Many e-commerce web developers spend time and money to fine-tune their homepage to look aesthetically pleasing and usable, but often forget about the product page which either converts visitors to customers or strangers. Showcasing your product appropriately is very essential on e-commerce websites. It helps create a user experience that converts visitors into regulars.
A good product page should motivate, provide information and assurance to visitors to help them make a positive purchasing decision.
Let’s take a look at some design guidelines for e-commerce product pages:
1. Great content and product description
Providing great content for your product page has many advantages. Apart from increasing the visibility of your product on search engines, it gives your visitors an idea of what the product is all about. Detailed product descriptions should be carefully written and should include catchphrases that arouse the visitor’s interests for the product. Make your description concise and simple enough for anybody to understand. You can also make use of bullet points to get the information across quickly.
2. Excellent product photos – bright and vivid
Beautiful product photos make your users to lustful. When someone lusts after something, they will want to get it by all means. Similarly, this is what your product photos should do to your customers. However, do not ‘Photoshop’ your products photos. Snap photos that are bright, vivid and colourful – let them appear exactly the way the products look.
3. Recommend other options
Sometimes a customer may want to buy a shoe but may end up buying a bag or may buy both products. You should recommend other products or provide related items to your visitors on the product page. This will help them to explore your website more instead of leaving immediately if they can’t find what they want.
4. A clear and well-positioned call-to-action
Call-to-action features are very important on product pages and they fulfil an essential purpose – getting customers to ‘check out’ quickly. Such feature should be clearly visible on the product page. It is always best to place “Buy Now” or ‘Add to cart” colourful button below the price of the product to grab the attention of the visitor.
5. Shipping details
Shipping details should be provided on the product page. This feature also contributes to customer’s decisions. Whether there is a shipping fee or not, such information should be provided.
6. Customer generated reviews
Customer generated reviews should be included on product pages because they help to boost sales. It has been proven that customer generated reviews increase conversions by helping other visitors to make decisions about purchasing a product, thus increasing customer satisfaction.
According to Nielson Online, “81% of online holiday shoppers read a product review at some point during the shopping process; 71% said that customer reviews made them feel better about their purchase, 63% agree that having more than one review on a product is important, 14% looked for reviews from an established source, Only 3% sought out reviews from people they knew personally.”
Your product page is where a purchase is most likely to take place, so it is important to get the design and layout right.
Editor’s note: Kemi Ojo is a digital marketing expert and graphic designer. She is the Content Manager for online travel booking company, Travelstart. You can follow her on Twitter @keemiteand connect with her on linkedin.
Photo Credit: sdbrown via Compfight cc
