Conversion Rate Optimization

Product Page : Optimise To Increase Sales On Your Website

You could say that your product page is the most important part of an ecommerce store. As a CRO agency, we know 100% how much impact a well optimised product page can have.

It’s the part of the site where shoppers will go from just browsing to getting ready to pull out their credit cards and buy.

However, because so many sites are now using templates for their stores, retailers are now relying on the template to decide what to include.

Because of this, it can leave them falling short of what shoppers need to be motivated enough to buy and make an informed shopping decision.

The best product pages that we see are more than just its design. It’s the layout of product pages as well as the items that are included on the page.

But don’t worry…. We’ve got you covered!

Our laboratory of ecommerce scientists have been dissecting the top 50 UK ecommerce websites to find out What actually makes a great product page?

In our original research, we’re going to show you the most common features shared by these big companies so that you can replicate them and hopefully increase your website sales.

So get ready, this is data that you aren’t going to find anywhere else.

12 Ways To Optimise a Product Listing Page

There’s some parts of a product page design that your site just can’t live without.

That’s why these elements need to have undivided attention when deciding how they are going to look and function on your product detail page.

1. Product Image

I think it’s fair to say that this is probably the most important part of any product page.

Eye tracking studies have confirmed that product images can capture a users attention :

This is the only way that shoppers will be able to see the products that you are selling and because of that, you need to make sure it counts.

In the era of dropshipping and direct to consumer delivery, countless online stores are currently using stock photography to sell their products.

Whilst this might work for consumers that are doing comparison shopping, it’s going to be difficult to persuade shoppers to buy that have never seen or heard of a product before.

Here’s some tips for making sure your product images sell :

• Use High-Quality Images

As seen here from Schuh, they use great quality images to show-off their products :

• Show Products Being Used

It’s one thing to show your product looking great, but also being used takes things to another level. Take a look at how this is done on Mr Porter. They show images of their products with both the image of the product on it’s own as well as being worn by a model.

• Let Users Zoom Into Product Images

On the ASOS website, we can see that they offer a way to zoom into the product image and see it up close :

• Use Video

As we can see from Mr Porter again they offer a video demonstrating the model wearing the product.

• Use 360° Images

In our last example, we can see that Schuh again is using 360° rotating images to show the product in detail.

1. Price

Next up we have the product price.

It’s fair to say that without the price, you aren’t going to be doing much selling. The key point here is making sure that the price can be clearly seen and that there’s no way of confusing it with anything else (i.e. the RRP price).

The typical location of the price is above the page fold and usually on the top right of the page, as demonstrated by Space NK :

1. Gallery

Next up, we have the gallery. We’ve touched on this briefly already, but It’s great for a shopper when they can see a product in a range of different angles.

Not only does it let them get a feel for the product, but also lets them look at product features that are important to them that you may not know about.

1. Add To Cart Button

The add to cart button is how you let shoppers add the product to their shopping basket and start the checkout process.

The key thing here to remember is to make sure that your button actually looks like a button.

Unfortunately this is where the curse of product page templates can become prominent.

The designer of the template thought that a button might not sit-right in the design and decided to use a text link instead.

But that’s not what text links are for.

Text links are for text. People expect a button as buttons represent action and adding to their basket is an action.

https://cxl.com/blog/call-to-action-examples/

Your product page add to cart button should clearly be a button and look clickable. It should also be above the page fold, so it doesn’t take any effort to find when the shopper is ready to buy.

1. Reviews

Product page reviews are a feature that can really help you sell more products. Reviews are a part of social proof and have been known to increase conversions rates by as much as 161%. Expert Tip : These can really help if you are using a product landing page.

Showing reviews increases trust…

Here’s an example from Evans Cycles :

As you will be able to see, they aren’t just going ahead and asking for a couple of sentences about their new purchase.

Instead, they are asking for a rating on :

• Value for money
• Quality
• Comfort
• Lightweight

As well as this, they are including details about the person leaving the review. All adding to the level of trust the buyer has for the website. Job well done Evans Cycles!

1. Display Delivery Information

You know it as well as I do. You’ve found a product that you like on an online store and you are looking for the last few remaining details before you bite the bullet and buy.

But, something is holding you back. You can’t find out anything about the delivery details. So you start trawling the site looking for them. Which if you’re as impatient as most shoppers, will result in you leaving if you can’t find them within a few clicks.

Displaying your delivery details is a fundamental part of a product page. Why? Because it plays a huge part in users deciding if they are going to buy or not. Knowing how long a product is going to take to arrive and how much it is going to cost are both questions nearly all shoppers will have.

Here’s some tips to making sure your delivery details seal the deal :

• Including delivery times and options.
• Include delivery charges.
• Tell users if delivery is pre-arranged.
• Tell users what happens if they aren’t at home to accept delivery.

1. Show Stock Availability

Stock availability is a two sided coin. First of all, if an item is out of stock then it’s only right to make sure that the customer is aware of this before they make a purchase with you. The reason being is that it’s likely going to result in a higher rate of orders being cancelled and also increasing the likelihood of getting a negative review because of it.

On the other side of the coin, telling a user an item is in stock will answer that question in their before they even ask it. Therefore not needing to contact you to confirm availability after the item may not be in stock with other retailers.

Displaying your stock availability will not only help increase your conversion rate and it could lower the volume of enquiries your customer support receive to confirm availability of items.

Here’s a great example from Surf Dome, showing their stock levels just above their add to bag button :

1. Display Returns Information

Returns information can be the absolute deal-breaker when it comes to a consumer buying online.

Consumers now expect a no-fuss way of returning items if it’s not suitable for them, but how you handle returns, isn’t what we’re talking about here.

What we’re focusing on is making sure that shoppers can easily find your returns information and it’s clear on what your process is. Ideally this list will be displayed on the product listing page, but if it isn’t then it should be easily accessible from the header or footer of your site.

Here’s an example of how Sports Direct handle displaying their returns information :

Some tips for making sure your returns information don’t leave people hanging :

• Make sure the steps are clear of how customers would return their order.
• Include any related costs involved.
• Include a duration for swapping items or refunds.

1. Use Persuasion Triggers

Persuasion triggers are basically like giving your customer a gentle nudge towards buying a product.

You will probably most likely see these in the form of scarcity, which is part of social proof.

Frequently seen on travel websites, they are now being seen more and more on ecommerce stores.

Some examples are :

• Showing how many people are viewing a product
• When it was last bought
• Only a few left to buy

What these do is activate your customers FOMO trigger (Fear Of Missing Out) and lean them towards making a purchase.

1. Price Savings

Highlighting price savings is a way of highlighting the fact that your customer would be getting a great deal if they bought this product at its current price. Therefore using the value of the saving as an incentive to buy.

Here’s a price saving example, again from Wiggle :

Some tips for showing price savings :

• Make sure it stands out
• Show it in financial values rather than percentage unless it’s a low value item.
• Make sure it’s close or next to the product price.

1. Highlight the Most Important Features

If your product has specific features, then it makes sense to highlight this information to shoppers. This is a way of really telling the customer what makes this product great and help to ensure that they understand its key selling points.

If you want to take this one step further, one copywriting skill is to take the features and turn them into benefits to use in your descriptions (more on that below). Shoppers will usually connect more with copy that talks to why something will benefit them.  Take a look at this guide for more information on that.

Another example here from Wiggle showing their products’ top features :

1. Spend Time On Product Descriptions

Finally we have product listing page descriptions. I can’t tell you how many product listing pages that we’ve seen that basically contain a copy and pasted manufacturer description. Or even worse, a simple sentence explaining what the product is.

To really make your products stand out, the description should contain motivating copy that persuades shoppers to buy. Remember, all a browser has is the image and copy to make their mind up about buying something that they see on a screen.

If you have a huge catalog of products then this will likely take some time to do. A good starting place would be to try it on a batch of products first and measure the impact it has on their conversion rate before and afterwards.

And we’re done.

I really hope that you have found this guide on product listing pages useful and are able to create a great one for your website. Product page templates are good for getting going, but if you really want to get results, your product page needs to get across what matters most to your shoppers.

If you would like a free product page audit for your site, please drop us a line.

Did we miss anything out? Have you tried something that hasn’t worked?

We’d love to hear more in the comment section below!