Managing Large-Scale Category Structures

Niche stores that focus on a small range of products have a luxury of often being able to limit their top-level categories to a few choices. An old rule of thumb was to aim for seven choices in any navigation menu, based on Miller's Law, which states that the human mind can only remember 7 (plus or minus 2) items in a list. Although usability expert Jakob Nielsen refuted this idea back in 2009, there's still a limit on the number of entries your site should have in its main navigation...if nothing else, the choices must be limited by the size of the customer's computer screen!

So how do larger stores manage to display their breadth of navigation choices while still having a usable website? Let's take a look at some examples.

Read more

Amazon Retailing Part 3: Understanding Customer Experience Metrics

Part 3 of our Selling on Amazon series discusses Customer Experience Metrics and how they affect your ability to make money on Amazon. This article is the third in a series, following previous topics about Winning the Buy Box and Listing Your Products on Amazon. Understanding Amazon's concept of Customer Experience Metrics will help you win the buy box more. Read more

Amazon Retailing Part 2: Listing Your Products

Welcome to Part 2 of our Selling on Amazon series. Previously we talked about how to compete with other Amazon retailers by winning the buy box for your products. Today, let's back up a little and discuss how to get your products onto Amazon in the first place. Amazon offers three basic ways to submit your listings: the Add a Product tool, Seller Desktop, and a flat-file upload. Let's look at each of these, and then talk about ways to improve your automation of the process. Read more

Selling on Amazon Part 1: Winning the Buy Box

So you've decided to hock your wares on Amazon.com? Amazon can be a great sales channel for retailers of many types of products, because they have BIG visibility, loyal customers with a perception of security behind the site, and a well-defined technical platform to support third-party retailers. However, there are several things that you need to learn and absorb if you are going to sell on Amazon. This post is the first in a series about selling on Amazon. Read more