What’s a browse node and should I have it removed?
Chapter 9: Window-Shopping on the Web
Here are some other good things you’ll find when you scroll:
Recommendations: When you’re on the detail page for any product, you’ll find the Customers Who Bought This Also Bought feature just below the fold. This feature is a good way to find like products that you might enjoy. If an entire group of people bought a book that you loved, you might also love another book that the same group purchased.
Reviews:Both product and customer reviews live below the fold.
Expert Advice:You’ll find this header sprinkled throughout the site on category and subcategory pages. This is how you can access Amazon’s info centers and other fun information.
Your Recent History:As you shop, Amazon keeps a log of your journey and records it in a box that sits almost at the bottom of the page. You can use the links in the Your Recent History box to get back to some- thing you looked at earlier in your shopping trip.
The list versus the slide show
As you browse along, you’ll notice that not all browses (and I’m using the words as a noun here) look the same. Amazon displays browse nodes in two ways: the list and the slide show. Figure 9-3 shows an example of each.
Why one versus the other? The answer has to do with giving customers the right kind of information. When you shop for books, music, or DVDs, you probably want written product information, because knowing what the cover art looks like doesn’t really help you. On the other hand, when you shop for Figure 9-2:
Bottom of the Page Deals — just one juicy tidbit below the fold.
hard goods — kitchen products, TVs, cordless drills, or sweaters — seeing the product informs you faster than written information would. Plus, with the slide show, they can fit more products above the fold.
Using the Subnav to Find Goodies
Poor subnav. It’s ever the sidekick. The best supporting actress. It’s one of the most underrated parts of Amazon.com. (To review, the subnav is the strip of buttons at the top of the page just below the store tabs.) But the subnav Figure 9-3:
Different stores use different kinds of browse displays.
The Kitchen store uses the slide show, while the Bookstore uses the list.
125
Chapter 9: Window-Shopping on the Web
deserves a fair shake. There are actually lots of goodies to be found by using the subnav, and unlike lots of other things at Amazon, it’s always there so you can always find it.
Here are a few subnav ground rules:
Subnavs differ from store to store. All subnavs at Amazon serve the same purpose — to help you get to places within that store in one click — but they’re not the same store to store.
The subnav is always the same within a given store.So no matter what page you’re on in the Books store, for example, your subnav will look the same. You can access the same areas from the Books store home page as you would from a book detail page.
Subnavs offer a mix of choices that you can find elsewhere in the store as well as choices that are unique to the subnav.Though they differ from store to store, all subnavs offer the same kind of choices.
There are always Browse Categories buttons, a few featured categories, possibly an Advanced Search option, and then some goodies.
The subnav on the Welcome page is unique.This is the only subnav that allows access to the Top Sellers and Today’s Deals directory pages as well as Target and the international stores.
And here are some of the goodies you’ll find on the subnav:
Top Sellers: You’ll find a Top Sellers button on the subnav of every store at Amazon (in Books it’s called Bestsellers). They are Amazon’s most popular items and the lists are updated hourly! You’ll also notice a subset of Top Sellers listed by category in boxes on the right side of the page, as shown in Figure 9-4.
Today’s Deals:Every store except Books, Toys, and Baby features this subnav item. The deals are a combination of those advertised by Amazon in Sunday circulars, and some regular deals that just show up on the site.
New & Future Releases:You’ll find New and Future Releases in Music, Video, and DVD. In this section you can not only check out all the new releases by date, but you can also preorder items that haven’t been released yet.
Resource Center:Alas, the only subnav that features a Resource Center is Baby. But there are several other centers on the site and I’m lobbying to get them up on that subnav!
Used: This shows up in several of the stores — Books, Music, DVD, Kitchen — to name a few. If you don’t need it sparkly new, you can find great deals here.
Store-Specific Goodies: Check out the subnav in each store and you’ll find that they all have their unique sweet spots — Shop by Age in the Toys Store, Newspapers and Professional/Trade magazines in the Magazine store, Maternity in the Apparel store, and so on.
No matter where you are within a given store, you can click on the store’s main tab — the one that says Electronics or Books or whatever — to get back to that store’s home page.
Movers and Shakers
Movers and Shakers are fun. They’re the 25 biggest daily gainers in Amazon sales ranking. In other words, they are what’s hot right now. I would never suggest that you buy things just because the other kids are doing it, but it is cool to check out who’s buying what — in almost-real time.
You’ll find Movers and Shakers for the following products: Books, Music, Videos, DVDs, Electronics, Software, Toys & Games, Video Games, Kitchen &
Housewares, Magazine Subscriptions, Outdoor Living, and Tools & Hardware.
Now here’s the tricky part. As far as I can tell, you can only access the vari- ous Movers and Shakers lists from two places: the Welcome page and the Your Recommendations area in Your Store. In both places, it’s at the bottom of the page, so you have to scroll down a bit.
Figure 9-4:
Top sellers are in the nav and in boxes on the side of the store home page.