Shopzilla Promotes Filtering From Top Down

by Brian Smith, on June 16th, 2008

Excuse the image sizing issue. I’m trying out a new system and it’s not pretty. For now, you can just click on the image to see the screenshot in all its glory.

As opposed to the majority of shopping engines which place filters on the left hand side of search results, Shopzilla is now allowing for filtering from the top of the search results page.

Google Product Search/Google Base/Google Shopping is the only other shopping engine which displays filters in this way.

While this might seem like a small change, I’ve been told for years by the shopping engines that people really don’t use the filters. As Shopzilla (and others) have smart filtering capabilities that can drive consumers to make more informed buying decisions, I like that Shopzilla is being a little different. Not sure if this is a test or not.

Some other shopping engines do things differently:
Google Base displays filters on the bottom of the search results page.
Become displays filters on the right of the search results (which I always find a little jarring)

ShareThis | Tags: Become, Comparison Engines, Google Product Search/Google Base, Shopzilla

nicolas said

Hi Brian,
That is true most of the US-based shopping engines are displayed filters on the left ; but Kelkoo in Europe still uses filters at the top (among some others).

When we launch our new redesign last year, we came with the question: should we change and display the filters on the left? Everybody in the company had its own opinion on the subject. We did some user testings and haven’t shown one option was better than the other So we kept the filters at the top.

In the end, I think the main pros / cons for one or the other option are:
* the ability to scan all filtering options - having to scroll down to see all filters doesn’t make the left column really efficient
vs
* the ability to display products above the fold - not able to see products when displaying a page on 1024*768 with various toolbars is somehow annoying

Nicolas

June 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am |

Shopzilla experiments a new placement for filters: at the top of the page rather than on the left - nicolas leroy said

[...] Brian Smith has the scoop: Shopzilla now displays filtering options above the search results, when most of the CSEs still display them on a left column. However, Shopzilla is not the only CSE to display filters on the top. In Europe, Kelkoo and Twenga have implemented such display. [...]

June 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm |