Imagine the experience of a shopper walking into a well-known retailer. Even on its busiest days, the shoe department at Nordstrom is practically gleaming, well-organized, and it’s a guarantee that a well-dressed staffer will ask you what you need in a minute or less. Go into a Sephora and work with one of their well-informed makeup specialists about a new foundation.  

Now imagine If that shopper was greeted with disorganized and chaotic shelves, or (even worse) empty ones: it would forever leave a lingering impression that the store staff, from management all the way down to the sales clerks, were neglectful and indifferent to the store experience. That is less high-end or even mid-level retail and more like going into the Dollar Store. Even at a discount retailer like Target, customers still anticipate organization, well-stocked shelves, and abundant product information.

The same rules apply to the Digital Shelf, although in slightly different ways. While there are some retailers (namely Amazon) who pay critical attention to the digital shelf, many omnichannel retailers are still neglecting to devote enough resources to cleaning up digital product pages, especially categorization.

Internet retailers must be diligent and constantly monitoring how customers perceive their ‘shelf’ in order to avoid losing sales.

Components of the Digital Shelf

The digital version of the brick-and-mortar shopping experience relies on the same set of expectations. Like the in-store experience, the digital shelf has three distinct levels:

Category Level

This is the broad section that defines an entire brand category (i.e. home goods, consumer electronics, women’s garments, sporting goods)

Specific Category

Drilling down one level, specific categories are to online retail what the aisle is to the store (televisions, printers, etc.)

Product Level

This is where your customer needs product specific information, similarly to product packaging, shelf labeling and clear pricing info.

Just as you wouldn’t have toilet paper showing up in the T.V. aisle: Retailers and brands need to be just as diligent at each level to ensure the site experience is as pristine as the in-store experience.

The winners in the online retail space will continue to be companies that invest in driving and improving their categorization, product definitions, and product pages. Retailers still devote huge resources to review and manage in-store merchandising. Many of those same shops aren’t diverting nearly enough of those same resources to their digital assets.

Automation Isn’t Enough

Consider that a site like Amazon has to deal with hundreds of thousands of new products every month (at a minimum). Clearly: AI has a role in providing automatic categorization so those products get to market as quickly as possible. However: our data shows that AI is only correct roughly 60% of the time.

That means that 40% of searches are bringing up products that are unrelated to customer search intent. This accounts for why, for example, a pair of headphones might show up in a search for a battery charger or a bluetooth speaker. For those pages: human endeavor is needed to do a smart review of your product page content to ensure that each product is in included in the right category level as well as specific category.

Retailers and brands are investing in new technologies to improve categorization tagging as well as personalization. Design and site mapping are equally crucial investments and where a lot of resources are also directed. However: if customers are confused and misdirected by bad information, all of those investments are pointless.

Winning the Online Experience

Nordstrom, while its earnings are (and always will be) a fraction of Amazon’s, the luxury department store has excelled online. Why? They were early innovators in the online experience, using the website as a literal answer to their stores. The site is easy to navigate, beautifully designed, and offers all kinds of engagement options including scheduling a free appointment with a personal stylist.

Eyewear retailer Warby Parker only offers one product, but the site feels like an experience, with easy-to-navigate sections and speedy online chat. If you visit the site regularly, you will notice the fresh content, and 3D imagery that allows you to see glasses from nearly every angle.

Check out the site for boutique lifestyle retailer Commander Deer that offers artisanal products from Vermont (think LL Bean for the Instagram generation). The top nav is as explicit as it is diverse and includes a link to breathtaking gift guides that introduce you both to the brand and their product lines.

Paying attention to your online product pages and how they are consistently categorized is just as important as regular physical inspection of store shelves. We’re happy to help you fix your broken categorization issues as well as polish up your blog and buying guide content.