Every January, we set resolutions for our businesses. Improve conversion rates. Reduce cart abandonment. Optimize for mobile. These are all worthy goals, but I’ve been thinking about something different lately.
What if this year, instead of focusing on metrics that benefit us, we focused on creating experiences our customers actually enjoy?
Not in a vague “customer-centric” buzzword way. Something more specific: what if we made shopping genuinely fun?
I had a conversation recently that helped me think about this differently. I was talking with someone in e-commerce about why engagement matters, and he kept coming back to conversion rates and traffic numbers. I couldn’t quite explain what I meant until I tried a different analogy.
“Think about video games,” I said. “The way to get people to play a video game is to make it fun. Players play longer. They come back more often. They explore more deeply. Not because they have to, but because they want to.”
He stopped. “Oh. That’s… actually, yeah. That’s what keeps me coming back to games I love.”
That conversation stuck with me.
The Video Game Principle
Video games figured out engagement decades ago. The best ones don’t force you to play—they make you want to play. They reward exploration. They make discovery feel satisfying. They create moments that keep you coming back.
When you’re playing a game you love, you’re not thinking, “I have to finish this level.” You’re thinking, “I wonder what’s around that corner. Let me try this path. Oh, that was cool—what else is here?”
That’s genuine engagement. Not obligation. Enjoyment.
The same principle applies to shopping.
What 35 Years of Catalog Design Taught Me About Shopping
I spent 35 years designing catalogs and direct mail. That’s thousands of layouts, millions of impressions, constant testing of what makes people flip through pages versus what makes them toss the catalog aside.
The great catalogs—the ones people actually spent time with—had something in common: they made browsing fun.
The layouts drew your eye naturally from one product to the next. Related items appeared together in ways that made sense. The visual flow felt effortless. You’d start looking for one thing and suddenly realize you’d been browsing for ten minutes, discovering things you hadn’t planned to look for.
That wasn’t accident. It was design. Intentional decisions about layout, flow, visual hierarchy, and how products related to each other on the page.
And here’s what I’ve noticed since moving into e-commerce: most online shopping experiences have lost that.
Search bars ask customers to describe exactly what they want. But catalog shoppers didn’t always know what they wanted—they browsed until something caught their eye.
Filters require systematic narrowing: type, size, color, price range. But catalog layouts showed you options visually, letting your eye do the filtering naturally.
Product pages show one item at a time, isolated from context. But catalogs showed items in relationship to each other—”this goes with that, which works beautifully with this other thing.”
These online approaches are functional. They help people who know exactly what they want find it quickly. And that’s valuable.
But they’re not fun. They don’t create that flow state where browsing becomes enjoyable. Where discovery feels natural. Where you look up and realize you’ve been exploring for longer than you planned because the experience itself was satisfying.
That level of enjoyment isn’t a luxury. It’s what kept catalogs on coffee tables instead of in recycling bins. And it’s what online shopping needs more of.
What “Fun Shopping” Might Look Like
When I think about my best in-person shopping experiences, they weren’t the most efficient ones. They were the ones where I got pleasantly lost.
The bookstore where I wandered into sections I hadn’t planned to visit and found something unexpected. The boutique where one great piece led me to three others I wouldn’t have thought to look for. The farmers market where part of the joy was just seeing what looked good as I walked through.
Those experiences shared something: discovery felt rewarding, not exhausting.
I’ve been thinking about what that might look like online:
Visual discovery instead of always searching. Sometimes people want to browse, not hunt. They want to see collections, combinations, possibilities—not just search results.
Natural exploration instead of targeted efficiency. What if finding related products felt easy and inviting rather than like clicking through to more isolated pages?
Room for serendipity. Some of the best purchases are the ones you didn’t plan to make—the ones you discovered while looking at something else.
Valuing browsing, not just buying. Not every visit needs to end in a purchase. Some visits could just feel enjoyable enough that people bookmark your site and come back when they’re ready.
Why This Feels More Urgent Now
You might be wondering if this is just philosophical musing. “Nice idea, but does it actually matter?”
Here’s what changed my thinking: when Google launched AI Mode in 2025, we started seeing data that suggested something important.
The algorithm shifted to weigh engagement signals much more heavily: how long users stay, how many products they view, whether they return, how deeply they interact.
And here’s what became clear: you can’t fake engagement. You can’t trick the algorithm into thinking users are engaged when they’re having a frustrating experience.
But when shopping is genuinely enjoyable? Engagement happens naturally. People stay longer because they’re interested. They view more products because discovery feels rewarding. They come back because the experience was satisfying.
That’s not manipulation. That’s just… making something people actually like using.
A Question Worth Asking
“When someone shops here, do they enjoy the experience—or is it just functional?”
Not “Does it convert well?” or “Is it optimized?” Those things matter. But they ensure your store works. They don’t necessarily make it enjoyable.
Some questions I’ve found helpful:
- When someone lands here, do they feel invited to explore, or immediately pressured to know what they want?
- Can they discover things they weren’t specifically searching for?
- Does browsing feel easy and natural, or does it require a lot of effort?
- Would someone save this site just because they enjoyed the experience, even if they’re not ready to buy?
- Are there reasons to come back beyond needing to purchase something?
I don’t have perfect answers for my own work. But asking the questions has been clarifying.
Thinking Like a Game Designer
Video game designers spend a lot of time on questions like: “How do we reward exploration? How do we make discovery feel satisfying? What makes players want to come back?”
I’ve started wondering if e-commerce folks should ask similar questions.
Not by adding gamification gimmicks—points, badges, spinning wheels. But by thinking about the fundamental experience of browsing a store. Does it feel like exploring something interesting? Or does it feel like completing a task?
The answers will vary by store and what you sell. But the principle might be universal: when something is genuinely enjoyable, people naturally engage more deeply with it.
That could mean showing products in visual collections instead of endless grids. Creating natural pathways between related items. Letting people save favorites and build their own collections. Designing for discovery, not just search-and-purchase.
The specifics depend on your store. But the question is worth exploring.
Could 2026 Be Different?
Most New Year’s resolutions for e-commerce stores look similar: optimize this, improve that, increase the other thing. All worthy goals.
But maybe this year could include something different. Not instead of those things—alongside them.
What if we spent some time making our stores more enjoyable to shop? Not in a vague way, but in specific, tangible ways that make browsing feel less like work and more like… well, like something people might actually want to do.
Because when shopping is fun, something interesting happens. People stay longer. They explore more. They come back more often. Not because we optimized them into it, but because they genuinely enjoyed themselves.
And in 2026, when engagement signals matter more than ever, that might not just be nice to have.
It might actually be smart strategy.
If you’re curious what engaging, enjoyable shopping can look like, the Stylaquin demo store has some examples of visual, magazine-style browsing that makes exploration feel more natural.
Happy New Year. Here’s to making online shopping fun!
