28 Simple Yet Effective Product Page Design Tips

Building Effective Product Pages is Not Easy

You have an e-commerce website. Good for you. But now you have to work even harder to convince potential consumers to buy from you. You need great content, breathtaking product images, and a smooth and intuitive checkout process. Therefore, your product pages are crucial. The following product page design tips will help you create better product pages and increase your online sales.

Product page design is more than merely adding a product image and description. That alone is not going to attract much notice or interest. Demanding mobile consumers will want to know a lot more about exactly why they should buy your product before they will do so. And your product page design also needs to stand out from your online competitors. But there are a few essential product page design strategies that will help you meet the expectations of your target consumers and your business objectives.

The following product page design tips will help you build better product pages. These tips outline what content needs to be on your product pages. They explain how to make your product images work as a better sales tool. And finally, our product page design tips will tell you how to

Product Page Design Tips – The Basics

Make Your Product Pages Mobile-First

Yup! We get it. Mobile is essential. Have you ever actually taken the time to search for your product pages on your iPhone? You might be unpleasantly surprised by the shopping experience. Well, mobile isn’t going aware.

According to Google, there was a 175% growth in shopping searches on mobile in the first five months of the year. People are searching for products on their phones. They click on your ads or organic listings on their way to work or while watching TV at night. This isn’t that surprising, right? You likely do this more than you even realize.

Need we say more? Mobile is big. We all know this. Stop living in denial and get your mobile act together already!

Put Your Shoppers at Ease

Your product page needs to address any potential concerns or hesitations your potential buyer might have. Will these pants fit? How long is the battery life? Can I return this product? Are sizes accurate? Do you ship to other countries? They need answers to these questions before they make a purchase decision.

The thing that will make people shop elsewhere is uncertainty. For example, if you sell clothing or fashion, consumers will want to know if the item will fit. Adding a sizing chart or guide is another one of our product page design tips.

Brainstorm ways to put your shopper at ease by providing clear information, visual guides, and instructions if a product needs assembly. “I need a Large, but do Larges run big? I don’t want a muscle T, but I don’t want it too baggy. Ahh, I don’t know, I’ll just go somewhere else.” We’ve all had this internal dialogue when shopping online.

Create Loyal Customers

Conversions only go so far in e-commerce. Many products are affordable, so to gain ROI from your marketing efforts, there needs to be many transactions that occur regularly. All e-commerce marketers should be thinking of ways to make their customers come back time and time again.

“How can I get someone to buy more stuff? You need to answer that question, which comes down to your business’s creativity and strength.” I recommend trying to build a relationship with every customer through new, engaging, and fun experiences. You know, treat your consumers the way you like and expect to be treated yourself.

Product Page Design Tips – The Sales Copy

Craft Creative Copy

Powerful on-page copy seems obvious, but you might be surprised by the massive number of product pages with snooze-worthy copy. It’s not enough simply to include your e-commerce keywords on the page.

Perhaps, the company is more concerned with imagery then creative copy. Yes, gripping visual content like images and videos are crucial product page elements. But if the text content is crap, this can be a considerable detriment to building excitement about a product.

How are you convincing someone to buy the item? If your copy is crap, then your page is crap. Not providing insight into why they should be excited and why they should believe in you is a huge mistake.

Avoid the over-complicated language and jargon, and make your copy fun and relatable. E-commerce is an industry where it’s easy to be creative and not take yourself too seriously. Take advantage of that fact!

Provide All Necessary Context

Find creative ways to provide as much information as possible to inform the shopper without overwhelming them with unorganized copy properly. You need to include all instructional information needs. Suppose you do not tell your potential consumers everything they need to know to make a purchase decision. In that case, they will go on to your competitors.

For example, if you’re selling a do-it-yourself (DIY) product, there needs to be some assembly instructions. Consider using an engaging time-lapse video. One of the most crucial product page design strategies is to overcome a person’s objections as they reach that page.

Answer Questions

Before making a purchase, shoppers want to be sure they know what they’re buying. You probably won’t be able to anticipate every possible question that could arise. But you will want to make sure that customers have enough information to buy with confidence.

If you’re selling a piece of clothing, for example, tell shoppers what type of fabric it is and how they can expect the item to fit. If you’re selling a piece of furniture, share the item’s dimensions, the materials used, and if it requires assembly once they receive it.

Showcase Your Ratings and Reviews

Ratings and reviews have a significant effect on conversions. You should make it as easy as possible for potential customers to access reviews, including them directly after the product description.

It’s also good practice to add aggregated information, like the overall rating and the averages of reviews with five stars, four stars, three stars, etc.

Make Reviews Easy to Scan

If your customers tend not to write in scannable prose, structure your review form so that it asks for short answers you can display as bullets. These questions should reflect the most important issues that prospective buyers encounter. You may also wish to rank reviews by “helpfulness,” placing the most persuasive and useful at the top.

Some e-commerce sites include a roundup of reviews outlining what customers liked and disliked most about products to provide customers with a comprehensive, easy-to-read overview.

Leverage Social Sharing

Every product page should leverage the power of social media. Yes, your website should be promoting your brand’s social channels. Still, social buttons should allow the shopper to share the product on platforms like Twitter and Facebook on product pages.

For example, let’s say you’re shopping around for a new pair of boots during the holiday season, but you realize that the pair you want isn’t in your price range. An easy fix, tweet the product to a loved one with a subtle hint: “@mom, add this to the Christmas list J.”

Even if your shopper doesn’t go through with the transaction, there’s a chance they’ll promote it to their followers and perhaps convince others to buy from you.

Make Use of User-Generated Content

User-generated content, such as Instagram photos and rich-media reviews (that include customer videos and images), carry a large amount of credibility and social proof. Consider including them somewhere on your product pages if you can. They will help to build engagement and bolster the positive effects of good reviews.

The inclusion of user-generated content from social media allows customers to see real-life product images. User-generated content adds an extra dimension to the shopping experience by showing them how customers use products.

Product Page Design Tips – Product Info

Make Key Product Info Stand Out

Here is another essential product page design tip. When structuring your product pages, show the “big five” elements prominently and in the same place. They are:

1. Name of the product
2. Product description
3. Price
4. Availability
5. “Add to Cart” button

Before a customer clicks on the main “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” CTA, they need to know these necessary critical pieces of information. Place them next to the main button on the page. Doing this eliminates the need for many customers, particularly customers who are ready to buy, to scroll down the page to find essential details.

Provide Detailed Product Specifications

Customers shopping in specific verticals will need precise information about products. Buyers of construction materials, for example, will likely need access to in-depth specs.

Even product pages of everyday retail products can usually appeal to a broader customer base by including a description of an array of features. Make your clothing items appealing to environmentally conscious buyers by including details about sustainable production methods?

Provide Customization Options if Applicable

There’s nothing more frustrating than product customization buttons that just don’t work. If you’re selling items available in several different styles, sizes, or custom features, ensure that the options all work correctly.

It’s also a good idea to include these options next to the CTA. The choice of which specific product to purchase is made immediately before adding it to the cart.

Product Page Design Tips – Product Images

Let Viewers See Product Details

Large images with lots of detail are among the most valuable assets you have as an online retailer. It’s important to remember that online customers will have a more comprehensive array of doubts than customers shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, where they can inspect items closely.

Your job is to replicate the high-street experience as closely as possible. Ensure that all images are big enough to see specific details. You don’t need to go overboard with images that are the size of a billboard. But all features and nuances should be visible.

You should use professional product photography and, ideally, optimize pages to show the most enticing photographs most prominently. Split-testing to find the best flagship image (the one that visitors will see when they first land on a page) will provide you with concrete data to base your decision.

Let Viewers Enlarge Your Product Photos

The zoom function on photos can be a little challenging to get right. It’s crucial to ensure that images enlarge to an appropriate size (and don’t fill the whole screen). It’s easy for users to bring other parts of the image into focus and quickly minimize the image to interact with other page elements.

Zoom features on images are essential because they replicate a person’s interactivity when shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. Test the zoom photo function – ensuring that it fits with the overall page experience – as part of your product page design process.

Match Your Product Images to Your Page Design

Ensure that images are large enough and that the zoom feature works. It is also essential to enable viewers to see specific details, just as they would inspect a product in-person, especially for products with many features.

High-quality pictures also communicate professionalism. Customers are more likely to question the integrity of your brand and site if you display second-rate images. Customers are also more likely to equate good photos with good products.

You’ve probably had an experience of landing on a website only to see pixelated, low-quality images. I’ll bet you didn’t stick around for long. Reviewing product images before publishing them constitutes an integral part of e-commerce best practices.

Focus on Important Product Details

Certain products will have stand-out features that constitute major USPs. These features should have their own dedicated high-resolution, zoomable photographs whenever appropriate.

It’s also essential to include photos highlighting the most notable features of products, like the soles of shoes, keyboards on laptops, and significant design features on clothing.

Also, make sure that product descriptions match up with images. If you reference specific features and USPs in descriptions, ensure there are corresponding images for customers to check. It’s also worth organizing pictures in order of the most important features so that customers see them first.

Make Your Product Galleries Easy to Navigate

Showing multiple pictures, even if they are from similar angles, recreates the experience of handling a product. Customers usually want to see a product from numerous perspectives and build a complete understanding of it before purchase. This need is especially the case with certain products, like clothes and accessories, where lots of handling usually occurs.

Keep in mind that online attention spans are notoriously limited. These images should be easy to scroll through, especially on mobile. Suppose you make it difficult for users to view different photos quickly. In that case, you’re just increasing the likelihood they’ll leave the site.

Here’s a quick tip: ensure that users can use both thumbs to scroll through mobile devices’ images. Don’t try to guess their favorite hand!

Use Lifestyle Images

Lifestyle images are a great way to tell your product’s story and help your customers imagine how they might use it in their everyday lives.

Another of our product page design tips is to incorporate locations, props, and people to give your audience more context about the thing you’re selling. For instance, if you sell swimwear, consider visiting the nearest pool (or beach) to take some photos. Or, if you’re a coffee roaster, you could round up a few friends and photograph them enjoying a cup of your newest blend—with the bag of beans prominently featured, of course.

Include Model Information

Including information about the size of a piece of clothing and the model wearing it can prompt visitors with similar buy measurements. It will also put a product into perspective for the customer. Even customers who don’t have the same measurements will have a definite reference point for picking a size.

Remember, your customers are trying to quickly make an informed judgment about a piece of clothing without the luxury of trying it on. They’re unlikely to spend much time searching a product page for all the information they require. By providing as many details as possible in one place, you increase the likelihood that customers will feel confident enough to buy.

Product Page Design Tips – Your CTAs

Craft Effective CTAs

An “imperative sentence” is one that “commands” a visitor to take action. “Add to cart” and “Click here to buy now” are both examples. Don’t worry about upsetting or offending visitors. When used in the right way, imperatives don’t sound like commands.

It’s also worth testing variants of crucial phrases that include further prompts like offers and discounts. Terms like “Buy Now to Get 50% Off” or “Buy Before 5 PM for Free Delivery” are far more interesting than a generic “Buy Now.”

Place CTAs Above the Fold

Don’t make it hard for visitors to hit purchase! Including the buy button above the fold is one of our product page design tips that will have a significant impact on your product page conversions.

CTA placement is especially critical on mobile devices, where already-strained attention spans are even shorter than usual! Most visitors will scroll down the page to find further information, but there is no harm in making it as easy as possible for those that don’t want to.

Instill a Sense of Urgency

Urgency is one of the most effective ways of boosting conversions on your product pages. Ensure you utilize at least some of the following techniques:

• Show how many people have recently bought a product (if it’s popular) or products from the same category.
• Show the number of people viewing an item.
• Guarantee the same or next day delivery for an order made within a specific time.
• Include alerts about limited stock, for example, “Only one left. Buy now!”
• If specific product sizes have sold out, make that clear.

Product Page Design Tips – The Checkout Process

Keep Your Checkout Process Simple

Two elements need to be present to ensure that customers find it easy to navigate to the cart:

1. A clear message that a customer has added a product to the cart. This confirmation will eliminate any doubts if the product is in their shopping basket. Customers will often leave a site through frustration when the outcome of clicking the “Add to Cart” button isn’t clear.
2. A clear button to go to the cart. Include this button in two places. Ideally, a CTA to go the cart should appear immediately after a customer has selected a product. Add one in the sidebar so that customers can click through to their cart from anywhere on your site.

Offer Substitutes and Reminders

Discontinued products are items or item lines that you no longer stock. Many retailers assume that if a customer lands on a product page when an item is out of stock that they’ve lost them completely. But this isn’t always the case. By including an email opt-in form, along with suggestions of similar products, you can effectively take advantage of what would otherwise be “lost” traffic.

Don’t Hide Shipping Information

Lack of shipping information on product pages is one reason customers don’t add items to their cart. There is a common tendency among site visitors to expect exorbitant rates if they are not visible alongside the item price.

If you offer free shipping or discounted shipping, display it visibly next to the primary CTA. Free shipping is a significant incentive for customers. If free or same-day shipping is time-limited – for example, if a purchase needs to be made before 5 PM to qualify – display this information.

Provide a Shipping Calculator if Required

Eliminating doubt is a crucial part of optimizing product pages for higher conversion rates. Providing clear information about the shipping price enables customers to decide whether an item fits within their budget.

Sometimes, however, it’s not always possible to provide exact shipping rates. One example is industries like construction, where the shipping cost varies depending on the size of the order, the country (or country area) of delivery, time-sensitive prices offered by shipping companies, and more.

If this is the case, eliminate doubt as much as possible by including an estimated price or a shipping calculator that will provide a customized quote for customers. Reassure customers by telling them that shipping rates vary within a set of parameters. It is very unusual for prices to exceed these boundaries.

Remind Your Consumers of Their Options

If a customer has made a mistake by not selecting the required product features, notify them with a visible reminder near the primary CTA. It’s incredibly frustrating for consumers when they can’t check out and not told why. One of the easiest ways to improve your overall customer experience is by displaying notifications when a customer makes a mistake.

Suppose you have included product options next to the primary CTA. In that case, it will be easy for customers to rectify the mistake and move on to checkout with a minimum of friction.

A Few Simple Product Page Design Tweaks Make a Big Difference!

Don’t be put off by the number of our product page design strategies and tips! It is important to remember that most of the product page design tips on this list are nothing more than small tweaks.

But while implementing these product page design tips only involves altering a few code lines, the results can be significant. Small changes to product descriptions, photographs, and design will often boost add-to-cart conversions by several percentage points.

As always, testing is the key. The only real way to pinpoint those changes that will work for your store and your audience is testing. Fortunately, running split-tests for the product page design strategies outlined here is a relatively simple matter. And once you have the baseline data, you can forge ahead with new improvements, brainstorming, and tweaking even further.

How to Build Better Product Pages Yourself

Now that you have a list of product page design tips, it is time to implement them on your e-commerce site. You should already maintain your online store by adding product information and images and updating content is concerned. You can implement some of our product page design strategies as part of that process, such as adding testimonials and updating or adding product information.

Social media integration should be part of an organic social media strategy. You may also want to consider what other social media options you wish to add. And some of my recommendations to increase e-commerce sales may require some additional help from your web designer or developer. If you don’t have a web designer or developer, here is a Guide To Hiring a Web Designer.

Building better product pages must be a primary objective if you want your online store to support your business objectives. But this is not a one-time effort. To meet the user expectations of ever more demanding and sophisticated mobile consumers, you need to keep working on it. If you want to increase e-commerce sales, we are here to help!

Additional E-Commerce Resources

If you are just starting with your online store, or you need more tips to help to increase e-commerce conversions and sales, you may like some of these posts on our blog:

• How Fixing Common E-Commerce Design Mistakes Can Increase Sales
• The Ultimate E-Commerce Checklist Every E-Commerce Store Should Use
• How to Reduce E-Commerce Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Using Effective E-Commerce Web Design to Increase Online Sales
• Key Elements of E-Commerce UX Design and How to Apply Them

Do You Need Better Product Page Design?

Of course, we would be happy to add and implement any or all of the product page design strategies listed in this post. We are experts at carefully crafting custom mobile-first websites and e-commerce solutions to meet (almost) any budget. Our team works directly with the client to prepare them for the ever increasingly social, mobile, and local consumers and increase e-commerce sales. Why not get started by requesting your free estimate?

Are you still unsure exactly how these essential product page design tips will benefit your visitors while increasing your online sales? Don’t worry! Our expert team will determine the best way for your e-commerce site to provide your visitors with the fluid and user-friendly experience they expect. That is one of our specialties, after all!

Did You Design Better Product Pages?

Did you follow our product page design strategies? Which strategies worked best for you? Do you have any tips of your own you would like to share? Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit as well. And grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! Please help your audience increase e-commerce sales by sharing our essential product page design strategies with them!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By Gregor Schmidt
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregoraschmidt