Hi Reader,

We’re still beaming from our time at h+h americas earlier this month!

Our Ecommerce Strategist Helen, our Senior Identity and Web Designer Christine, and myself were honored to attend as faculty and teach about branding, advanced Shopify strategies and website content.

We had so many smart and helpful questions during our Shopify masterclasses. I hope to see you there next year, if your business is craft-related.

Hello from a quilter, embroiderer, and person who has at one time or another learned to knit, crochet, .latch hook, tuft, throw pottery, bead jewelry, and sew a t-shirt! It was super fun to be surrounded by crafty folk at h+h americas.

Arianne taking questions after Christine's inspiration-packed branding class at h+h americas.

Christine wowing everyone with her branding design presentation - and here's our embroidered logo for Benzie Design!

Nice to see so many familiar faces during this h+ h americas keynote! We created the Cloud9 Fabrics website, we've collaborated with Abby Glassenberg at Craft Industry Alliance and h+h americas for years and years, and Gather Here are among our favorite people to work with.

Practically camouflaged in the Modern Hoopla booth!

We've worked with Lisa of Indie Untangled for years. Here we are pointing at the logo that Aeolidia designed for her a decade ago!

Ok, nobody believed us, but Helen, Christine, and I all met in the lobby of the hotel, accidentally dressed the same! So Kate of Kelbourne Woolens threw on a sweater to match our vibe and posed by their booth, where we fit the color scheme perfectly.

We're thinking we need to attend events in this kind of color-coordinated and pattern-filled way on purpose from now on. It was a great conversation-starter. One exhibitor called our group look our "capsule collection." Hilarious! See more photos coming up on our Instagram account!

Q&A

Here's a reader question about website navigation, from Susan, as answered by Helen Hulskamp, Ecommerce Strategist on our team:

Q: Susan asks, "I find the navigation part of the Shopify to be difficult to construct. I don't have mine open yet because of this. Is there any template you follow that can help me?"

A: It is understandable that you feel stuck on this crucial component of the ecommerce user experience. When we plan a site, we have a separate team meeting devoted to brainstorming the navigation. It’s that important! There is no one-size-fits-all template because the navigation needs are so different for every catalog, but here are some strategies for planning your menus:

Talk to your customers and find out how they browse your products. Do they first care about color and then check the fiber content? Or do they shop by scent? Or by the designer? You will probably get different answers because not everyone shops the same way. So it is important to offer multiple ways to browse your catalog in addition to the standard product types.
Once you have an idea of all the product collections you need for different shopping patterns, do card-sorting exercises with your team and, if possible, some willing target customers. It is important to see how different brains sort your collections into groups. Aim for 5-8 of these top-level groupings and this will be your main shopping navigation. Any more than that and you will overwhelm your visitors with too many choices.
Also brainstorm all the informational pages needed on your site. An About and Contact page are must-haves and should be somewhere in your header navigation, ideally at the end. If adding these to the main navigation would push you over the limit of 8, then add a utility menu. This is a small menu usually in the upper left corner of the site. Other info links might include Stockists, Wholesale, Blog, FAQ, or other pages unique to your industry or brand.
Remember, this isn’t set in stone and it is more important to go live with your best guess. You can use tools like analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings to see how people use the first iteration of your navigation and keep refining it over time.

Question: Answered

Our team includes experts in branding, design, development, email & SMS/text marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce strategy, business growth and more. Email me back with your question! I'll consult one of our experts and share one response per week over email.

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