Product page that converts: what buyers look for

On a product page, buyers do not read: they check. They look for the size, the material, the price with delivery, the delivery date, the option to send it back. As long as one of those answers is missing, they hesitate, and online, hesitation often ends with a closed tab.

This guide is for teams that want their product pages to sell more, without rewriting the whole catalogue in livelier sentences. It covers what the page must contain; producing that content at scale is a matter of clean product data, which our guide to preparing your store for Google Shopping also describes.

The buyer’s four questions

Before paying, a buyer asks four questions. European law actually turns them into obligations: the European Union’s page on the information you must receive when buying lists the main characteristics of the product, the total price including taxes, delivery costs, delivery arrangements and the right to cancel an online order within 14 days.

1. 01What is it, exactly?

   Dimensions, material, what is in the box, compatibility, care.

2. 02How much will I pay in total?

   The price, delivery, any extra costs.

3. 03When will I receive it?

   A realistic delay, not a vague promise.

4. 04And if it does not suit me?

   The return conditions, in one clear sentence.

A page that answers these four questions without making the buyer search has already done the essential work. The rest, photos and reviews, comes to confirm.

What causes doubt, in figures

The abandonment reasons recorded by the Baymard Institute show that doubts often arise on the product page, before checkout even starts:

These three reasons are dealt with on the page: state delivery costs or the free delivery threshold on the product page, summarise the returns policy next to the buy button, show an estimated total. Shoppers who leave anyway can be reminded, under the conditions described in our guide to abandoned cart reminders.

Exact characteristics, not adjectives

“Soft”, “high quality”, “perfect as a gift”: these words answer no question. “30 cm, recycled polyester, washable at 30 °C” answers three. Buyers compare, and they compare facts.

Two rules are enough:

• One piece of information per field, written the same way everywhere. Size always in the same place, in the same unit, on every page. That is also what makes filters possible.
• Never a guessed characteristic. False information about a product is a misleading practice, and it comes back as a returned product.

On an online plush toy store that we are putting back on its feet, we defined 26 fields before touching the texts, then enriched 481 product pages, all of them reviewed. Size, the very first question a plush toy buyer asks, was readable for only 41% of products: that measures what still had to be requested from suppliers, not invented.

Photos that answer

A useful photo shows what the text describes poorly: scale (the product held in a hand or next to a familiar object), texture, the back, the label, what is in the box. Google Merchant Center’s specification asks for an image that accurately shows the product, with no promotional text, watermark or border: a common-sense rule that applies on the site too.

Real reviews, said to be real

Reviews reassure because they come from other buyers. That is also why European law regulates them. According to the European Union’s page on unfair commercial practices, a store that publishes reviews must explain how it ensures they come from real consumers who bought the product.

The same page forbids editing customer reviews or paying people to write fake ones. A negative review that the store answers calmly often inspires more trust than a page where everything is perfect.

What Google reads on the page

A well-built page also helps search visibility. Merchant listing structured data lets Google show price, availability, and shipping and returns information in its results. The same answers therefore work twice: for the buyer on the page, and for the engine that decides whether to show it. For the campaign that sends traffic to these pages, see what makes a Google Shopping campaign rise or sink.

How do you know the pages are improving?

Track the add-to-cart rate per page and the conversion rate, week after week, as suggested in our article on the five numbers to track. Be wary of apps that promise to supercharge pages with countdowns and banners: each one has a cost, in subscription and in speed, detailed in our article on Shopify apps. The choice of platform, which decides where these fields live, is discussed in Shopify or Medusa.

If you are rebuilding your store, our ecommerce service starts with the catalogue: fields defined, filled from your data, reviewed before publication.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Your Europe, contract information (new tab)europa.eu
2. Google Merchant Center Help, product data specification (new tab)support.google.com
3. Your Europe, unfair commercial practices (new tab)europa.eu
4. Google Search Central, merchant listing structured data (new tab)developers.google.com