33 Scientific Ways To Improve eCommerce Product Discovery

Consider this: almost half of all eCommerce shoppers begin their shopping journey on Amazon. 

And the main reason behind this is stellar product discovery. 

Also consider this: nearly half of all GenZ shoppers are likely to buy at the last minute—this again makes a case for faster product discovery, without which shoppers like this would flee your eCommerce store in no time at all. 

And that brings us to 5 crucial aspects in your site that you’ll need to optimize without a fault, to get this subtle conversion right:

NAVIGATION

SEARCH

FILTERING & SORTING 

RECOMMENDATIONS

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Let’s get started already!

How You Can Help Shoppers Discover More Products On Your Store

NAVIGATION

1. Efficient primary navigation hierarchy

How the information of your navigation menu lands on your visitors decides how easily they’ll find products they’re looking for. 

For primary navigation hierarchy to work better:

✔ Highlight the current scope (when a shopper clicks on a particular category, ensure that remains highlighted in the main menu - to add more clarity, highlight the subcategory the shopper may enter within this category too)

✔ Feature an “All products” link (if you have a limited number of products, “all products” in caps suffices, but if you have elaborate categories, consider placing an “all bundles,” “all travel packs” etc. under the associated category)

✔ Use a separate menu panel for important categories (this can be especially helpful for stores that don’t have a huge number of categories or subcategories, allowing the display of visuals too—exactly what Momofoku leverages for a quicker product discovery experience:)

Further Reading: 15 Website Navigation Menu Examples for eCommerce Stores

2. Don’t overcrowd categories

Baymard’s research reveals 75% of eCommerce stores end up doing this and the result is fatal on conversions. 

Overcategorization leads to shoppers being led into narrow sub-categorization, exposing them to a limited number of products. 

Here are a few ways you can get rid of this problem:

✔ Phase out less popular categories & combine them with popular ones (check your traffic data to arrive at what’s popular - if this still leads to overcrowding, ensure you relegate less popular categories / products to feature within specific category pages only and not within the main menu)

✔ Show up the most popularly searched sub-categories at the top of a category page (even if you’ve shown them in the mega menu like Wayfair does - once a shopper clicks a category from the main menu, the associated page shows the most searched sub-categories like this:)

3. Feature faceted search

The more granular you let shoppers be in arriving at their product choices, the more quickly they’ll arrive at a purchase decision too. 

In this regard, one aspect that can enhance product discoverability is faceted search, an approach that helps shoppers refine their search better with different attributes like “price,” “rating,” “new arrivals” etc. 

To make the most of faceted search, here are a few things to try:

✔ Feature interactive facets like sliders and clickable buttons (this can increase engagement on your category pages by making it easier for shoppers to interact with multiple elements to discover new products - features like price sliders and clickable facet tiles based on oft-searched keywords)

✔ Introduce filters for products with shared attributes (if you don’t do this, you’ll end up featuring the same product under multiple sub-categories, naturally confusing shoppers - UK based tech brand Currys avoids this by bringing in filters like “type” and “feature” to make it easy for shoppers to view similar products, from the same brand etc.)

‍Pro Tip: Introduce an additional “compare” button to let shoppers check and compare as many of the result listings as they’d like. 

Further Reading: Get more conversions from Search Results page - 15 proven ideas

4. Design your menu depth based on catalog size

Whether you’re designing a mega menu or not, the depth of your primary navigation should ideally depend on the number of products you feature—here are a few pointers to remember:

👉 For >100 products - restrict the menu depth to 1-2 layers 

👉 For 100 - 1000 products - restrict the menu depth to 3 layers 

👉 For over 1000 products - restrict the menu depth to 4 layers 

Apart from this, make sure to also: 

✔ Minimize clicks by combining categories for popular products (for example, the most popular products across categories can all come under “bestsellers” in your primary menu)

✔ Flatten your menu by creating hybrid categories & sub-categories (done well, this can shrink your menu reasonably, offering shoppers a better exposure at larger categories & subcategories in a lesser time - an example would be organizing product categories under lifestyle choices or health concerns)

eCommerce supplement brand Primal Harvest, for example, features less than 100 products and has opted for a single category page for all their products - at the top, they feature the health reasons for which shoppers typically look for products on their store, making them clickable as well:

Further Reading: eCommerce product catalog: common mistakes + how to fix them

5. Give breadcrumbs a place in site structure

Orienting your shoppers well within your eCommerce store is key to aiding product discoverability. 

There are multiple ways your breadcrumbs can come to use to optimize this process:

✔ Show them the path they’ve been on (treating the homepage or the main category as the source of their journey—Home / Product Type > Outdoor Seating > Summer Chairs)

✔ Display your product’s SKU as part of the path (this is especially helpful for stores that feature a high number of products and have products appear across multiple categories to improve relevance)

✔ Use the BreadcrumbList schema for markup (dynamically generating the correct breadcrumb markup for each page is vital for search engines to understand your site hierarchy and increasing the chances of displaying your pages in SERP results)

6. Consider using product visuals in your navigation

Since 23% of a shopper’s attention is naturally tuned in to the header section of an eCommerce website, using visuals here can have a considerable impact on click-through rates. (Read about hero images here.)

Here are a couple of considerations to remember to simplify the product discovery process:

✔ Limit larger visuals to up to 3 only if you have a huge number of products & sub-categories (in this case, highlighting the most relevant images with labels may boost conversions - for example, you could show an image with an award label under a particular category)

✔ Use image thumbnails when you want to highlight only categories (this is the approach supplement brand Huel takes to optimize their menu for product exploration & discovery:)

7. Sticky menu wins

Doom scrolling has become even more real, pushing shoppers to keep scrolling even if they’re a bit lost. 

And this is why you'd do well making your primary menu a sticky element as a shopper scrolls. 

Pro Tip: Activate the hover effect to reveal what’s within a particular category within the sticky menu—this enables shoppers to have more control while scrolling - something men’s shaving tools brand Freebird leverages by splitting each category into individual products & bundles:

Further Reading: eCommerce Sticky Menu: Things to AVOID + 8 Inspiring Examples

SEARCH

8. Activate autosuggest / autocorrect

Even if you show up an interesting “no search results found” page, it still doesn’t take away from a visitor feeling lost and frustrated. 

So, autocorrect and auto-suggest are indispensable. 

When you’re optimizing autocorrect you can either show up a list of suggestions that pick up the closest spellings & synonyms to what’s been typed or feature visual results like Kerrits does, because this reduces confusion that comes with language and terminology: 

When you’re optimizing auto-suggest, it’s ideal if you prioritize high converting products and categories in the display hierarchy—to set your suggestions apart, you can also consider using labels to distinguish items on sale, new arrivals or even low stock. 

Further Reading: How to avoid "No results page" on your eCommerce store

9. Show up instant product suggestions

If you wait to show recommendations until a shopper completes their search term or phrase, it’s an early product discovery nightmare. 

Instead, keep showing real-time product suggestions as the shopper types in their search term. 

Mac Cosmetics, for example, shows their bestsellers even as a shopper types, while stating how many products in total the close category type has and also showing a link to see all results:

10. Make visual search a reality

Visual search is a real game changer when it comes to your product discovery process. 

And it’s a tool that’s highly preferred by younger audiences to your store, who’re also more likely to explore options and spend more (by 2022, 30% of shoppers aged 34 and less were already using visual search regularly.)

This is a feature eCommerce home & decor brand Ikea has been able to incorporate smoothly—and given that the brand’s largest TG is between their mid-20s to early 30s, this works rather well:

To optimize visual search on your online store:

✔ Feature relevant keywords in image file names and alt tags

✔ Use a strong tagging system where multiple product attributes (like size, color, variant) are involved

Further Reading: eCommerce visual search: 9 smart optimization tips (+ 4 tools to use)

11. Feature enough in-category recommendations

It’s simple: when you feature a distinct section of in-category recommendations, you’re narrowing down the shopper’s search to cover more products they’d be interested in. 

Apart from effective eCommerce discovery, this often brings in better conversions too thanks to related products showing up as cross-sell opportunities. 

Makeup brand Colourpop prioritizes in-category results and even pulls up bestseller references to offer greater control to the shopper:

12. Show related subcategories that are trending

First-time visitors to your store will typically have a host of eCommerce discovery questions—one of the foremost among them is, “What other kinds of <insert category name> do you feature?”

And the interesting thing is even if you have a great primary menu or a homepage layout, many will expect you to show related sub-categories within the search function. 

The ideal way to do this is to fetch subcategories that are frequently searched for (and even bought from). 

The Vitamin Shoppe takes this approach while showing up several product suggestions from the same category:

13. Bring up branded bestsellers with the searched KW

Social proof isn’t always about a review section or highlights of press mentions. 

Sometimes, your search function can create a similar impact within the product discovery process. 

Exactly what nutrition & health brand aggregator iHerb leverages—to make their bestseller recommendations more effective, they ensure to pull up results that carry a discount on them:

Here are a few other ways you can improve product discoverability through bestselling recommendations:

✔ Personalize them based on past user behavior (searches, time spent on specific product pages, what was added to cart but not bought etc.)

✔ Feature a faceted search option within site search (this can help shoppers sort through bestsellers in real time and arrive at the most relevant results)

14. Align results with shopper “concerns”

It’s a stretch to imagine the majority of visitors knowing which of your products they’d like the most. 

But what you can certainly count on to optimize your product discovery steps is a shopper’s specific, personal concern—if you can optimize your search function to this detail, half of the conversion battle is won. 

Conscious skincare brand The Ordinary makes sure shoppers get relevant product recommendations even when they type a concern into the search bar:

If you want to enhance your product discovery eCommerce this way, make sure to:

✔ Use multiple tags for every product (this way, the same product can be pulled up for multiple concerns)

✔ Feature an explainer line for each recommended product (this can be the same descriptor line you use to list a product in the right category page)

Further Reading: 16 Behavioral Targeting Ideas for 2024 (eCommerce)

FILTERING & SORTING 

15. Add only relevant attributes

One of the persistent issues we’ve found with product discovery during audits is the use of filtering lists, which are unnecessarily long and unusable. 

The only way out of this is to keep the most relevant attributes as filters—this will not only give visitors a quicker sense of your entire catalog but also help them arrive at purchase decisions quicker. 

Here’s how to define the relevance of filter attributes more closely:

✔ Distinguish attributes that are used most often (you can either prioritize them higher up in the list of attributes or color code / label them differently)

✔ Display only those attributes that apply to the current category (for example, if “contains magnesium” is not an applicable attribute, make sure it doesn’t appear when a shopper tries to use filtering)

For sock brand Outway since both cushioning and pack size are important attributes (along with the regular “size”, “color”, “material” etc.) to help shoppers make informed buying decisions, they retain these in their category pages:

16. Allow multiple filter selection at the same time

Slow loading times and technical glitches make certain eCommerce stores avoid multiple filter selections. 

But this is a bad idea as far as the product discovery process is concerned, which when successful enables conversions too. 

So allowing multiple filter selections at one go is a must—just make sure to:

✔ Clearly state which filters are being selected (this is helpful for shoppers who’re looking to narrow down searches a great deal - especially if the store has a massive catalog)

✔ Visually cancel out filters that aren’t applicable (for example, someone looking for printed tees may want to choose “white”, but you may have no stock of printed white tees)

Sustainable sneaker brand Allbirds makes their multiple filter selection super UX-friendly—anyone choosing multiple filters will also be able to see a “filter by” section that lists the chosen ones, one by one:

17. Update listings in real-time as filters change

This is fundamental to helping shoppers in any part of the conversion funnel arrive at choices closer to their preferences in a dynamic way. 

So, the ideal way to do this is to limit the number of recommendations that appear as the shopper changes filters—along with that, it’s also essential that non-applicable filters be color-coded distinctly so that shoppers can mix and match, while getting instant visual cues on what pairs and what doesn’t. 

Skincare brand Three Ships does dynamic listing updates for each product type, making the process less overwhelming for the shopper as only up to 4 recommendations appear at any given time:

Further Reading: Product Listing Pages: 23 High-converting Examples For 2024

18. Mention exact product numbers against filters

When you’re simplifying how to do product discovery for your eCommerce store, one key aim to target is to reduce the number of clicks to an end goal. 

For example, if it’s simpler to tell your visitors 0 products against “white tees”, do that instead of having them click on it and then discovering there are no marching products. 

eCommerce fashion brand Urban Outfitters makes product discoverability easy by mentioning the total number of products for each product type and also clarifying the available number for each filter type (like color or style):

19. Feature more contextual sorting options

Apart from the most generic sorting options like “alphabetically A-Z” and “price low to high” and vice versa, eCommerce businesses with the most effective product discovery steps feature sorting options specific to that product category. 

For example, whereas a “bestsellers” might be a good sorting option for a skincare or supplement brand, for electronics “top rated” will usually make more sense. 

The idea is to use language that your TG would generally use and also:

✔ Prioritize sorters most often used by repeat customers by default when they land

✔ Add season-specific sorters like “gifting” and “free shipping” when relevant

✔ Feature a shopper-specific “recommended” sorter that personalizes based on previous use / behavior

20. Optimize your filter bar for mobile 

It’s a fact that 60% of all eCommerce sales happen on mobile. 

And that just means one thing: if your mobile shoppers aren’t able to narrow their choices down with fewer clicks, you’ve got a real conversion problem at hand. 

This is why optimizing your filter / sort bar for mobile is crucial:

✔ Separate the filter & sort options (if you combine the two and de-prioritize sorting, shoppers typically get frustrated trying to find a way to apply those options along with filters)

✔ Use icons to visually distinguish filtering and sorting (that’s what Burt’s Bees does, for example, while Chubbies mixes up filtering & sorting, making it difficult for shoppers to register this because they’re too accustomed to finding the sorting options at the top right, below the primary navigation:)

Further Reading: 30 Mobile Optimization Tips For eCommerce (+ Examples)

21. Consider adding visual filters

Among the product discovery examples we tested and found to be the most effective, are the ones that carry visual filters. 

This is especially effective for brands that are naturally visually led (think makeup, hair styling, home decor). 

Here are a few ways you can optimize visual filters on your eCommerce store:

✔ Use a color wheel with primary & secondary color swatches (this can be effective in gamifying the experience especially if you feature a wide number of colors)

✔ Enable choosing multi-color filters (this can be especially be great at pulling out recommendations on sets & bundles)

✔ Feature a size & fit visualizer (can be effective when a shopper is trying to get a sense of how a dress or shirt will look on their body type, for example)

eCommerce brand Wayfair brings in visual filters for their custom sofas to help shoppers pick from the larger available designs: 

RECOMMENDATIONS

22. Show up products like they’ve browsed before

48% of shoppers are known to spend more when they feel their experience is personalized. 

And in eCommerce product discovery, very few things can feel as personalized as recommendations. 

So for shoppers to get closer to what they’re likely to buy, show them products like the ones they’ve browsed before. 

Here are a few ideas we’ve enabled clients to refine their product discovery processes with:

✔ Use collaborative filtering to show products that are popular among a similar audience (using the right labels and call-outs will increase their chances of being spotted and clicked)

✔ Feature a recently viewed product as a pop-up with a first-time discount (this can act as a reminder for the shopper who may be looking at many such similar products together as well as prevent further browse abandonment)

✔ Welcome back repeat visitors with recommendations featuring what they viewed before (also feature similar products to increase the chances of them exploring more—that’s what Tiffany & Co. does when a visitor returns:)

Further Reading: How to Increase AOV on Shopify: 27 Upselling Ideas

23. Offer more info on recommendations 

Many eCommerce sites make the assumption that great visuals will drive the value of product recommendations instantly. 

Sadly, this is far from the truth—your shoppers need to know why they ought to look harder at a product and even consider buying it. 

Our tip? Get some crisp microcopy to do this work for you—which the product descriptions can amplify within your product pages. 

That’s exactly what women’s innerwear brand Knix does to great effect for better product discoverability:

24. Feature the quiz within the first fold

Stick by this, even if you have the most evolved primary navigation. 

Getting the potential buyer where they are isn’t always ideal with a back-end algorithm kicking in. 

A quiz is also about engaging actively with a visitor’s preferences—and having it in the first fold makes the product discovery process even more enthralling. 

Here are a few things to optimize this for more conversions:

✔ Feature no more than 5 questions (start with broader ones, and then tailor down based on the emerging responses)

✔ Offer a great justification for the results you fetch (instead of just pulling out recommendations that may still seem random to someone new to your brand - one way to do this is to match the responses to an attribute that makes a product a great recommendation)

Prose, a skin & hair brand, ensures they feature their quiz right on the header, with a bold statement as a CTA:

Further Reading: The Best Quiz Funnel Examples for your eCommerce Store

25. Show bestsellers within the first scroll

Even without reams of reviews, an eCommerce store’s bestsellers have the ability to bring in a huge portion of the profits. 

It’s a way to talk “social proof” without really talking about it—and aiding product discovery in the process. 

When featuring your bestsellers within the first scroll, remember to:

✔ Call them out with copy that catches attention (“most loved”, “selling fast” etc.)

✔ Feature no more than 5 products (if you put 15, shoppers experience cognitive load and also disbelief somewhere at the back of their minds, unless you sell groceries or have a huge catalog - even then limit it to 7 or 8)

Benefit Cosmetics features their bestsellers within the first scroll of the homepage but simply link the product names so that curious visitors go over to the product pages (though we wouldn’t recommend not putting CTAs):

26. Display seasonal recommendations 

It’s no news that certain seasons of the year change shopper behavior: while they run for tech goods around Black Friday, for Christmas anything that’s positioned as a “gift”, can potentially help conversions. 

And that means, how you display your seasonal recommendations during peak buying season becomes relevant to eCommerce product discovery:

✔ Use the header space to take exclusive attention to a seasonal collection

✔ Link your seasonal ads to landing pages that talk only of specific seasonal recommendations (category and theme based landing pages can work well)

✔ Feature switchable tabs that have headers like “Gifts under $50”, “Gifts under $100” etc. 

Clean beauty brand Ilia Beauty ensures their seasonal recommendations catch attention through the “limited edition” callout, lest shoppers decide to delay their purchase:

Further Reading: 32 Holiday Marketing Ideas for eCommerce Stores (2024 Update)

27. Combine UGC + recommendations

Pages that contain testimonials sell 34% more than those that don’t. This gives you ample room to recommend products along with actual UGC to drive shopper confidence—here are a few ways we’ve A/B tested for clients:

✔ Combine the social wall with associated recommendations (feature the UGC photos and either embed the “Shop Now” button distinctively into them or place it right beneath)

✔ Feature a review snippet and highlight the product name + CTA right under it 

✔ Use before / after images and pair it with a product recommendation (tagging real customers in this case can become a real game-changer)

28. Pull out results based on concerns / lifestyle choices / goals

The key here for product discoverability would be to look at your customer data and identify the top 3 to 5 concerns that shoppers seem to keep coming back to you for. 

You can then feature these distinctly on your homepage as well as any separate bundle pages you may have for better conversions. 

Here’s an example of how Love Wellness features concern-based recommendations—what makes them work is the fact that the brand highlights bestsellers and awarded products under each:

PRODUCT INFORMATION

29. Feature standardized product titles

As part of your eCommerce store’s product discovery steps, creating an algorithm for product titles is often crucial. 

Some of the ideal ways to standardize product titles for better discovery & conversions is to:

✔ Consider the words used by your TG (and include these in your titles)

✔ Keep it simple by using a concern or benefit to drive the title (for example, “The Relax Bundle”)

Skincare brand Blume names their products in a way that they lend to effective SEO and product discovery:

Further Reading: eCommerce Product Titles: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

30. Use descriptive image labels

In a series of recommendations, if you want shoppers to specifically look at a product that’s a new arrival or is on clearance sale, you’ll have to label them that way. 

One issue that we’ve at times run into in our audits is seeing product recommendations carrying more than 2 labels—this is too much information for shoppers and in an ideal scenario, you’d much rather have just one.

Identify the most important distinguishing factor about this product and then use that as a label. 

Kitsch uses monochromatic image labels to not take the attention away from the product:

31. Use a descriptive line for category page listings

While it’s desirable that visitors click on product page listings, it isn’t ideal for product discoverability if they’re doing this not out of curiosity but a sense that they need more info. 

You can avoid this glitch (which can later lead to shopper frustration) by adding a short descriptor across category pages, for every listed product. 

When you look at Olaplex’s category pages, you’ll see how well the brand has been able to figure descriptive phrases for its products to enhance discovery:

Don't forget to read: 33 High-Converting Product Landing Page Strategies (+ Examples)

32. Make product descriptions scannable with icons

When writing product descriptions, it’s ideal to remember that the average visitor to your site is likely to jump product pages. 

This makes it critical that your descriptions are scannable and easy-to-process. 

Alongside, for better product discovery, you may want to link other related products as part of descriptions—this has a similar effect as product recommendations, but is more subtle. 

We love how Feals features interactive sections and spreads CTAs across product pages along with scannable icons + copy:

Further Reading: 23 Key Elements Every Product Description Page Must Have (eCommerce)

33. Bring in comparison charts

Greater conviction and instant decision-making are often the results of comparison charts, which also enable product discovery. 

There are several ways to do this:

✔ Use a list of sliders to filter out products within the chart (this works like dynamic recommendations letting shoppers view products at different price, benefit and feature ranges)

✔ Use a chart to clarify differences between competitor brands and your brand (the more specific you are here, the more shoppers are likely to believe you - avoid featuring your competitors in an absolutely negative light)

Mattress brand Casper mixes comparisons with recommendations (while optimizing the most expensive option with a high number of benefits):

eCommerce business owners also ask:

What is the difference between product discovery and product search?

Product discovery has to do with a number of steps, both intentional and unintentional on the part of the visitor to arrive at products that match their needs and requirements. While many eCommerce businesses think discovery should be automatic and not driven directly by the visitor, that's not entirely the case.

Sometimes, visitors may search for a product vaguely knowing what they need and come across another, which they find closer to what they were looking for. Discovery makes it necessary that an eCommerce brand optimizes several aspects of their online store, including recommendations, product information and display as well as the quality of navigation and search. Due to these combined factors, product discovery is at times serendipity and at others, intentional.

Product search, on the other hand, is a set of actions that a visitor drives by specifically keying in search terms. However, even in product search, it is the brand's responsibility to optimize the quality of the search function & algorithm to personalize results and to offer more variety of recommendations. Typically, if a visitor already belongs to the BoFu category, product searches bring in less surprises—however, for those who fall under the ToFu and MoFu segments, product search can turn out to be as serendipitous as product discovery.

What are the 5 key elements of effective eCommerce product discovery?

The 5 key elements that make up an amazing product discovery experience in eCommerce are:

👉 Intuitive navigation and search

👉 Categorization & listing that help buyers across the funnel

👉 Recommendations that factor in personal preferences, past browsing & buying behavior and spending style

👉 Filtering options that easy to apply for more dynamic results & recommendations

👉 Information & display that appeal to a a TG's pain points and perception of trustworthy solutions

Ace UX to ace Product Discovery

98% of visitors who visit an eCommerce site—drop off without buying anything.

Why: user experience issues that cause friction for visitors.

And this is the problem Convertcart solves.

We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversions.

How we can help you:

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