5 Landing Page Design Lessons From Retail Stores

Last updated on by Instapage in Ecommerce, Landing Page Examples

Think back to your last in-store experience. What sections of the store did you go to? What items drew your attention? Did you find what you were looking for—or something more?

Retailers often organize their stores in specific ways to facilitate the buying journey. That means keeping top sellers at eye level on shelves, leading products in aisles closer to checkout, and easy add-on buys near the cash register. These are strategic decisions businesses use to increase orders and incentivize sales with minimal effort. Similarly, you should design your landing page with the same mindset.

Place your primary selling points or products where they’ll naturally catch visitors’ eyes. Display your priority content upfront, and save the less vital information for the back. And just like a retail store, you need to update your layout—add new products and content, reorganize based on customer data, and create new flows for purchase.

At the end of the day, organizing a retail store and designing a landing page share two common goals: taking advantage of interest to drive conversions.

So let’s dive into some key takeaways all marketers can glean from these retail strategies.
Match customers’ expectations—then expand their interests

Whether you’re designing a storefront or a landing page, you need to consider how your audience found your business. For websites and landing pages, this usually means a Google search, digital ad, or social media post. Customers come to your business with specific intent, and it’s crucial to match that motive.

Consider the initial curiosity that drew in your audience. In a retail store, this might be because of interest in the selling category, or promotional advertisements posted on the exterior of the building. The first thing a store does is place signs and promotional materials throughout to confirm ongoing specials and the categories of products they offer.

Think of a “buy-one-get-one-free” offer—also known as a BOGO. When these specials are in effect, the store will strategically place advertisements for all products that qualify for the offer.

The image depicts a product with a special offer. Offers are places in retail stores and can also be added to landing pages to highlight special offers

Your landing page should quickly establish what your offer is and how to apply it.

The first thing customers see should connect to their interests and the products you placed in your ad. If you focused on high-quality, ultra-soft pima cotton sweaters in the ad, those sweaters should be front and center on your landing page. This strategy is how you keep interest alive and capitalize on impulse decisions. It should be easy for consumers to take action before they lose interest in your offer.
Focus on bestsellers

Successful retailers have internalized the motto “Eye level is buy level.” This philosophy stems from the idea that you want to place your bestselling products on the middle shelf, which is at most adults’ eye level.

Customers pay a lot of attention to the products they find at eye level rather than those tucked away at the bottom or top shelves. For this reason, items for children might be lower than typical top sellers, and products for men might be a bit higher. Either way, the placement of products or content is equally vital to your landing page strategies.

Customers shouldn’t struggle to find your top offers or value points—especially when the window of opportunity is slim. Consider where the customer’s eye naturally goes on a landing page. You don’t want vital details about your offer hidden too far to the bottom or off to the side of the page where people may overlook it. Try comparing your landing page layout to the flow of a Z-pattern or F-pattern design. These techniques take advantage of the eye’s natural reading pattern to display content in a flow that suits their viewing habits.

Not sure what content is drawing the eye of customers on your page? Tools like Heatmaps give you a visual representation of your customers’ behavior on your landing page to help you optimize your layout.

Image depicts a landing page that is using a heatmap tool to give a visual representation of your customers’ behavior on your landing page to help you optimize your layout.
Create a cohesive flow

Item placement is a significant decision in the retail business—not just with shelf placement, but also with UX and UI.

Consider a shoe store. Shoe shoppers’ goals can vary greatly, so a third-party shoe retailer must cover a lot of product types. But they can’t merely scatter products anywhere in the store and expect to get sales.

The image shows a large aisle of products highlighting the similarity between endless options offered in store and online

For example, placing running shoes directly next to formal wear might not be the most profitable idea. Instead, the running shoes might be somewhere near hiking boots or basketball shoes. With this strategy, a shoe retailer can encourage athletic customers to browse for multiple aspects of their interests in one area of the store. If the store manager realizes most of their customers are athletes, they may put performance shoes in the front, with dress shoes along the back wall.

Think of your landing page flow in the same way.

A customer who clicks your ad has signified a specific interest. When they arrive at your landing page, build on that curiosity and provide new content the further they explore. If you advertise rainproof jackets, start with details about how your jackets perform in the rain. Then, you can build on the windbreaker features and, toward the end, pitch additional features or complementary products like rainproof boots.
Build bundles of value

Content flow goes beyond presenting products in an order of interest. Item placement in retail stores is about creating opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell. However, these tactics must be strategic, and applied in a way that makes the customer feel like they’re making a discovery about an additional product and not being pressured. On your landing page, you can increase purchase orders and the value of your clicks.

Imagine yourself at the grocery store. You finish adding all your groceries to your cart and head to the checkout. As you wait in line, your eye falls on the selection of candy and gum. You realize a quick snack sounds tasty, so you grab a chocolate bar, but then you worry about bad breath, so you also pick up some minty gum just in case.

Intentionally designed Instapage branded image that features gum to highlight the similarity between adding small items to add to your cart in a physical store and how that tactic can be used on a product landing page

In the shoe store, this portion of the checkout process might look different. Someone buying those new all-white sneakers they’ve been saving up for might be interested in shoe cleaner or waterproofing products in the selection by the register. Or, the cashier might offer a free pair of athletic socks for orders over a given amount.

You can do all this just as effectively on your landing page or checkout page.

When a customer adds an item to their cart, you have an opportunity to build a bundle or offer complementary products that might increase interest. For example, if someone decides they’re ready to buy your rainproof jacket, it might be an excellent opportunity to inform them of your waterproof boots as well.

You might consider presenting this information through a “Frequently Bought Together” section. Or, include a visualization like a lifestyle image of a customer using multiple items, an infographic of how a set of items work together, or an image of similar items bundled together.

Be sure not to force customers to choose between all or nothing. Put the focus on the primary offer and present the additional offers as suggestions, not need-to-haves. You want shoppers to feel as if they’re making a discovery and learning more about your brand, rather than having sales items pushed onto their feed.
Insight-driven updates

These strategies rely on insight-driven decisions. Retail stores use these practices based on valuable data and in-store insights. They depend on focus groups, customer questionnaires, and product sales to determine their strategy. More importantly, none of these strategies are static.

Is a new product in the back of the store garnering lots of interest? Try moving it to the front to see if it sells even more. Need to spread awareness about a new product type? Offer a BOGO in the section of the store to bundle it with popular products.

Retailers know they have to update their stores not just seasonally, but frequently, to keep up with consumer trends and changing product interest. They use data and customer experiences to refine these decisions, the same way you should with your landing page.

As an e-commerce seller, you have a significant advantage when making data-driven decisions. Your analytics should tell you what is or isn’t converting, when customers are losing interest, and what part of your sales funnel is falling behind. Even more, you can do focused testing to increase these insights and make firm decisions.

landing page builder dashboard

You should continually adjust your landing pages according to new insights. From design to narrative, every aspect of your landing page is adaptable and needs to be ready to change. If you don’t refresh your content frequently, you risk losing repeat customers, limiting new customer reach, and falling behind industry standards.
Instapage helps you run your landing page

A landing page is a considerable reflection of your business and something you want to shine in all aspects. It doesn’t take a huge team of designers or experts to craft landing pages that reflect your business goals. Just like a store owner who takes pride in an efficiently run retail business, Instapage lets you reinvent your landing page as an extension of your business.

Find out how Instapage helps you create optimized, easily adaptable, customer-centric landing pages for every offer by signing up for an Instapage demo today.

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