E-commerce category pages: 8 ways to turn your catalogue into a sales machine
In physical shops, there is an entire profession dedicated to shelf layout. Physical merchandising — product placement, highlighting bestsellers, visual signage — is a science that directly influences purchasing decisions.
In e-commerce, the equivalent of this shelf is your category page. And in most shops, it is generated automatically by the CMS: the latest product added appears first, all information is displayed at the same level, and there is no hierarchy. No one has made any merchandising decisions.
This article gives you 8 practical strategies to transform your category pages into genuine conversion tools — with actions that can be implemented on PrestaShop, measured in GA4, and prioritised according to your product range.
Your category pages are your online shop floor. Do you treat them as such?
Between 30% and 40% of e-commerce sessions pass through a category page before reaching a product page. It is the main entry point to your catalogue — and yet it is often the least developed.
The paradox is glaringly obvious: retailers invest in their product pages (the ‘shelves’) and their checkout (the ‘checkout counter’), but neglect the ‘aisle’ — the category page where the first decision to explore is made. A visitor who cannot quickly find a product that interests them will not go to the product page. They will leave.
The following 8 optimisations cover this entire lever, from product cards to performance metrics.
Optimisation 1: Product cards that encourage clicks
The product card is the basic building block of your category page. It’s what makes people click — or not.
Even before opening a product page, your visitor wants to see: the price, reviews (stars + number of reviews, not just the rating), any promotional badges, and a stock indicator if items frequently run out of stock in your catalogue.
Displaying colour or material options directly on the card — without forcing a click through to the product page — reduces back-and-forth navigation and improves the flow of browsing. Two technical points to master for fashion or visual product shops:
The hover image: display a photo of the product from a different angle when the cursor hovers over the card. Not native to PrestaShop, but often supported in premium themes.
The variant image on swatch hover: when the visitor hovers over a colour swatch, the image changes to reflect that colour. This has a particularly strong impact on fashion products. Not native to PrestaShop and supported by few themes — but the impact on the user experience is significant for catalogues with numerous visual variations.
Note: do not overload the card. A maximum of three to four visible variants — the rest on click.
Quick add vs ‘view product’
For products without complex variants, an ‘Add to basket’ button directly on the product card removes a step from the checkout process. For simple product categories, this has been shown to increase the conversion rate by around 8–15%. For products with options (size, colour), the quick view feature or access to the product details page remains essential.
Optimisation 2: the layout that influences the user journey
Layout is not merely an aesthetic choice — it is a decision that influences browsing behaviour.
Grid vs list: when to use which
The grid is suitable for visual products: fashion, home décor, lifestyle. The image sells, and the display density allows for quick browsing. The list is suitable for technical products: electronics, equipment, tools. The specs sell, and the visitor wants to compare features. Offering visitors a grid/list toggle is an elegant solution for hybrid catalogues.
Infinite scroll vs pagination
Infinite scroll improves engagement on mobile and makes browsing more fluid — but poses problems with bookmarks, going back, and SEO indexing. Traditional pagination offers more control, is better for SEO (Google indexes numbered pages), and is better suited to considered purchases. The recommended compromise: ‘Load more’ — content loads on demand, without losing your position on the page.
How many products per page
Too few is frustrating — it gives the impression of a limited catalogue. Too many leads to decision paralysis (Barry Schwartz’s famous ‘paradox of choice’). Best practice is around 24 to 48 products per page, depending on the visual density of your sector.
Optimisation 3: Default sorting and strategic highlighting
The order in which your products are displayed is an active merchandising strategy — not a default setting to be ignored.
Sorting by “new arrivals” or “product code” makes no commercial sense to your visitor. What they should see first: your bestsellers (what sells well builds trust), products in stock (avoid displaying out-of-stock items at the top of the list), and ideally, an adaptation to the visitor’s behaviour (price range, categories already explored).
Supplement this with quick filters above the grid — “Price < €50”, “Available now”, “New arrivals” — for audiences with a specific intent. These shortcuts reduce friction without replacing faceted navigation.
Optimisation 4: SEO content without getting in the way of the shopping experience
This is a false dilemma that many retailers get wrong: placing all the SEO text at the top of the page, before the products. Visitors have to scroll down to see the catalogue. This is a mistake.
The basic rule is simple: text content must never delay access to the products.
Where to place editorial content
An H1 heading plus two to three lines of description above the product grid — visible without scrolling, useful for SEO and for providing context. Long-form content (300 to 500 words) goes at the bottom of the page, after the products. The accordion-style FAQ at the bottom of the page answers questions without users having to leave the category page and sends a positive E-E-A-T signal to Google.
The tags that Google monitors
An H1 tag optimised for the category’s main keyword, a title tag and meta description that differ from those on product pages, and a breadcrumb trail structured using Schema.org data for indexing and navigation. On paginated pages, don’t forget the canonical tags — a topic closely linked to the management of faceted URLs.
Optimisation 5: Editorial inserts within the catalogue
An often-overlooked feature on category pages: inserts placed directly within the product grid, between the cards. This type of block allows you to convey marketing messages without disrupting the browsing experience: reassuring claims (“free delivery on orders over €60”), highlighting a current promotion, branded content or a unique selling point.
This is a particularly effective approach for long categories, where visitors scroll and may lose interest. A well-placed insert — in position 5 or 9 in the grid — re-engages attention without interrupting the browsing experience.
This feature is available natively in Atomic Suite (202), allowing you to configure and manage these blocks without any specific development work.
Optimisation 6: mobile first (really)
Category pages are particularly disadvantaged on mobile — this is often where the differences in conversion rates between desktop and mobile are most pronounced.
Common mobile errors
Inaccessible filters (a desktop sidebar that isn’t adapted becomes invisible or unusable on mobile), tap areas that are too small on product cards, images that are too large and slow down scrolling, and the ‘quick add’ feature missing on mobile when it’s present on desktop.
Best practices
Overlay filters triggered by a sticky ‘Filter’ button, tap areas of at least 44px (as recommended by Apple and Google), lazy loading of images for smooth scrolling, and a search bar accessible with a single tap from the category page.
Optimisation 7: Trust signals right from the category level
Trust isn’t built solely on the product page — it needs to be evident from the moment a visitor starts browsing your catalogue.
Reassurance badges (free delivery, easy returns, secure payment) in banners or at the bottom of the page remind visitors of the terms of purchase as they decide whether to browse. Average ratings on product cards play an important role: the number of reviews matters just as much as the score — 47 reviews at 4.3/5 are more reassuring than 2 reviews at 5/5.
Popularity indicators (“Best Seller”, “Top Pick”) can boost confidence — provided they are not overused. And the “Only 3 left in stock” message visible on the card creates a sense of measured urgency, without being overly manipulative.
Optimisation 8: measuring the performance of your category pages
The final optimisation is also the first one to implement: without metrics, you won’t know where to prioritise your efforts.
Metrics specific to category pages in GA4
The click-through rate to a product page from the category (your internal engagement rate). The bounce rate and exit rate from the category. The add-to-basket rate from the category (if ‘Quick Add’ is enabled). And scroll depth — how many product rows are viewed on average before users leave.
What these metrics reveal
A high exit rate points to a relevance issue: poor default sorting, or products unsuited to the intent of the audience landing on this category. A low scroll depth indicates that the first screen isn’t engaging — optimise the sorting and put the bestsellers at the top. A good click-through rate to product pages combined with a low conversion rate suggests the problem lies elsewhere: product page, price, delivery costs.
Conclusion
Your category page isn’t just an automatic listing — it’s a digital merchandising tool that deserves just as much attention as your product pages. And unlike a complete redesign, the optimisations in this article can be implemented in stages and measured independently.
Immediate action: identify the category page with the highest exit rate in GA4 and start by applying the first three optimisations in this article.
Are your category pages leaving conversions on the table? The 202 e-commerce teams audit your catalogue and identify high-impact optimisations — without a complete overhaul.