Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
When a handmade jewelry maker came to me with a 1000+ product catalog and a conversion rate that was bleeding, I knew we were dealing with something different from typical e-commerce optimization.
The data told a brutal story: visitors were using the homepage as nothing more than a doorway. They'd land, immediately click to "All Products," then get lost in an endless scroll through handcrafted earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. The beautiful homepage had become irrelevant.
While every "best practices" guide preached about hero banners, featured collections, and carefully curated product sections, I decided to go completely rogue. What if we treated this handmade goods store like a physical craft fair booth instead of a traditional retail store?
Here's what you'll discover in this playbook:
Why traditional e-commerce layouts fail for handmade businesses
The craft fair approach that doubled our conversion rate
How to turn your homepage into your catalog without losing trust
The AI workflow that automatically categorizes new handmade products
Why minimalism beats maximalism for artisan goods
This isn't another guide telling you to A/B test button colors. This is about fundamentally rethinking how handmade goods should be presented online - based on real experiments that actually moved the needle.
Breaking Rules
What the e-commerce gurus always preach
Every e-commerce expert will tell you the same thing about product page layouts: follow the proven formula. Hero section with compelling headline, featured products carousel, collection blocks, testimonials, and finally your product grid buried three scrolls down.
The conventional wisdom goes like this:
Homepage should tell a story - Brand narrative, mission statement, and emotional connection before showing products
Guide the customer journey - Curated collections to prevent choice paralysis
Social proof above the fold - Testimonials and press mentions to build immediate trust
Progressive disclosure - Reveal products gradually to maintain engagement
Multiple conversion paths - Newsletter signup, social follows, product discovery
This approach works beautifully for brands selling 5-20 hero products. Apple can afford to showcase three iPhone models on their homepage. Nike can feature their latest sneaker collection. But what happens when you're a handmade business with 1000+ unique pieces?
The industry answer is always the same: "Create collections! Organize by material! Use filters! Build a discovery experience!" But here's the problem - this assumes customers know what they want when they visit a handmade goods store.
In reality, handmade shoppers are browsers. They're not searching for "sterling silver earrings under $50." They're wandering through your digital craft booth, looking for something that catches their eye. The traditional e-commerce funnel doesn't match their shopping behavior at all.
That's where the conventional wisdom breaks down completely.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The client was a handmade jewelry artist who had been selling on Etsy for years before launching her own Shopify store. She had over 1000 products - each piece was unique, handcrafted, and photographed individually. Think one-of-a-kind wire-wrapped pendants, custom gemstone rings, and artisan earrings.
The traffic was decent (about 2000 monthly visitors), but the conversion rate was hovering around 0.8%. Even worse, the analytics showed that 73% of visitors bounced after viewing just the homepage. The ones who stayed were clicking immediately to "All Products" and then getting overwhelmed by the endless scroll.
My first instinct was to follow the playbook I knew. We built beautiful collection pages: "Earrings," "Necklaces," "Rings." We created seasonal collections like "Spring Florals" and "Bohemian Vibes." We added a quiz: "Find Your Perfect Piece." We optimized the hell out of product pages with better photos, detailed descriptions, and social proof.
The result? A marginal improvement to 1.1% conversion rate. Better, but not the breakthrough we needed.
That's when I had a realization during a weekend farmer's market. I was watching how people shopped at craft booths. They didn't ask "Do you have earrings?" They walked up, scanned everything laid out on the table, and specific pieces caught their eye. The successful vendors had their entire inventory visible at once, organized simply but completely accessible.
The craft booth vendors weren't hiding products behind collections or making customers dig through categories. Everything was right there, beautifully displayed, letting the products speak for themselves.
What if we treated the website the same way?
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
I decided to completely break the traditional e-commerce homepage structure. Instead of hero banners, featured collections, and marketing copy, we turned the homepage into the product catalog itself.
Here's exactly what we implemented:
The Homepage Product Grid
We displayed 48 products directly on the homepage. Not "featured" products or "bestsellers" - just the 48 most recent additions to her catalog. Each product tile showed the main photo, title, and price. Nothing else.
The AI workflow automatically rotated products, so return visitors always saw fresh inventory. We built this using Shopify's API to pull the most recently added products and refresh the grid weekly.
Mega-Menu Navigation
Instead of hiding categories in dropdowns, we created a visible mega-menu with all 12 main categories always visible: Earrings, Necklaces, Rings, Bracelets, Hair Accessories, etc. Each category showed a product count, so visitors knew exactly how much inventory was available.
We implemented an AI workflow using OpenAI's API to automatically categorize new products. When she uploaded a new piece, the system would analyze the title, description, and tags to automatically sort it into the right categories.
The Testimonials Section
Below the 48-product grid, we added one simple section: customer testimonials. Not positioned as social proof to convince people to browse, but as validation for people who were already interested in specific pieces they'd seen above.
We automated review collection using a Klaviyo workflow that sent personalized emails 14 days after purchase, asking customers to share photos of themselves wearing their pieces.
Simplified Product Pages
Since the homepage was now doing the browsing work, we streamlined individual product pages. Each page focused on three things: high-quality photos, the story behind that specific piece, and a prominent "Add to Cart" button.
We removed related product suggestions and "you might also like" sections. If someone clicked on a specific handmade piece, they wanted to focus on that decision, not get distracted by more options.
Instant Visibility
48 products displayed immediately without any clicks or navigation required
AI Categorization
Automated product sorting using OpenAI API for seamless organization
Customer Stories
Real testimonials with photos positioned after product discovery, not before
Focused Product Pages
Streamlined individual pages without distracting related product suggestions
The results challenged everything I thought I knew about e-commerce design:
The homepage reclaimed its position as both the most viewed AND most used page on the site. Instead of being a bounce-heavy landing page, it became the primary shopping interface. Page views per session increased from 2.3 to 4.7.
Conversion rate doubled from 0.8% to 1.6% within the first month. But more importantly, the average order value increased by 23% because customers were discovering pieces they wouldn't have found through traditional category navigation.
Time to purchase decreased significantly. The previous average of 3.2 sessions before purchase dropped to 1.8 sessions. Customers were making decisions faster because they could see the full range of options immediately.
The AI categorization system processed over 200 new products in the first quarter without any manual intervention. What used to take the business owner 2-3 hours of categorizing each week became completely automated.
But the most surprising result was the feedback from customers. Instead of complaints about being overwhelmed, we received emails saying things like "I love being able to see everything at once" and "It feels like browsing a real jewelry display case."
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experiment taught me that industry best practices aren't universal truths - they're optimizations for specific business models. When your inventory is your advantage (unique, handmade pieces), hiding it behind collections and curation actually hurts conversion.
Context matters more than conventions. A handmade business selling 1000 unique pieces has fundamentally different needs than a brand selling 20 hero products. The shopping behavior is different, the decision process is different, and the website structure should reflect that.
Automation can enhance authenticity. The AI categorization system didn't make the business feel less artisanal - it freed up the creator to focus on making more pieces instead of managing website organization.
Sometimes the best feature is fewer features. By removing "helpful" elements like related products and category filters on product pages, we actually improved the shopping experience. Customers could focus on the piece they were interested in without distraction.
Trust comes after interest, not before. Traditional advice says to build trust first through testimonials and social proof, then show products. But for handmade goods, the products themselves build trust. The testimonials work better as validation after someone's already interested.
AI works best when it's invisible. The automated product categorization and homepage rotation happened behind the scenes. Customers experienced the benefits (always fresh, well-organized inventory) without knowing there was AI involved.
Mobile-first means grid-first. Over 68% of traffic was mobile, and the product grid actually worked better on small screens than traditional homepage layouts with large hero images and text blocks.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS products, apply the "craft booth" principle to feature pages:
Display all key features immediately rather than hiding them in dropdowns
Use AI to automatically categorize and organize feature sets
Position testimonials after feature discovery, not before
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores with large catalogs:
Test homepage-as-catalog layout for unique or handmade inventory
Implement AI-powered product categorization for consistent organization
Simplify individual product pages when homepage handles discovery