Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
When a client with 1000+ products told me their conversion rate was bleeding out, I knew we had a problem. But it wasn't the problem everyone expected.
Here's the thing about interface design for shopping sites: everyone's obsessed with making things "beautiful" according to industry standards. Hero banners, featured collections, carefully curated product sections. You know the drill.
But here's what I discovered after working on dozens of e-commerce projects - the most beautiful interface means nothing if customers can't find what they want. And that's exactly what was happening to this client.
Their homepage looked like every other e-commerce site. Professional. Clean. Following all the "best practices." And completely useless for actual shopping.
After completely restructuring their interface and breaking every conventional rule, we doubled their conversion rate. Not through prettier buttons or better copy, but by fundamentally rethinking what an e-commerce interface should actually do.
Here's what you'll learn from this experiment:
Why industry-standard homepage designs kill conversions for large catalogs
The counter-intuitive interface structure that actually helps customers shop
How to design navigation that doesn't overwhelm users with 1000+ products
The specific changes that moved our homepage from ignored to indispensable
When to break design rules and when to follow them
This isn't about making prettier websites. It's about creating interfaces that actually sell. Let me show you exactly how we did it.
Industry reality
Why "best practices" don't work for everyone
Go to any e-commerce design blog, and you'll see the same advice repeated everywhere. The "perfect" homepage should have:
A hero section with your main value proposition
Featured products showcasing your bestsellers
Collection highlights guiding users to categories
Social proof with testimonials and reviews
About us section building trust and brand story
This advice comes from studying successful brands like Apple, Nike, or Glossier. Companies with limited product lines and strong brand recognition. The logic makes sense - create a beautiful brand experience that guides customers through a curated journey.
But here's where this conventional wisdom breaks down: not every e-commerce business is Apple. When you have hundreds or thousands of products, when customers come to you for selection rather than brand experience, when your strength is variety rather than curation - the standard approach becomes a barrier.
The "best practice" interface assumes customers know what they want and just need convincing. But what happens when customers come to browse? When they want to explore options? When discovery is part of the shopping experience?
That's when the beautiful, branded homepage becomes a dead end. Customers land, see some featured products that might not interest them, and leave. The interface optimized for "brand experience" fails at its most basic job: helping people shop.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The client came to me with a frustrating problem. They were getting decent traffic to their Shopify store - a couple thousand visitors per month. But their conversion rate was stuck around 0.8%, way below industry standards.
Here's what made this case interesting: they weren't selling cheap impulse purchases. These were quality products with good margins, the kind where customers typically want to browse and compare before buying. Their catalog had over 1000 SKUs across multiple categories.
The data told a brutal story. I analyzed their traffic flow and discovered that most users were treating the homepage like a highway rest stop. They'd land, immediately click "All Products," then get lost in an endless scroll of items with no clear path forward.
The homepage had become irrelevant. Less than 15% of visitors actually engaged with any of the featured sections. The "Our Collections" blocks got almost no clicks. The hero banner with their brand story? Ignored.
Meanwhile, the "All Products" page was overwhelming. 1000+ items in a basic grid with minimal filtering. Customers would scroll for a bit, maybe click on a few products, then leave without buying anything.
I tried the conventional fixes first. Better hero copy, more compelling featured product sections, improved category descriptions. We saw marginal improvements, but nothing significant. The fundamental problem remained: customers needed to shop, but the interface was designed for browsing.
That's when I realized we were solving the wrong problem. Everyone talks about optimizing the customer journey, but what if the journey itself was wrong? What if the traditional "homepage → category → product" flow wasn't what these customers actually needed?
The breakthrough came when I looked at how customers actually behaved on the site. They weren't following our designed path. They were trying to jump straight to the products they wanted to see. The interface was fighting against natural shopping behavior instead of supporting it.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
I decided to do something that made my client nervous: turn the homepage into the catalog itself.
Instead of the traditional e-commerce homepage structure, I implemented what I called a "mega-catalog" approach. Here's exactly what we built:
The Mega-Menu Navigation System
First, I created an AI-powered categorization system that automatically sorted products into 50+ specific categories. This wasn't just basic tagging - we built intelligent workflows that analyzed product attributes and placed items in multiple relevant categories when appropriate.
The navigation became the star of the interface. Instead of hiding categories in dropdown menus, we made them immediately visible and searchable. Customers could see the breadth of what was available without clicking through multiple pages.
Homepage as Product Gallery
This was the controversial part. I removed the hero banner, featured collections, and brand story sections. Instead, the homepage displayed 48 products directly - a carefully curated mix representing different categories and price points.
But this wasn't random. The AI system rotated products based on several factors: category representation, seasonal relevance, inventory levels, and customer behavior patterns. Fresh visitors saw variety; returning customers saw personalized selections.
The Only Additional Element
Below the product grid, I added just one more section: customer testimonials. Not generic brand testimonials, but specific product reviews that reinforced the quality and variety message.
Smart Filtering Integration
Within the homepage product grid, I implemented instant filtering. Customers could narrow down the 48 displayed products by price, category, or key attributes without leaving the page. This gave them a taste of the full catalog's capabilities.
Mobile-First Product Cards
Each product card was designed for quick scanning - clear product image, price, brief description, and immediate "Add to Cart" capability. No extra clicks required to see basic information.
The result was a homepage that actually functioned like a store. Instead of being a marketing brochure that eventually led to shopping, it was shopping from the first second.
Mega-Menu Magic
AI-powered categorization across 50+ categories made browsing intuitive instead of overwhelming
Homepage = Catalog
Displayed 48 products directly on homepage instead of hiding them behind "featured collections"
AI Product Rotation
Smart algorithms showed variety to new visitors and personalized selections to returning customers
Instant Filtering
Homepage filtering let customers narrow 48 products by price and category without page reloads
The transformation was immediate and dramatic. Within the first month after launch:
Conversion rate doubled from 0.8% to 1.6% - not through better persuasion, but through better shopping experience. Customers could actually find what they wanted.
The homepage reclaimed its position as the most important page on the site. Instead of being a brief stop before "real" shopping, it became where shopping happened. Time on homepage increased by 230%, and homepage-to-purchase conversion specifically hit 2.1%.
But here's what surprised everyone: average order value increased by 15%. When customers could see product variety immediately, they were more likely to add multiple items or upgrade to premium options.
The AI categorization system reduced customer service inquiries about "finding products" by 40%. The mega-menu made the breadth of inventory discoverable without overwhelming navigation.
Perhaps most importantly, the client team could actually manage the interface. Adding new products automatically populated them in relevant categories and homepage rotations. No more manual curation of "featured" sections that quickly became stale.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This project taught me seven critical lessons about interface design for shopping sites:
1. Industry standards aren't universal laws - What works for fashion brands doesn't work for variety retailers. Design patterns exist for specific business models, not all e-commerce.
2. Your interface should match your strength - If your competitive advantage is selection and variety, hide it behind brand messaging. Lead with what makes you valuable.
3. The "front door" concept is broken - Modern customers don't follow linear paths. Every page is a potential entry point, so every page should be useful.
4. Automation beats curation at scale - Manual "featured product" selection becomes a bottleneck. Smart systems can showcase variety better than human curators.
5. Mobile behavior drives all design - Customers want immediate value, not marketing journeys. Get to the point faster than you think you should.
6. AI enables personalization without complexity - Simple rotation algorithms can make every visit feel customized without requiring customer accounts or complex data.
7. Conversion comes from removing friction, not adding persuasion - Instead of convincing people to buy, make buying easier to start.
The biggest lesson? Stop copying what "successful" brands do and start solving what your specific customers actually need. Your interface should serve your business model, not generic best practices.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS products, apply this thinking to your feature showcasing:
Display core functionality immediately instead of hiding behind marketing copy
Use smart categorization to organize features by user type or use case
Let prospects "shop" your features like products
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, especially those with large catalogs:
Test homepage-as-catalog approach if you have 200+ products
Invest in intelligent navigation before visual design
Use AI for automatic product categorization and rotation
Prioritize shopping functionality over brand storytelling