Why I Love The Oasis Product Listing Page
I’m going to get straight into this one. I’ve no affiliation to Oasis whatsoever, I’m just a really big fan of their website and want to praise them for a few things I think they’re doing really well on their product listing pages that other retailers can learn from. Here goes…
Quickview
Oasis provide the option on their product listings for a quick view of the product so that the user can take a closer look at their item of interest without committing to a full product page load. This is nothing groundbreaking and you’ve probably noticed this function on a couple of sites, Asos for example. It’s a feature I believe however, not enough retailers are using and only a handful of sites seem to have this functionality. As you can see from the image below, you can even add to bag straight from here.
I noticed the true value of quickview within a product listings page during some user testing sessions recently. The user was very comfortable in using quick view and it would help to quickly make decisions as to whether to commit to a full product page load. Opening up the quick view modal then very quickly using the images and video (which Oasis don’t have within Quickview) to make their decision on the item. It provided an option which was very easy to access and dismiss without the need to flick back and forth between pages whilst maintaining the scroll position and filtration within the original listings page.
I’m not convinced this is something every shopper would use and I think it takes time to learn the behaviour, but the natural way in which I’ve witnessed some users easily navigate through their listings or search results using this to make their decision was enough to convince me it’s a really important feature to include to improve the customer journey.
Of course this is really a desktop and tablet only functionality, I don’t think I’ve seen anybody adopt this approach on mobile yet. The Oasis site drops this function out as the screen size shrinks. I don’t see any reason for a version of a this being implemented on mobile though. Let me know if you’ve seen any.
Store Availability
Within the filtration area for product listings at all screen sizes Oasis provide the option to narrow down and filter your listings to stock which is available near to you. Store stock checkers and local availability is again, nothing new and utilised by many sites. However, the majority of these are later in to the customer journey and here this feature is tackling the problems as early as possible to avoid disappointment later down the funnel.
If a customer needs an item the same day or wants to check it in their local store before they commit to purchase, maybe for sizing reasons, they can use this function to do so. It sets the customers expectation as early as possible.
I believe Oasis can then start to tap into improving their multi-channel offering from here and improving that journey, developing the brand experience and creating loyalty. It’s a really good starting place to do this from.
Featured Items & Collections
Displaying featured items within a product listing is possibly a risky move, especially within search results. It’s likely to annoy or disappoint if you return the wrong results. Oasis however use this function really well among their collections, pulling out key pieces and using their product imagery to it’s full potential.
It’s not over used and every now and then throughout the listings page you will see an item pulled out, really, just displayed in a different way. It’s a really nice, subtle way or merchandising the product on site and dropping best-sellers in front of your customers. It’s something utilised in-store and always has been, so there is no reason for this not to work on websites.
As previously mentioned, I’d possibly avoid doing this on search result pages in case it interrupts the journey , but that would certainly be something worth testing as it works seamlessly on the collections pages.
I’m not sure if there is any personalisation or targeting applied to what is displayed here by Oasis, but it could be a really nice place to do so if not. It seems the featured items shown are the same for all users, but it could be a great place to re-target certain items.
Coming Soon
In a similar approach to the above featured items, Oasis pulls out products within the collections which are not yet available on site. Whilst it sounds like a risky idea to place items in front of people which they cannot yet buy, Oasis handle the journey perfectly to make this a really nice feature.
Dropping these items into the product listings enhances the brand experience and could even create a reason for the user to come back to visit the site in the following days or weeks if they like the items they see.
It doesn’t appear that there is any way to pre-order the items, which could be a nice to have feature, though you can enter your email address to receive a notification when the item does arrive in stock. A great feature for the customer but also priceless information for the retailer to estimate demand and even to be able to target a specific segment of customers when the product does go on sale.
Favourites
Personally, I’m a huge advocate of favouriting functionality on websites and use it all the time myself. I’ve seen many users during testing sessions adopting the same behaviour too. I don’t think its enough to just provide this option on the product page or to include a save for later within bag as some sites do. Oasis, dropping this in to the product listing and search results pages is the perfect place in the journey for me.
Whilst some users do enjoy favouriting items from a product page, I think this is a different journey that is often overlooked. Allowing the option to favourite items from here means that users can create a shortlist of items they are interested in which they can then refine later. I see so many users doing this within their bag, which is fine if they’re comfortable that way, but this option can clean up that journey for both the user and the retailer.
Favouriting items from here means the bag can be kept for intent to buy and the favourite items can be used to create a list of products which can be later narrowed down or selected from.
My one problem with the favourites function here is that it is an on hover effect and when browsing, it’s not un-noticable, but it’s also not immediately clear that this is an option to do so. The other problem is that you have to then hover back over a product to see whether you have previously favourited the item, where it would be much more handy to just see this when scrolling through the page.
Image Options
One of my favourite things about the Oasis PLP’s is the way they provide options to view the items in different ways. For each collection you have the ability to view products as worn by their model or individually as stand-alone items. On desktop, there is even the option to get rid of the product details and view the images alone. It’s the familiar story of a simple concept that not enough retailers are putting into practice. We all know people interpret information in different ways and have their preferences in how they want to view items. This is the perfect place to cater to that.
I believe this goes a little beyond that thought though. We hear so often from our own user testing and it’s hard to avoid in the media these days that shoppers are increasingly struggling to relate to the models used in fashion. Whilst Oasis largely know their audience and use models which fit their demographic, it’s doesn’t mean it works for every one of those. Literally, it’s not a one size fits all approach. A product may simply not represent what it will look like on a customer from a model shot and providing the option to view the product on it’s own caters for that and aims to not alienate these shoppers as well as just providing multiple views of the items.
Collection Copy
A real simple one this, but I love the way they have implemented their copy and SEO information at the top of the page, above the filters. This is something that it often handled quite ungracefully and added in as a secondary thought, possibly by the copywriters after the designers have taken care of the fun stuff. It shouldn’t be this way.
Oasis is a great example of incorporating their brand identity into this with their hand-written style, pink text. The information is also short, helpful and to the point and I’m sure it does it job as copy should too.
Collection Labels
Finally, a nice little feature Oasis have added to their pages is to feature labels for certain products. New In, Bestseller etc. It’s a small change, but I’d love to know whether this was tested and what the uplift of doing this is, if so.
It just adds another dimension to the item, adds social proof if it’s a best-seller for example, creates excitement if it’s a new in item and so on. A really small little detail that can go a long way in creating an experience and certainly something I’ve played around with in the past with success and hope to do again in the future.
In Conclusion…
Overall I am a big fan of the Oasis website as a whole and love to take the opportunity to talk the site up. That’s not the reason for this article though. I really do think there are a lot of simple things the site is doing well, that a lot of retailers can learn from. The above may seem like the obvious, or simple ideas, there is nothing in there that is breaking to bounds of technology, but all those little things add up. They are going a long way in creating a brand experience and generating customer loyalty. Today, I applaud you Oasis.
