Reading Time: 7 minutes

No other pages on your Ecommerce store have a greater impact on sales and conversions than product pages. Especially if it is an eCommerce product landing page for your paid campaigns.

It is here that users make the all-important buying decision. All your marketing efforts to drive traffic,  culminate on this page. This is where a visitor will turn into a paying customer if you create a good user experience.

By not optimizing your product pages you leave easy money on the table. Who wants that?

To get you started we have compiled 6 simple but highly effective eCommerce product page optimization tips to improve your conversion rates.

Tip one – High-quality product images

As opposed to shopping from a regular brick and mortar store where buyers can physically touch the product and peruse it, online shopping limits the buyers in the ‘touch and feel’ of a product to judge its quality.

Product images become important to create the experience of ‘high-street’ shopping. Use professionally shot images for your eCommerce store or partner with a rich content provider to get quality images.

Few things to keep in mind are:

1. Is the product image large enough to see details?

Ensure all image are large enough so buyers can see all features or details clearly. This is important for products that have functional or design details, for example, the bezels on a phone, any motifs on clothes, etc.

2. Are photographs of a high-resolution and high-quality?

Low resolution and pixelated images undermine the credibility and integrity of an eCommerce store. Poor quality images look very unprofessional and any traffic you manage to drive towards your product pages will not stay on your page for long.

3. Does the zoom image function work properly?

Zoom features on an image are important to replicate the experience of shopping ‘in-store’ and add an element of interactivity to shopping online. Every detail should be clearly visible.

Also, test the zoom feature to see that it fits the eCommerce product page design and overall page layout and experience.

4. Do product photos highlight the most important features for users?

Some products will have a notable feature as the USP. Include images that highlight that feature. For example, include an image of the keyboard for laptops, sole of the shoe, etc.

5. Do you show multiple pictures and are they easy to browse through?

Multiple pictures from different angles recreate a ‘real-world’ shopping scenario. Buyers like to examine the product thoroughly and be sure of their decision before they buy. Different perspectives of the product help them to be confident about the purchase.

The images should be easy to browse through, shouldn’t take long to load and be of the same dimension and quality.

6. Customizable products? Make it visible and easy

Do you sell products that are customizable? Or configurable IT products? If you sell items that have options in color, size, storage capacity, etc. ensure that all buttons or links that help configure or customize the products, function without any errors.

Tip two – Top-notch copy

The product description, price, availability and shipping are key elements of a product page. Buyers want to know about the product, so describe it efficiently.

Keep your copy concise and don’t include ‘fluff’ or an overbearing sales pitch.

It is also important to have these four pieces of information together and quickly scannable.

1. Group the “big four” pieces of information

a. Name of the product
b. Price
c. Availability
d. “Add product to cart” or equivalent

By placing the CTA closer to the product information you deter the buyer from scrolling down to find the button and losing their attention span. If they have made a decision to buy based on the product description, images and price, close the sale now!

2. Include tech specs in the product description

Customers shopping in certain verticals like construction, IT, office supplies or health care equipment will need more information and technical specifications of the products.

If you cater to that audience, include these details on your product page so that buyers have all information at hand. But do so in the second fold. Do not clutter the first fold with this information.

Tip three – Clear Calls to Action

Your efforts to get traffic through various means to this particular product page are with one goal in mind – conversion.

Do not confuse them now. The CTA like ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Checkout’ should be clear, bold and visible. Do not get creative with your CTA buttons, most people are conditioned to look for a button so a text link or a non-standard UI might throw them off.

Your CTA should be:

1. Visible above the fold

All important product information, i.e. the big four mentioned above should be in the first fold. Don’t make it hard for users to buy! The CTA should be above the fold to eliminate the need to scroll down.

If a buyer wants more information they will scroll down but make it easy for those who are ready to buy.

2. An imperative sentence

Imperative sentences are used to command or issue an instruction. ‘Add to Cart’, ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Click Here to Buy’ are examples of imperative sentences.

Make your CTA more interesting and compelling by adding further discounts for taking the action immediately, for example, ‘Buy Now for a further 10% off’ or ‘Buy Now for Free Delivery’.

3. Build urgency

Boost your eCommerce product page conversion rate by building urgency on your product pages.

Examples of building urgency:

• A countdown timer for an offer
• The number of people viewing the product
• Alerts about limited stock (Only 3 left. Buy Now!)
• An incentive if they buy the product in a specific time frame (Buy now and get free delivery)

These little tweaks on your eCommerce product page will significantly increase your conversion rate.

Tip four – Ratings and reviews

Ratings and reviews are proof that others have bought the products and are satisfied with their buy. It adds an element of social proof and assures the potential buyer of their decision.

1. Make ratings and testimonials easily available

Make it easy for visitors to see the ratings and reviews by other customers, it has a huge positive effect on conversions.

Let visitors see how other buyers have rated your product i.e. the number of stars given and also read the reviews. Allow them to toggle the reviews and choose from the most recent, most helpful, etc.

2. Include user-generated content to build customer confidence

User-generated content like Instagram posts by previous customers lets visitors see how others are using the product in real-life. Try and fit this somewhere on your product page as it increases credibility and positivity about your brand and the product.

Tip five – Upsell

Big eCommerce stores like Amazon use revenue-boosting techniques like bundling, price anchoring, cross-selling, and upselling. Many smaller eCommerce stores shy away from doing this, maybe because they think it’s not ethical, maybe they’re afraid of losing a sale or maybe because they just don’t know what they’re doing.

Upselling is not unethical if you do not treat it as a marketing gimmick but sincerely put your customers first and want to give them options for products that will make their lives easier, better and faster. Especially if the products are IT related.

1. Show customers similar products or alternatives

Do you have a better version of what the customer has selected, and can incentivise their purchase by offering a better deal on the higher price of the upsell product? Do so.

Create bundles or a package deal with related items at a better price.For example, if a buyer has selected a laptop, show them a package cost of buying a mouse, a zip drive and a flash stick at a price which is lesser than buying the same products individually.

Do not have stock of the product that the buyer wants to purchase? Show them alternatives instead.

It also a good idea to have a ‘Notify me when in Stock’ button on products which are not in stock.

2. Include an email opt-in form

An email opt-in form is a good lead generation technique.

You can use this in various scenarios:

• For buyers who wish to be notified when their chosen product is in stock.
• After a buyer checks out and wishes to be informed about future discounts.
• An exit intention pop-up for visitors not ready to buy yet, but can be a valuable lead you can nurture.

There are various free tools you can use to automate this. BuzzSumo, for example,

Tip six – Leave no room for confusion

Once you have a buyer on your product page, you have succeeded in your various marketing activities like SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, etc. aimed at driving traffic to the intended product page.

Do not throw cold water on your marketing efforts by creating confusion on this page and losing a potential buyer.

1. Easy checkout

The checkout process should be easy and quick to expedite the purchase. Optimizing your checkout process will significantly reduce cart abandonment.

A few quick optimization tips:

• Clearly visible checkout buttons
• Credit card logos
• Security badges
• One-step checkout (Checking out without creating an account. Give them an option to create an account after their purchase.)
• Remove all other distractions
• Option to continue shopping after checkout
• Differentiated ‘Checkout’ and ‘Continue Shopping’ buttons
• Clear delivery timeline

2. Clear shipping information

Nothing is more annoying than reaching a checkout page and not finding shipping information. It is one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment.

Buyers suspect exorbitant shipping charges if shipping information is missing on the checkout page.

Free delivery is also a huge incentive for buyers. If you offer free delivery, mention it clearly next to your CTA button.

Show logos of your shipping partners on the checkout page. It gives buyers assurance when they see their prefered shipping carriers and builds their trust in your brand.

3. A shipping calculator for complex products

If you sell complex products and the cost of shipping depends on the size of the order, the zip code for delivery, or any other constraints, consider adding a shipping cost calculator to the checkout page.

The entire idea of optimizing product and checkout pages is to eliminate doubt. A shipping calculator gives customers a fair estimate of the maximum shipping charge they would have to pay and eases their worry of being overcharged.

Do not worry, it is not rocket science!

This may seem like an overload of eCommerce information and too much work, but it’s not. There are many tools available to help you achieve most of the tasks on this list, or if budget permits you can outsource certain tasks like writing copy or clicking product images to a professional.

A few tweaks on your eCommerce product page will increase your ‘Add to Cart’ conversions tremendously. And remember to test always. While all the tips are mostly applicable to a broad spectrum of eCommerce businesses, and all high converting eCommerce product pages follow these guidelines, what will work for you depends on your store, industry and audience. 

Run A/B testing on the optimization tips and analyse what gives you the best result, then keep doing that over and over again!

Go and try these on your eCommerce store and do come back and let us know how they worked for you. Also, let us know in the comments if you have tried any of these before or if you have tried anything different that gave you great returns.

Read

Superb eCommerce Homepage Design Tips

How VARS Can Optimize Their Ecommerce Product Pages for Higher Conversions in Low Traffic

The post 6 Actionable Tips to Optimize your eCommerce Product Page for Increased Conversions appeared first on VAR Sales Management Blog: News, Tips & Many More By VARStreet.