Organise by how people shop
Most stores structure collections around the supplier's categories, which reflect how the industry organises itself rather than how a customer thinks about their problem.
Customers think in terms of what they are trying to do: the room, the job, the occasion, the compatibility. Collections built that way get used; collections built from a supplier catalogue get browsed past.
Filters are the real navigation
Past about fifty products, shoppers stop browsing and start filtering. If your filters do not include the attribute they care about, they leave.
- Filter by the attributes customers actually mention when they email you
- Price, size and colour as a minimum for most physical products
- Compatibility or fitment where relevant — this is the highest-value filter in many sectors
- In-stock as a filter, because nobody wants to click through to unavailable items
Keep the menu shallow
Three levels is the practical limit. Anything deeper and shoppers lose track of where they are, particularly on a phone where the menu is a small overlay.
If you need more depth, that is a signal to use filters within a broader collection rather than more menu levels.
Collection pages deserve content
A collection page with a title and a grid of products is a wasted page. A short introduction explaining what the range covers, how to choose between the options, and what the common questions are makes it useful to shoppers and visible in search.
Two or three paragraphs is enough. Most stores have none.
Handle empty and discontinued properly
- Never show an empty collection — hide it or redirect it
- Discontinued products should point at their replacement, not disappear
- Out-of-stock items can stay visible with a notify option, which captures demand
- Seasonal collections should be hidden out of season, not left showing nothing