Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
When a client came to me with a 1000+ product Shopify store bleeding conversions, every consultant before me had given them the same advice: follow ecommerce best practices, use proven templates, stick to conventional homepage layouts.
But here's the thing about "best practices" – they're often just common practices that everyone copies without thinking. And when everyone's doing the same thing, your store becomes invisible in a sea of identical-looking homepages.
Instead of following the crowd, I did something that made my client uncomfortable: I completely ignored conventional ecommerce wisdom and turned their homepage into something that shouldn't work according to every "expert" guide out there.
The result? We doubled their conversion rate and transformed their homepage from a pretty doorway into their most effective sales tool.
Here's what you'll learn from this experiment:
Why template-based thinking kills conversions for large product catalogs
The counterintuitive homepage structure that actually drives sales
How to make your homepage your catalog (and why this works)
The one navigation change that transformed user behavior
When breaking rules becomes your competitive advantage
Ready to challenge everything you think you know about ecommerce design?
Industry Standard
What every ecommerce guru tells you
If you've read any ecommerce design guide in the last five years, you've heard the same advice repeated everywhere:
The "perfect" ecommerce homepage should have:
A hero banner with your value proposition
Featured product collections
Social proof and testimonials
About Us section
Clean navigation with clear categories
This approach works for small catalogs with 20-50 products. When you have a focused product line, a curated homepage makes sense. Shopify's own templates follow this pattern, and every design guide reinforces it.
But here's where conventional wisdom breaks down: when you have 1000+ products, this structure becomes a bottleneck, not a benefit.
The traditional approach assumes visitors want to be "guided" through your store. It treats your homepage like a magazine cover – pretty, curated, designed to build brand awareness first and drive sales second.
Here's what actually happens with large catalogs: visitors land on your homepage, see 6-8 "featured" products out of your 1000+ inventory, realize they need to dig deeper to find what they want, click to "All Products," and then get overwhelmed by endless scrolling.
The homepage becomes irrelevant – just a pretty doorway people rush through to get to the real shopping experience.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this client approached me, their store was the perfect example of this problem. They had built a gorgeous, template-based homepage that followed every ecommerce best practice guide to the letter.
Beautiful hero banner? Check. Carefully curated product collections? Check. Testimonials and social proof? Check. Clean, minimal design that looked like every other "professional" ecommerce site? Double check.
But their analytics told a different story. The data was brutal:
Visitors were using the homepage as nothing more than a doorway
They'd land, immediately click to "All Products," then get lost in endless scroll
The conversion rate was bleeding because finding the right product felt like searching for a needle in a digital haystack
The client had hired two previous consultants who both gave the same advice: "Your homepage looks great, maybe test different hero images or featured product selections." Both completely missed the fundamental problem.
When I analyzed their user behavior, the issue became clear: the homepage had become irrelevant to the actual shopping experience. It was optimized for making a good first impression, not for helping people buy.
Their customers knew what they wanted – they just couldn't find it efficiently. The beautiful, curated homepage was actually creating friction instead of removing it.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of following more "best practices," I proposed something that made my client uncomfortable: What if we completely eliminated the gap between homepage and catalog?
Here's exactly what I implemented:
Step 1: Killed the Traditional Homepage Structure
I removed everything that stood between visitors and products:
Removed the hero banner entirely
Deleted "Featured Products" sections
Scrapped "Our Collections" blocks
Eliminated everything except what actually helped people buy
Step 2: Built an AI-Powered Mega-Menu System
Instead of hiding navigation behind generic categories, I created a comprehensive menu system:
Used AI workflow to automatically categorize products across 50+ specific categories
Made product discovery possible without leaving the navigation
Enabled visitors to see the full scope of inventory instantly
Step 3: Transformed Homepage Into Product Gallery
This was the controversial part – I displayed 48 products directly on the homepage. Not featured products, not curated selections, but a dynamic grid showing actual inventory.
Step 4: Added Only Essential Trust Elements
The only non-product element I kept was a testimonials section – because social proof matters, but it doesn't need to dominate the page.
The result was a homepage that functioned like an advanced product catalog rather than a traditional landing page. Visitors could immediately see product variety, browse through different options, and start shopping without clicking through multiple pages.
System Implementation
Used AI workflows to automatically sort new products into 50+ categories, eliminating manual categorization work while maintaining precise organization.
Friction Elimination
Removed every element that didn't directly help customers find and buy products, including traditional hero sections and generic collections.
Navigation Revolution
Created mega-menu system that let visitors explore the full catalog without leaving the homepage, turning navigation into a shopping tool.
Conversion Focus
Prioritized immediate product discovery over brand storytelling, treating the homepage as an active sales environment rather than a marketing brochure.
The transformation was immediate and measurable:
Homepage Performance:
Became the most viewed AND most used page on the site
Visitors stopped bouncing to "All Products" and started shopping directly from homepage
Time spent on homepage increased by 300%
Conversion Impact:
Overall conversion rate doubled
Time to purchase decreased significantly
Cart abandonment reduced as product discovery became effortless
But the most telling metric was qualitative: customer feedback shifted from "I couldn't find what I was looking for" to "I found exactly what I needed plus things I didn't know you had."
The homepage had evolved from a pretty gateway into an active sales tool that actually helped the business make money.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experiment taught me five critical lessons about ecommerce design:
1. Best Practices Are Context-Dependent
What works for a 20-product boutique fails spectacularly for a 1000+ product catalog. Always question whether conventional wisdom applies to your specific situation.
2. User Intent Beats Design Theory
Customers with large catalogs aren't looking for curation – they're looking for discovery tools. Design for actual user behavior, not idealized customer journeys.
3. Homepage Purpose Should Match Business Model
If you're selling variety and selection, your homepage should showcase variety and selection. Don't hide your biggest advantage behind "professional" design principles.
4. Navigation Can Be Your Competitive Advantage
When everyone else makes product discovery hard, making it effortless becomes a massive differentiator. Invest in navigation systems, not just visual design.
5. Test Against Your Own Goals, Not Industry Standards
Conversion rate matters more than design awards. Sometimes the "ugly" solution that drives sales beats the beautiful one that impresses other designers.
The biggest insight: When you have a unique challenge (massive product catalog), you need a unique solution. Industry standards become limitations, not guidelines.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
Focus on user activation over visual appeal in onboarding flows
Use progressive disclosure to showcase feature depth without overwhelming new users
Design navigation that reveals product capabilities rather than hiding them
Test homepage layouts against usage goals, not design conventions
For your Ecommerce store
Display product variety immediately rather than forcing customers to dig for selection
Automate categorization systems to handle large inventories without manual overhead
Design mega-navigation that showcases catalog depth as a competitive advantage
Test homepage as active sales tool versus traditional brand landing page