Yesterday, Apple went live with their newly designed website. Now, shoppers will no longer see a “shop” button on the navigation bar at the very top of the page. The features that were formerly under the “shop” tab have since been integrated into all of the product pages.
APPLE REDESIGNS WEBSITE: NO LONGER BE A STORE.APPLE.COM URL
The separate “store.apple.com” URL for Apple products will also be removed; rather, all of the content will be displayed under “apple.com”. Consumers no longer have to research a product in one area of the site, only to have to switch over to “apple.com” in order to make a purchase. All of the e-commerce links and research assets will be in the same place.
As an example, when customers head over to the new MacBook section of the site, they will see a main image at the top of the page with two links under it that read “learn more” and “buy”. The first option will take the consumer to a section to learn more about the product. The second option takes the user to the area of the site where he or she can make a purchase.
PURCHASING ACCESSORIES HAS ALSO BEEN CHANGED
Furthermore, the “Accessories” tab on the main navigation bar of the site has also been removed. Instead, the links to the different varieties of accessories are now grouped with their associated products on the landing pages of the products. iPad cases, for example, are linked to the iPad page, iPhone cases are linked to the iPhone page and mouse pads are linked to the Mac pages.
APPLE REDESIGNS WEBSITE TO MAKE IT EASIER TO DRIVE SALES
This new design integrates online shopping and product information under one domain. This is important because the website is largely being utilized to sell more products, rather than just serving as a tool to provide information about them. This also makes it easier for Apple to predict and control inventory levels, as opposed to how the process is conducted in a brick-and-mortar store. According to Apple, more than one billion people from over 40 countries visit the site every year.
