Overstock may have just changed the ecommerce game on us. They have released a major redesign that uses search as the primary navigational metaphor. Such a brilliant move and I think users are actually ready for it. I believe this redesign will serve as a paradigm shift in the online shopping metaphor. It will be interesting to see how this move plays out. Have a look at the new overstock.com
I’d say that they need to improve the search a little if they’re going to emphasise it.
I think the main problem with search on e-commerce sites is that it is almost universally terrible. Until that’s sorted (to a Google goodness level) it’s basically useless.
I also think that search on an e-commerce site is a lazy way to approach UI — it means the site designer can’t be bothered sorting things properly.
It’s different for the whole web; it can’t be organised because all the content comes from different people — an ecommerce site should have more editorial and design control.
The overstock search results are relevant and the options to refine by category or search are very well thought out. Search is not a lazy way to approach UI, it is a great way to get a ‘hunter’ to product with little or no friction and ‘Organized’ is a relative term. By emphasizing search you totally flatten potentially confusing hierarchy. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for overstock.
I did a couple of searches (for stuff I thought might be there), and it didn’t particularly excite me.
Search is a good way to do _some_ ecommerce sites — I mean, I have no idea what the target audience is for this site (having never seen it before). If it’s like a pricegrabber/froogle/comparison thing, then it can be okay. (If you know the exact model number of what you want to find).
It’s good to have good search on a site (it would need to be better than what’s on there), but a properly designed navigation structure will give greater benefits most of the time, in my opinion. I also think that a heavy reliance on faceted navigation UIs for an ecommerce site is a mistake. (Or at least I’ve only ever seen a couple I thought weren’t awful.) It all depends on the audience of course.
Doing a few more searches reveals that they should really think about detecting brand names and category names etc in the search queries — at the moment it seems like the most simplistic product name search.