When planning to design and launch a new online store, it is imperative that you evaluate some of the big names in eCommerce to see what elements make them so successful. What elements of their online shopping experience keep customers coming back and keep conversions high? In this post, I would like to highlight a well-known online store and point out some features that enhance the buying experience for their customers – the Nike Online Store.

Product Organization & Navigation System

When discussing eCommerce, I cannot emphasize the store navigation enough. The first step to a successful store is allowing the visitor to find their desired items easily and quickly. With thousands of products for any type of athlete, The Nike Store is a great example of a well-designed and well-organized online store. The accordion-style navigation on the left panel of the site is simplistic, but it does an excellent job of organizing the wide variety of products in stock. Once the customer has found their category of interest, the store utilizes large product imagery to push them in the right direction. If a particular category is selected, such as shoes or clothing, there is a secondary navigation system that allows the user to filter the products by color, model, sport, etc. While the store integrates callouts for particular product lines and deals, everything remains streamlined and easy to find. The final navigation incorporated into the site is the account links at the top of every page. Having links to customer accounts (or cleverly named “my locker”), order status, and cart all encourage visitors to create an account with Nike and interact more with the site.

On the Nike Store, all of the products can be found in a well-organized accordion menu down the left side.

Individual Product Details & Information

The individual product page is another aspect of the Nike Store that sets it apart from other online shopping environments. Whether the customer has selected a particular jacket or a pair of new football cleats, the store provides them with unlimited information about the product. The product page features a detailed product description with suggestions for additional products, information regarding the technology utilized for the product, sizing guides, and a long list of product reviews all organized in tabs. The customer can quickly gather all of the information they need in order to make the purchase without leaving the page.

Once I have found the products I am looking for, I can now filter my search even further.

While viewing a jacket, I can select a tab on the product page to view a fitting guide -- one of many product detail tabs.

Help Section & Customer Service

Another important aspect of an online store is customer trust. The best way to gain the trust of your online shoppers is to provide a section of the site dedicated to answering questions regarding site security, product details, shipping, or technical difficulties.  Nike has accomplished this with their “Get Help” section. This area of the site makes it easy for any user to look through a long list of frequently asked questions. This section of the site also features a separate search bar to aid customers without making them dig too far into the support pages. Customers can chat with a live support team, email the Nike support team directly, or even schedule a call from Nike for assistance.

The Nike Online Store is a good example of eCommerce done right. Obviously, this is a high-end example of a store with thousands of products and attracts visitors from all over the world. Nike is using several custom built tools that are not typically seen in an online store. An entire blog post could be dedicated to discussing the greatness of the NikeiD section (area of the site devoted to customizing select Nike product lines) alone. The goal of studying sites like these is not to mirror them, but to implement some of the subtle ideas and techniques that they use into your existing project. As a designer, the Nike Store has been a source of inspiration.