Arrangement of products important for e-commerce success, expert advises

Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - 09:02 by Graham Miller

An e-commerce expert has said that firms offering safe shopping online can learn a thing or two from high street chains when it comes to positioning products for sale on their sites.

In an interview with Econsultancy.com, it was down to industry insider, Fiona Low, to explain that online stores can be laid out in a similar way to bricks and mortar venues, if they want to leverage the full selling power of their products.

Key to this approach is the analysis of how consumers choose to use e-commerce sites and identifying any areas of a particular page which are preventing them from getting to the item they want to buy as quickly as possible.

Supermarkets are the best real-world example of how this might work, as various strategies have been used over the years to make the site as appealing and easy to use as possible.

According to Low, it makes sense for e-commerce sites to have the same dynamic approach to retail as their high street equivalents. This can mean manipulating pages so that similar items are grouped together and allowing users to see other purchases which might compliment their current selection during safe shopping online.

This is something which the big firms like Amazon already provide, but Low believes that all online retailers can take a leaf out of the high street's book in this area.

She uses the example of how home baking goods like flour and eggs are often kept in close proximity in a supermarket and applies this to online fashion, suggesting that it would be sensible for sites to allow users to quickly build matching outfits from appropriate garments and accessories.

The e-commerce experience is always going to be shifting as trends and technologies come along, but the influence of the high street still seems to be strong.