If I could pick only one change to make buying easier for shoppers on phones, I would add a mobile tab bar. It is a fixed navigation strip at the bottom of the screen, showing a few icons with labels. Shoppers do not have to search or open a menu — they look down and see right where they need to go. That is why nearly every major e-commerce app uses it.
Why putting it at the bottom matters
Most people hold their phone with one hand. Steven Hoober’s research, which observed more than 1,300 people, found that about 49% hold the phone in one hand and tap with their thumb. When held this way, the thumb only reaches comfortably to the lower part of the screen — the area usually called the thumb zone.
The top of the screen is the opposite: to reach it, people have to stretch their thumb or switch hands. The traditional hamburger menu sits right in the top corner, the farthest spot away. A tab bar at the bottom falls squarely into the easy-to-reach area. Shoppers act faster and mistap less, simply because it sits right where the thumb already is.
As large-screen phones become more common, this distance matters even more. A button at the bottom is always within reach; a button at the top is not always so.
Visible right away, no action needed
The biggest difference between a tab bar and a hidden menu is visibility. It is always there, 4-5 icons with labels, and shoppers do not have to open anything.
This matters more than many people think. Nielsen Norman Group studied 179 people across 6 websites and concluded: hiding the main navigation noticeably reduces how often shoppers find it, lengthens task completion time, and makes the experience feel harder. When a menu is visible, people use it far more than when they have to tap a three-line icon first.
For a store, “shoppers use navigation more” usually means “shoppers view more products”. A cosmetics seller can keep a Search icon on the tab bar; a shopper looking for one specific lipstick just taps once instead of digging through a menu. Every extra step removed is a chance to keep that shopper around.
When shoppers find their way easily, it indirectly helps checkout too. According to Baymard Institute’s roundup of many studies, the average cart abandonment rate sits around 70% and has barely moved for years. Most of the cause lies in the checkout step, but confusing navigation that distracts or loses shoppers plays a part too. A Cart icon always visible at the bottom, with a quantity badge, reminds shoppers their cart is still waiting.
The 4-5 item rule: keep only the main destinations
The hardest part of a tab bar is not technical — it is the discipline of choosing items. The space is very narrow, so it should go only to the main destinations — the places shoppers need most often.
A classic setup that works for most stores:
- Home — back to the homepage
- Collections / Shop — into the product categories
- Search — quick search
- Cart — the cart, with a quantity count
- Account — account, orders, or one priority item of your own
The fifth item is the one to weigh against your business model. If you are running a heavy promotion, you might swap it for Flash Sale. If content is what brings shoppers back, it could be Blog. A seasonal fashion shop might temporarily put New Arrivals. The key point: only one priority item, no cramming.
Why no more than 5 items
This limit is not just for looks. On a phone screen, cramming in 6-7 icons shrinks each item, makes labels hard to read, and puts tap targets so close together that mistaps happen. When everything is “important”, nothing stands out.
I once made exactly this mistake: I wanted to put Products, Promotions, Contact, Blog, Account, and Cart all on the same strip. The result was a cramped row of icons where shoppers still did not know what to tap. Cutting it down to 5 clear items made everything breathe again. A tab bar does one thing well: it gets shoppers to a few of the most important places, fast. Everything else — policies, guides, secondary categories — can live in the slide menu or footer.
A pattern shoppers already know
There is an advantage few people notice: shoppers already know how to use a tab bar before they ever reach your store. They see it every day in shopping apps, social apps, banking apps. A strip of icons at the bottom with Home, Search, Cart, and Account is a convention almost everyone understands.
When a store uses that exact pattern, shoppers do not have to learn anything new. They look at the bottom and instantly know what to do. This familiarity is itself a form of conversion optimization — you reduce friction without having to explain anything.
For sellers on Shopify, the snag is usually technical: most themes do not include an app-style tab bar, and coding one yourself is costly and breaks easily when you change themes. This is where a dedicated tool helps. Navi+ lets you build a tab bar by drag-and-drop, with no code, with separate setups for mobile and desktop, and the menu stays in place when you switch themes.
Do not trade it for page speed
One last note. The tab bar shows on every page, so if it is heavy, it slows down the whole store. And Google scores speed directly through Core Web Vitals: LCP should be under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, CLS under 0.1. CLS in particular — layout shift — breaks easily if the bottom bar pops in late and pushes other content around.
When choosing a tool to build your tab bar, favor one that is light and stable and does not drag down your speed score. Navi+ has high ratings on the Shopify App Store and carries the “Built for Shopify” badge. A good tab bar must be both easy to tap and free of any wait.
In short, the tab bar is the main alternative to the hamburger menu on phones: it sits in the thumb zone, stays visible without opening, is limited to a few of the most important destinations, and builds on a pattern shoppers already know. Getting these few basics right is usually enough to make buying noticeably easier for shoppers on mobile.
This article is part of the larger guide on Mobile navigation — why the hamburger menu is fading and what to use instead.