Setting up shop online: Presenting your products
Tuesday, 22 November 2011 00:00
Product presentation is critical to making sales on an ecommerce site. – leave out key details or put up a poor photo and your potential customer might just click away. In the fourth of his series on setting up an ecommerce website, Nick Kington, MD of ecommerce specialist Actinic, looks at how you can present your products to maximise your chances of making a sale.
The product pages on your ecommerce website are prime selling space and it’s highly likely that the decision to buy or not will be made while these pages are being viewed. So they deserve plenty of attention. The key is to put yourself in the place of the buyer and ask yourself what they would like to see. This article covers a few pointers to optimise the presentation of products on your website.
Don’t skimp on information
Ensure product information is easily accessible and that all the necessary information is available to make a purchase decision. Nothing is more off-putting for a potential shopper than not knowing what you are buying or not being sure if it will work the way that you need it to. If you don’t supply the necessary information, you run the risk that the prospect will click away to someone who does. And if all of the information cannot be accommodated on the page, provide links to additional information on another page.
Use good quality product images
A picture tells a thousand words and this applies more than ever to online selling. Evidence from successful ecommerce sites shows that presenting your products with good quality images will make all the difference. Request images from the company you are sourcing from or, if you are taking your own, invest in a digital SLR camera, tripod and lighting. Learn how to use the equipment and edit images properly.
Be crystal clear on important details
Provide clear, prominent information on details such as price, delivery times, charges and stock availability. This helps to reassure customers before they make the purchase and ensures that customer expectations are set in advance. If buyers have to hunt, some won’t bother and a sale is lost.
Have a ‘call to action’
The aim of a product page is to sell what’s on that page. In most cases, this means clicking on an ‘add-to-cart’ or ‘checkout’ button. For more complex or high price products the sale may involve encouraging them to call to discuss and place their order. These calls to action should be prominent on the page.
Written by Nick Kington, Managing Director of ecommerce supplier, Actinic. Originally published on Enterprise Nation.