A dream situation! A customer happens to see a product in your online store by accident. Almost without thinking, they add it to their basket. Just a couple of clicks, and hey presto! The customer has checked out and is now a happy patron of your store!
In some online stores, this actually happens. Most often however, making a purchase happen requires a lot of work with product information, photos, and other elements.
Step into your customer's shoes. Think about a situation where you have found a product you like in an online store. To seal your purchase decision, you need a little more information about the product. You browse through the product photos and read the description carefully, but no–you cannot find the answer to your question about the product.
What about the reviews then? FAQs? Has someone else who bought the product already had the same thought? The longer the customer is forced to study the product page looking for an answer, the likelier they are to leave without buying the product. What are the elements that an effective and successfully constructed product page should contain?
The Sales Funnel’s Blind Spot
Lots of parts in an online store can benefit from investing time on development to speed up this process. Nothing makes a customer happier than a quick and easy purchase process. However, you should not neglect the product page and its significance.
The product cannot find its way to the shopping basket if the product page is not in order. It is said that the product page is the most overlooked part of the sales funnel. The product page should answer all questions that the customers might have regarding the product. In a way, the product page seals the purchase decision.
100 Words or a Short Story?
The product description should answer all the questions a customer might have. When writing the description, try to put yourself in the customer's position. What are the things that a customer might think when deciding whether to buy your product?
It is important that the description you write follows the general style of your online store and speaks directly to your customers. If you have excessively general notes targeting everyone, you may not stand out in the right way for to your customers. If your store and the products on offer are special, the product page should express that.
In your online store, do not copy the product description directly from the manufacturer. This is an bland solution for you, your customers, and the search engines. You should pay special attention to search engines in this area. A description that is too short may not necessarily satisfy Google.
When it comes to text and product descriptions, more may not always be better. The quantity of text does not correlate with the quality of the product description. Only use text to convey what the customer cannot otherwise discern from the product page. The customer can figure out the color, model, and possibly the size of the product with the product photos.
Also avoid unnecessary, obvious sentences. If a sentence is insignificant to the description as a whole, delete it. Is your product high-quality? Versatile? Magnificent? Durable? The world is full of adjectives, but how do the ones you choose describe the product? Justify them, and stick to meaningful sentences when describing the product to your customers.
Overly complicated language and witty commands in the form of buttons on your product page may lead the customer elsewhere. Thus, avoid unnecessary cleverness—you can make do with less. Add to basket or Purchase product buttons will do the job fine.
Using the Entire Store to Support the Products
If your product requires a story or additional support behind it, you can create a separate article, page, or blog post about the product in your store. In the text, you can cover the aspects that don't fit on the product page. Similarly, you can use an article to present a customer story from a satisfied user.
However, consider creating new pages carefully. Is it reasonable to create a dedicated page for a single product? Does your store include several products that could perform better if they were supported by a separate article? You can compile user experiences of several products in a single article to.
Another option is to add tabs to the product pages. A page with tabs does not feel as crowded. By moving from one interesting tab to another, customers can discover the relevant facts about your product themselves.
For example, Lunette's product page includes a size guide which is important role for choosing the right product. What size of moon cup should the customer choose? The answer to this question is already included on the product page, so the customer does not have to hunt for this information across the whole website.
Obviously, the page should include a photo, or preferably several photos, of the product. Any old picture may not be up to the task, so you should use the best possible ones. But what makes a good product photo? Read some tips for good product photos in over here.
A Little Justification Goes a Long Way
If the quality of your products, and therefore the price, is higher than your competitors', spending some time justifying the price is recommended. Let your customers know what the quality, and thus the price, of your products is due to. This stage requires good copywriting to ensure that the customer goes on to check out the product in more detail, even though the price is higher. You must convince the customer of the relationship between the product price and quality.
Retailers often think that customers are as well informed about the products as they are, but this assumption is far from true, as Alan Schaffer states in this Shopify article.
If your product is manufactured in a specific manner, is certified by an authority or has received an award, for example, you can present these accomplishments on the product page.
The Joutsen online store includes a mention of the Finnish Allergy Label awarded by the Finnish Allergy, Skin and Asthma Federation both on the product pages and in a dedicated article. In addition to the label mentioned above, the product page also includes the Key Flag Symbol signifying the Finnish origin of the product.
Valuable Product Reviews
If your product does not have reviews, you should try to collect them from customers. Reviews increase conversions. Customers are more likely to make a purchase after reading reviews.
You should make reviewing the product as easy as possible for your customers. In addition, if the customer can somehow benefit from reviewing the product, this may be the deciding factor. Such benefits could include a discount code the customer receives after reviewing your product.
Various review tools can be built into or attached to online stores. Obviously, these applications are priced according to their versatility and level of automation, so you should consider the effect of reviews on your sales carefully when deciding which application to use.
For example, Shopify's Product Reviews application is free. There is also an extension for the application that makes it possible to gather reviews automatically.
Yotpo is another possible option for reviews. With Yotpo, you can easily manage your reviews. The application makes sharing product reviews on social media effortless.
Pay attention to the influence of simple word choices. What if instead of the text "this product has no reviews" in the review section, it said "be the first to review this product"? This type of A/B testing is discussed in this Woolman article.
In addition to product reviews, you should also use an FAQ page. If you repeatedly receive the same type of questions regarding your product or service, answering them for other people as well can be beneficial.
Add-On Sales and Better Customer Experiences
"People who bought this product also bought these!"
"You might also be interested in these!"
You’re probably familiar with these phrases. Add-on sales can be included in many places in an online store. One of these is the product page at the moment when a customer has put the product in their basket. A range of similar products can be showcased as early as the product page. These situations also provide an opportunity to improve your customer service, as well as sales.
Grimfrost, a Swedish online store selling Viking products, noticed that customers needed some assistance. For example, they had difficulty in finding the appropriate chains for pendants. The situation was resolved by highlighting compatible products on the product page in a section titled You may also need.
Thus, properly selected product highlights created add-on sales and improved the customer experience.
You can also use various applications to highlight products that the customer has viewed previously, even during earlier visits to your store. One example of this is the Hyvinvoinnin tavaratalo online store. The store uses a solution provided by Nosto.
If you need fresh ideas or expert help with your product pages, don't hesitate to contact us!