E-commerce · Shopify
Online Bookstore
A conversion-focused Shopify storefront for an online college-textbook retailer — a 5,000+ title catalogue at launch organised by subject, with fast search/filter and a secure, low-friction checkout.
- Role
- Brand Identity · Design & Development
- Client
- US academic-textbook e-commerce business
- Platform
- Shopify
- Year
- Oct 2025
Overview
An online store selling authentic, affordable US college textbooks — positioned as a student-friendly alternative to campus bookstores. I designed and built a conversion-focused Shopify storefront for a 5,000+ title catalogue at launch: easy to browse, quick to buy from, with a checkout tuned for clarity and trust.
The challenge
Make a large catalogue easy to browse and quick to buy from — clear subject navigation, fast search and filtering, and a trustworthy, low-friction checkout — while keeping the brand considered and student-friendly. Most of the range is course textbooks (medical, nursing, psychology and social science), and a buyer often arrives knowing the exact book, so search had to accept an ISBN, a title or an author.
Approach
- Structured the catalogue, navigation, and product pages around subject collections so students find the right book fast.
- Put search by ISBN, title or author in the header and in the home-page hero, with direct buttons into the medical and nursing ranges.
- Laid out each subject collection (for example Anatomy & Physiology, Mental Health & Counseling, Computer Science, Statistics & Research Methods) as a row of books showing the sale price next to the list price.
- Designed and built the storefront on Shopify.
- Designed the brand identity and its guideline sheet, then used it across the store: navy and orange, Playfair Display headings with Inter body text, and simple icons for the four trust points.
- Optimised the path to checkout — search, filtering, cart, and a clear, secure checkout with multiple payment options (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, cards).
- Surfaced trust signals — authentic US editions, fast shipping, returns, and human support — at the right moments in the journey.
Outcome
A live Shopify store with a streamlined browse-to-buy experience across a large textbook catalogue, clear subject navigation, and a secure multi-option checkout. The live store now lists 13,000+ titles, takes Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Shop Pay and major cards, and shows free US shipping, 14-day returns and secure checkout on the page. I later ran this same store's growth and operations (paid search, a repricing engine and a catalogue-wide SEO clean-up); that work is in the Performance Marketing & Growth Ops case.
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