Product pages are the heart and soul of your eCommerce website. You still need efficient and trustworthy shopping carts and checkouts as we described recently, but arguably product pages are where the real selling goes on.
eCommerce product pages come in many forms but I’ll try to cover the most important factors here; ones that characterize sites that perform well and generate maximum sales. Understanding the right state of mind is important: eCommerce isn’t just a question of getting people onto a website and showing them things - you have to sell to them and you have to help them through the process. The more effectively you can do this, the more you will sell.
Design
The basic rule with the design of eCommerce product pages is that the products are the stars of the show. Being over-creative with the design will draw attention away from where you want it to be. I’m a lover of white space and a clear, uncomplicated canvas for displaying products. Look at this example of a product selection page from Gadsby:
The simplicity of design continues when I click on a product:
There’s nothing there to distract me from the important business of choosing the right product. The Gadsby site also highlights many other features of good practice which I’ll explain below.
Images on eCommerce product pages
I know it sounds obvious but large high-definition images will shift more products than poor ones. Major online retailers spend a fortune on photography for a reason. As obvious as this might sound I was still slightly shocked recently to see a leading sports team trying to sell clothing through its website with snapshots (that looked like they were taken on a mobile phone) of somebody ‘modelling’ the clothes outside the club shop. Perhaps it works for them, but I doubt it.
Increasingly people want to be able to zoom in, see different angles and ideally have a full 360 degree view. The more of these features you are able to offer, the closer you are getting to a physical shopping experience and the more you will sell.
If you want to prove whether this would work for you, try upgrading a small selection of product images on your site and then track the relative sales performance. Compare the sales performance over a couple of months using the unchanged products as your baseline over the test period.
Video
Video can be very effective for some products but I wouldn’t say it was essential in all cases. If your product is designed to move (which could include fashion items) then video is likely to add to the selling process and improve sales, and you should certainly look at it. Certainly where there is a lot of explaining to do, or if you need to create a perception of higher quality - such as high end tech - videos can really help enhance this message.
Delivery and Returns
Selling involves more than just the products. Customers are also buying into your customer service and will have other concerns and queries. Good eCommerce product pages deal with these. Clearly displayed information about delivery times and costs along with your returns policy mean that these considerations don’t get in the way of the selling process.
You can go a step further: a message saying order within 3 hours and get this by Wednesday 3rd August will add a bit of urgency and could prompt someone to complete the sale now rather than later.
Another simple bit of information to display is the stock level. It helps to know that you’ll actually be able to buy the thing you’re looking at. If you’ve got hundreds in stock we’d advise showing something more like 10+ as anything more can remove the sense of urgency and let your customers leave and forget. When stock levels are low it’s worth making this clear, wordings such as ‘Only 1 remaining!’ can help, assuming such wordings won’t detract from your brand.
Calls to action
Buttons for add to cart an ideally add to wishlist should be really clear and prominent - it’s an area where a splash of colour wouldn’t go amiss. Split testing and user testing show over and over again how making it harder for customers to find CTAs will hit your conversion rate. Within reason, the larger the better with Add to Cart links.
High performing product pages will also show a carefully selected range of upselling and cross-selling options which we covered in a recent article.
Live Chat on eCommerce sites is also a powerful sales feature that will improve conversion rates and should be a feature of your product pages.
Get your customers to do the selling
Your customers can help improve your sales in 3 ways: user ratings, user reviews and social sharing. Look back to the Gadsby product selection page example and you’ll notice the user star rating next to some of the products. I can’t think of many better ways to convince and reassure your customers than to show them clearly that other people have bought that product and been happy.
User reviews can reinforce this positive message once somebody has got down to the level of an individual product. Integrating 3rd party review platforms such as Feefo into eCommerce sites is something we’ve done for many clients with positive results for conversion and I really recommend it if you’re not already doing it.
Integrating social sharing buttons such as Twitter and Facebook will also make it easy for visitors to share your product pages with their friends - which is certainly something you want to encourage.
Copywriting
What you say about your products makes a big difference. Copying and pasting manufacturers’ content will mean you’re saying the same as everyone else. You may get penalised by Google for duplicate content and you are missing a big opportunity to use your understanding of your customers to connect with them on an emotional level and persuade them to make a purchase. Good copywriting means more sales.
Product Details
For some items your customers will want plenty of technical details to help them make a decision. If this applies to the things you sell, make a big effort to identify the most important bits of information and make these prominent and clear. Make all of the other information people might need easy to find and clearly displayed.
If a customer needs a bit of information to make a purchase decision, why make them go looking for it elsewhere, such as from one of your competitors? Again producing a video showing and reviewing the product can really help boost your sales - and give you an additional traffic source if shared publicly on sites such as YouTube or Vimeo.
There’s plenty to think about here and I’m not suggesting that you copy the Gadsby approach lock, stock and barrel. But hopefully I’ve given you some areas to focus on in your eCommerce development and testing programme.