, 69% of all Store visits were made from a mobile device.⁵ Optimizing for mobile contributes to a better overall customer experience for mobile shoppers. Within the Store builder, you can now easily create mobile or desktop views of your Store, and a version of your Store will automatically get created for the other device. See 6 tips to optimize your store for mobile ›
• Creating effective copy for your Store will also help you earn the trust of shoppers. The message you create to describe your brand and products is key to building an immersive shopping experience. See top tips for creating Stores copy ›
• You can create a consistent branded experience with our new Creative Assets. With this, you can store, organize, and reuse brand content such as logos and images. Creative Assets enable brands to provide a consistent shopping experience by easily applying branded content across Amazon. Learn about uploading files to creative assets ›
• You can also enrich the customer experience by getting started with Posts (beta). Your Store will automatically showcase your Posts, giving shoppers the opportunity to move between browsing inspirational content and shopping your full product selection. Help grow your followers by regularly posting engaging content. Learn about Posts ›

You can enhance your Store design by using components like videos, background videos, and shoppable images. Using such dynamic components can increase customer interest in your brand and motivate them to purchase your products. Here are a few tips to remember:

• You can use videos to tell your brand story to help shoppers learn about your unique brand history, or identify with your brand ideals and vision. Videos can also help explain the features of a product or introduce a new product, allowing shoppers to make a purchasing decision more easily. Ensure that videos included in the Store are of high quality—if the shopper chooses to play them on full-screen mode, they should not be blurry.
• Background videos run in the background. They do not have a play button and they play automatically on a loop. Such videos can be strategically placed to attract the customer’s attention to the brand slogan or USP, or as an elegant way to show off a product or product feature.