Apple.com Revamped to Integrate Store and Product Pages

Apple, on Friday, redesigned its website to significantly improve the shopping experience of users. The biggest noticeable change is the removal of the Store tab. The company has now added a buying button on the product pages themselves.

For years, Apple maintained two sections of the Apple.com site - one to showcase products, and the other to sell them (or in some countries, like India, find out where to buy them). This caused a disconnect for users who were willing to purchase a device after perusing its features and specifications, having to take that one extra step to once again find the product on the store.apple.com section, and then choose the configuration. Now, configuring and buying a device can all be done on the device page.

The revamp now brings a new shopping bag icon (appears if you are logged in) for the cart and a 'Buy now' button on the top menu which offers information like order status and also lists the items that you have favourited in the past. Clicking on the buy button also displays all the variants and configurations available, as well as extended warranty and related accessories. The accessory page has also been revamped, listing with new layouts, recommendations, and categories.

"We redesigned Apple.com knowing that our customers want to explore, research and shop in one place," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch, adding, "The new Apple.com takes the very best of our existing site and our online store to give customers one simple destination to learn and buy without navigating between two different sites. We've also improved several of the site's features to make shopping easier than ever for our customers."

Unfortunately, the changes won't make much of a difference to regions like India where Apple does not sell its products directly. Users will still only be directed to where they can buy the Apple product in brick and mortar retail stores, or visit e-commerce portals themselves.