Conversion rates are the pinnacle for any online store. Getting customers to visit your product page is great, but more traffic means nothing if your website visitors don't make a purchase. Because of this, more and more online sellers have discovered the value of high-converting product pages.
This kind of conversion optimization happens when a company has a set plan in place. At this point in the ecommerce industry, sellers have realized what works and what doesn't with product pages, but one critical precursor often gets overlooked:
Product listings.
Product listings consist of all the data – the images, the copy, the pricing, etc. – that goes into your product page. Optimizing your listings can help take them to the next level, driving visitors to the "buy" button.
Below, we outline seven simple things any ecommerce store can do to convert more customers and increase sales through their product listings.
What's so Important About Product Listings in ecommerce?
Product listings capture the attention of customers to your ecommerce website. It's the last bit of information they see before they decide to make a purchase or not.
Online shopping doesn't have all the tangible elements of a brick-and-mortar. Shoppers, however, still want to trust that the product they're buying meets their expectations.
Companies need to win over their customers with product images and well-written copy. That's exactly what a good product listing does. Let's talk about how to create one.
1. Incorporate High-Quality Images and Visuals
You've heard the old cliche that a picture's worth a thousand words. As worn out and sentimental as the saying is, it still rings true for ecommerce.
In fact, 75% of online shoppers rely on images to help them make more informed purchasing decisions.
This makes sense when you consider how product images give customers a better sense of the product they're purchasing. 22% of online returns come from customers who say that the "product received looked different."
Sellers can reduce those returns simply by providing high quality product images like in these product page examples below.
This can be especially useful for products with multiple options. Instead of just explaining that an item comes in different colors, show them.
The image will have a greater impact, too, since people remember 80% of what they see compared to 20% of what they read.
Potential customers are expecting to see product images when they visit your online store. Giving them great imagery will help them make a more informed decision and will help your brand build trust with your audience.
You can even go a step beyond product photos and consider other visual media. Well-designed graphics or product videos can lead to more sales as well as customers gaining an even better understanding of your products.
2. Use Accurate Product Descriptions
Great visuals can't stand alone in your product listings. They need great copy to go along with them.
Writing persuasive copy is a balancing act between information and inspiration. You need to describe the product, offering features and details, but that's often not enough to win someone over.
The facts aren't enough. Customers want a little more than bullet points. They want stories like this one about a guitar pedal:
The most effective storytelling comes from writers who know their audience. For online sellers, that would be your target customer. What stories would inspire them to make a purchase?
As an example, let's say a brand sells environmentally conscious house goods. Instead of just labeling them as such, tell a story your eco-friendly customers could identify with.
Talk about how your brand came to value the environment and why you've chosen to make it a priority with your products. This will build confidence and trust with your audience while simultaneously driving them closer to conversion.
3. Set Competitive Prices
Pricing is the most important factor customers consider making a purchase. 87% of buyers find it either very or extremely influential. Having competitive pricing on your product pages is critical if you want to see a higher conversion rate.
Pricing will change depending on sales, discounts, and competitors. It's important to monitor your prices and adjust them as needed.
Some software tools, like StoreAutomator's Amazon Repricer, will make managing your prices easier, ensuring that you always have the best offerings for your customers.
Here’s a look at our repricer dashboard:
4. Improve Inventory Management
Shoppers don't want to see that items are sold out or not in stock. People come to an online store because of the ease and convenience. In the customer's mind, there's no reason anything should be unavailable.
The real problem here has less to do with missing that one sale and more to do with missing future ones.
Not having a product in stock can cause your customer to have a poor experience, and poor experiences cause big problems. 91% of customers will not reengage with a store once after a bad experience.
This means that not only will the customer find this one product elsewhere. They might abandon your store completely for a competitor that offers them better experiences.
To minimize the risk of this happening, stores can use automated tools to improve and streamline their inventory management processes.
5. Provide Clear Social Proof
Online shoppers are heavily influenced by positive reviews. 93% of buyers say that reviews affected their decision making, and 91% of shoppers between 18-34 trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends.
Displaying reviews or customer testimonials on your product pages is a great way to prove that your product adds value to your audience, and it gives you insight into what they are actually thinking. They'll let you know whether or not they enjoy the product, and you can make changes based on their feedback.
Another avenue for social proof comes from social sharing. When potential customers see others post your products on Instagram, Facebook, or other channels, they engage with them in a different way. It's like free advertising.
You can promote social sharing directly on your product pages. Encourage buyers to post pictures in their reviews. Create a hashtag on social media. Such simple steps can give happy customers the nudge they need to share their experiences.
6. Trigger Persuasion
Product pages are the last place you have to make an impression on a potential customer. You might as well pull out all the stops with persuasion triggers.
Persuasion triggers are little extra pieces of copy on your product listing. The most obvious shows up when you label something a "best-seller." Others include a "trending" product or a "popular" one.
You can also increase urgency by having an expiring offer. Likewise, you can boost confidence by adding a "money back guarantee." Any of these persuasion triggers will influence the buyer's decision making process.
Notice the Best Seller banner in the corner? That’s a persuasion trigger.
Persuasion triggers work because generally speaking, potential buyers believe that other people make the right decisions. When they see that other people chose a certain product, they assume that there's something good about it.
In some ways, then, adding these triggers is a form of controlled social proof. People see that a particular product is a big hit with others, so they act on it themselves. Pairing this with other forms of social proof will lead to a high-converting product page.
7. Utilize the Right Tools
Managing all your listings for every channel is daunting. All the work that goes into adjusting product descriptions, adding images, and adhering to each marketplace's demands can wear on any online seller.
How can you add more work just to optimize your pages for a high conversion rate? With the right tech stack.
Having the right software tools at your fingertips will make it easier for you to optimize every one of your product listings in a more efficient manner. You'll have higher conversion rates on your product pages with less work on your end.
Take SKU Ninja's Walmart Search Boost, for instance. This tool allows Walmart sellers to visualize and improve their content score and discoverability by optimizing their content for search engines.
StoreAutomator also makes it easy for high-performing, multichannel sellers to manage all their product listings. The software can enable users to create templates, make mass edits, and adhere to each marketplace's preferences.
Here’s a shot of how easy it is to change listings in our platform:
Better listings will lead to higher conversions across your product pages. If you're interested in partnering with StoreAutomator to optimize your listings and convert more shoppers, reach out to us today.