There’s a new trend that I noticed on search results pages that appears deserving of a closer look to gauge its impact on usability and conversions. Some apparel and fashion sites show the 1st image on a search results page about twice as big as the rest of the search results. This is presumably because the first result is usually of most interest to visitors – especially if your site search is doing its job to ensure relevance in results. This format seems to work best in a grid view rather than a list view.
See this example on our customer site Supre. If you do a search for “shorts” you’ll get a search results page that by default shows the first result much bigger than the rest.
Another site that uses this feature is L.L. Bean. Do a search there for any term, say “sweater” – and you’ll see a standard search results page. On the upper right portion of the results page you have the option to select what view you prefer; the 2nd option, offers a grid view with the first result larger than the rest.
What’s nice about this is it allows the merchant to show more details of the item up close, including fabric and color swatches, and other details about the product. The rest of the products on the page have a QuickView Window option, which allows people to see a larger, closer up image of other items they might be interested in.
I haven’t seen any numbers that tell whether or not this impacts purchase activity, so it’s something that you’d want to A/B test if you do implement it. I don’t think this feature necessarily has to be limited to fashion retail sites. I could see something like this doing well for jewelry or accessories retailers, or for other products like electronics, cameras, or even flowers.
If you’ve tried this feature and have any feedback, please feel free to share them with a comment below.
