Apple has launched a major redesign of its online Apple Store, finally unifying the area where people look at information on the company’s products and the place that they go to buy them. Earlier, users could research and look at products in one page, and then had to navigate over to the store to actually buy them. But Apple has dropped the “Store” tab and instead all of the pages can now be used for buying shiny Apple stuff.
The online store’s disappearance is a big move for Cupertino. Selling only Apple’s products and a few accessories picked from its most trusted partners, the Apple Store is one of the most visited online stores in the world. However, this move also expands its visitor’s advantage with the website’s shopping navigation made simpler. The site has included purchasing buttons and option for every product in its pages. Instead of getting redirected to another page to shop, visitors can directly review a product’s information and buy it on the main page. Apple also included a sub-browsing experience for every product selection to help shoppers review the models available under it. In other words, the site has also organized its items more as it includes categories and subcategories.
Yet another new addition to the site is the shopping bag icon. Instead of a cart, the shopping bag appearing on the upper right hand side of the website allows shoppers review the items they’ve shopped with a drop down view.
If you’re wondering why Cupertino has decided to merge its virtual storefront and warehouse after all these years, an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch that it’s “to give customers one simple destination to learn and buy without navigating between two different sites.”
The redesigned Apple website is now accessible to everyone in the world. That’s right, the company has managed to give it a complete overhaul without down-time, which makes us wonder why it has to go on maintenance mode every time a new product is announced.
