Cross-Navigation Tabs Are Back
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Last summer Gap Inc. dipped a toe back into brand cross-navigation, a staple of late 90s and early 2000s e-commerce design that used link bars to drive traffic to sister brands:
Gap Cross-Nav Summer 2009
Gap clearly liked what they saw because they upgraded the cross-nav’s small text only links to big bold tabs only a few months later:
Gap Cross-Nav Today
The trend caught on so quickly that it prompted Linda Bustos to document other retailers following suit last month.
Now two more big retailers have embraced tabbed cross-navigation. Lane Bryant has begun linking to their Cacique, Catherines, and Fashion Bug brands in a top mounted tab bar that is, shall we say, the sincerest form of Gap flattery right down to the shipping offer and shopping cart boxes.
New Lane Bryant Cross-Nav
Forever 21 has also gotten in on the act, adding links to their Hertiage 1981, HTG 81 Kids, and Twelve by Twelve brands. (Interestingly Forever 21 houses all of their brands in subdirectories within the forever21.com domain. Do they know something about SEO that we don’t?)
New Forever 21 Cross-Nav
What does this mean for smaller retailers?
Gap claims that the changes were the result of focus groups and a part of a larger initiative to integrate the cross-brand shopping experience. We don’t yet know, however, if the cross-nav tabs have resulted in increased conversions or average order value.
It’s also possible that Gap’s peers have made similar changes not because they drove better results in testing but because of a herd mentality that products an “800 pound gorilla see 800 pound gorilla do” effect among larger retailers.
Small retailers should keep an eye on the cross-nav tab trend but until we better understand its benefits there is no need hop aboard just yet. By all means, run a few tests to see if it produces lift conversions, AOV, or a meaningful engagement metric. Just don’t let the 800 pound gorillas make a monkey-follower out of you.
