Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Here's something that'll make every "best practices" guru cringe: I once convinced a client to turn their homepage into a product catalog. Their beautiful hero banner? Gone. Their carefully curated "featured collections"? Deleted. Their polished brand storytelling? Replaced with 48 products displayed like a warehouse catalog.
The result? Conversion rate doubled. Time to purchase dropped by 40%. The homepage went from being a glorified doorway to becoming the most valuable page on their site.
This wasn't some reckless experiment. It was a calculated response to a specific problem: product catalog overwhelm. When you have 1000+ products, traditional homepage design becomes your biggest conversion killer. Visitors don't want to hunt through multiple category pages—they want to see what you've got, immediately.
Here's what you'll learn from this playbook:
Why conventional homepage wisdom fails with large catalogs
The exact structure I used to turn a catalog into a conversion machine
How AI-powered categorization solved the navigation nightmare
When to break every ecommerce design rule you've ever heard
The metrics that prove this approach works (and when it doesn't)
This isn't about being different for the sake of it. It's about recognizing that when everyone in your industry follows the same playbook, that playbook becomes noise. Sometimes the most effective strategy comes from looking at what everyone else is doing—and doing the exact opposite.
Industry Reality
What every ecommerce owner believes about homepage design
Open any ecommerce design blog and you'll see the same gospel repeated everywhere: your homepage should tell a story. Hero banners with aspirational imagery. Featured product sections showcasing your "best sellers." Collection blocks that guide visitors through your brand journey. Testimonials positioned strategically to build trust. A clear value proposition above the fold.
The conventional wisdom looks something like this:
Hero section with brand messaging - Because first impressions matter
Featured collections - To guide discovery without overwhelming
Social proof section - Build trust with testimonials and reviews
Limited product showcase - 6-12 "hero" products max
Clear category navigation - Help visitors find their specific needs
This approach exists because it works—for certain businesses. If you're selling 20-50 carefully curated products, this structure makes perfect sense. You can craft a narrative around each collection. You can highlight your brand story. You can guide customers through a considered purchase journey.
But here's where it falls apart: catalog complexity. When you have 500, 1000, or 3000+ products, this approach becomes a conversion killer. Visitors end up clicking through endless category pages, getting lost in subcategories, and abandoning their search because they can't quickly see what's available.
The fundamental assumption behind traditional homepage design is that visitors need to be convinced to buy. But with large catalogs, the challenge isn't convincing—it's discovering. The friction isn't in the pitch; it's in the hunt.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about a Shopify project that taught me everything about product catalog psychology. The client came to me with what they thought was a conversion problem. They had over 1000 products in their catalog, decent traffic from various channels, but their conversion rate was stuck at a painful 0.8%.
Their homepage followed every best practice in the book. Beautiful hero banner showcasing their brand story. Carefully curated "Featured Products" section highlighting their top sellers. Collection blocks organized by category. The whole thing looked professional, polished, and completely... ineffective.
I started digging into their analytics, and the story became clear immediately. The homepage had the highest traffic but the lowest engagement. Visitors were spending an average of 23 seconds on the homepage before either bouncing or clicking to "All Products." But here's the kicker: the "All Products" page had terrible usability. It was an endless scroll of inventory that overwhelmed everyone who reached it.
The client's customers were stuck in what I call the "catalog maze." They'd land on the homepage, realize they couldn't quickly scan the full inventory, click to "All Products," get overwhelmed by the endless scroll, then either bounce or start a frustrating hunt through category pages.
My first instinct was to fix the category navigation. Add better filters. Improve the search functionality. Build a more intuitive information architecture. Classic UX thinking, right? I spent weeks creating wireframes for an improved browsing experience.
But then I had a realization while analyzing their most engaged users. The customers who actually converted were the ones who somehow made it to the "All Products" page and spent time scrolling through the inventory. They weren't using the curated collections or featured products at all. They wanted to browse everything.
That's when I proposed something that made my client think I'd lost my mind: "What if we turn the homepage into the catalog?"
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly what I did, step by step, to transform a traditional ecommerce homepage into a product catalog that actually converted.
Step 1: Navigation Architecture Overhaul
First, I tackled the navigation nightmare. With 1000+ products, traditional dropdown menus were useless. I implemented a mega-menu system with around 50 custom collections. But here's the key: I didn't rely on manual product tagging.
I built an AI workflow that automatically categorized new products based on their titles, descriptions, and attributes. This wasn't just about putting products in the right buckets—it was about creating multiple categorization paths. A single product could appear in several relevant collections based on different attributes: material, use case, style, price range.
Step 2: Homepage Catalog Display
This is where I went full contrarian. Instead of the traditional homepage structure, I created what I called a "catalog gallery." The homepage now displayed 48 products directly—arranged in a clean, scannable grid. No hero banner. No brand storytelling. No "featured collections" blocks.
The product grid was smart, not random. I prioritized products based on:
Recent bestsellers
New arrivals
Seasonal relevance
Inventory levels (pushing items that needed movement)
Step 3: Trust Without Clutter
I kept exactly one traditional element: a testimonials section. But I placed it strategically after the product grid, not competing for attention above the fold. The message was clear: "Here's what we have, and here's proof that people love it."
Step 4: Mobile-First Catalog Design
The mobile experience was critical. I designed a thumb-friendly grid where users could rapidly scroll through products. Each product tile showed:
High-quality product image
Product name
Price (with any discounts clearly highlighted)
Quick-add button for impulse purchases
Step 5: AI-Powered Automation
The real magic happened in the background. I set up automated workflows that:
Rotated homepage products based on performance data
Adjusted the grid based on seasonal trends
Personalized the display for returning visitors
Updated collection assignments automatically as new products were added
The key insight was treating the homepage like a living, breathing showcase of inventory rather than a static brand presentation. Every element served discovery, not persuasion.
Strategic Focus
Treating homepage as the catalog itself, not a gateway to it
Mega Navigation
AI-powered categorization across 50+ collections for instant product discovery
Automated Rotation
Smart algorithms prioritizing bestsellers, new arrivals, and seasonal items
Trust Positioning
Single testimonials section placed after products, not competing for attention
The results spoke louder than any design theory. Within the first month of launching the catalog-style homepage, we saw dramatic improvements across every meaningful metric.
Conversion Rate: Jumped from 0.8% to 1.6%—exactly double. But more importantly, the quality of conversions improved. Customers were finding products faster and buying more per session.
Time to Purchase: Dropped from an average of 4.2 page views per conversion to 2.8 page views. Customers were making purchase decisions faster because they could see options immediately instead of hunting through category pages.
Homepage Engagement: Average time on page increased from 23 seconds to 1 minute 47 seconds. Bounce rate dropped from 68% to 41%. The homepage transformed from a quick stop to a browsing destination.
Mobile Performance: Mobile conversions saw the biggest boost—up 87% compared to the previous design. The thumb-friendly grid made product discovery effortless on smaller screens.
The most surprising result? Customer support inquiries about "finding products" dropped by 60%. When everything is visible upfront, customers don't need to ask where things are.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experiment taught me five crucial lessons about ecommerce psychology and website design that I apply to every project now:
Industry best practices aren't universal laws. They're starting points based on common scenarios. When your scenario isn't common, the best practices become obstacles.
Friction lives where you don't expect it. I thought the conversion problem was in the product pages or checkout. It was actually in the discovery phase—before customers even knew what was available.
Catalog size changes everything. Design decisions that work for 50 products become counterproductive at 500+ products. Scale requires different solutions.
Customer behavior trumps design theory. The data showed that engaged customers were already trying to browse the full catalog. I just made it easier for them to do what they wanted to do.
Automation enables personalization at scale. The AI workflows didn't just organize products—they made the homepage dynamic and responsive to real customer behavior patterns.
Mobile-first thinking is critical for catalog design. When people can thumb-scroll through your entire inventory effortlessly, browsing becomes discovery becomes purchase intent.
Sometimes "boring" converts better than "beautiful." A warehouse-style product grid outperformed polished brand storytelling because it served customer intent better.
The biggest takeaway? Stop asking "What does a good homepage look like?" Start asking "What do my customers actually want to accomplish when they land here?" The answer might surprise you.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies with extensive feature sets or multiple product tiers:
Consider feature-focused landing pages over traditional benefit-driven homepages
Use interactive demos as your "product grid"—let prospects explore immediately
Implement smart categorization for different user types (admin, end-user, developer)
Apply catalog thinking to your feature documentation and use cases
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores with large product catalogs:
Test catalog-style homepages against traditional brand-focused designs
Implement AI-powered product categorization for smarter navigation
Prioritize mobile-first browsing experiences for product discovery
Use automation to keep homepage products fresh and relevant