Originally posted in 'WishList' thread early in the year.

'Re-arrange Shop' feature used in Etsy - Develop for ZC - either as free or pay for plugin.

To understand this feature it will be advantageous to have a 'shop' in Etsy or know someone who does, obviously I do. This feature allows the shop owner to select 'rearrange shop' which then allows the owner to move products, i.e. their images , to any order they desire - move an image to another spot on a page or move it to another page altogether, simply click and drag.

The obvious advantage to this is being able to 'refresh' the look of each page simply and easily, which is a huge benefit to give 'returning visitors' almost a new site when they revisit a page - also it allows placing 'bait' products on the first few pages, impressive and tantalizing products also (the products you want your visitors to see) with then the 'also ran' products towards the last pages. As much as there are TPP center boxes and sideboxes for featured products and specials many visitors dive straight to the product category they came for, that is where they pay attention.

We all have a reasonable percentage of returning visitors, particularly if we are ranked well for a number of keyword search terms or phrases. Even for repeat visitors who may be regular customers it will still give them a sense of 'this shop is always changing' which in itself is a lure to return regularly (even if it is just a reshuffle of the same products - most purchasing is visually initiated).

I struggle with the current 'sort order' for products as it takes continual work to try to change the appearance of the product pages - I have even reverted to using 'negative (-)' numbers in sort order when adding new and better products in a category but it is like putting a band-aid on a gushing artery. It is a time consuming awkward system that lacks flexibility.

I have 6 ZC sites, 5 of which are on page 1 of their respective main keyword search terms and pages 1-3 for minor keywords and they have been in these positions for many months (through Panda and now Penguin algo updates) so the sites are gaining excellent exposure however when looking at Google Analytics comparing websites versus Etsy shops with the same content a few things stand out, pages per visit is considerably higher on Etsy for what is the exact same content as the ZC website, bounce rate of returning visitors and exit rates from pages 3 or 4 onwards (of about 250 products, 36 per page) are higher on the ZC site. There are certainly a plethora of factors that could be contributing however I believe the 'sameness' of product presentation is a factor.

We all put a lot of presentation work into our home page however product listing pages are where buying decisions are made.

cheers,
Mike

a great name for your plugin could be 'WindowDresser' :)