Product descriptions critical for e-commerce

There’s no doubt that online customers add items to their shopping cart on the strength of product information and description. If yours leave a lot to be desired, here’s why you need to invest in providing compelling product information and how you can go about the different options of getting help.

Product information in e-commerce is essential for customers. Everyone who has ever bought online would agree that all they are looking for is helpful product information, so that they can buy the right product for their need. Lacking, inaccurate or dull product information is likely to send any potential customer off in search of a someone else who cares enough to give them the information, and reason to buy, they want.

If great product info is there, not only will sales increase, the rate of sales returns will fall. Where product details are inaccurate or non-existent, customers likelihood of purchasing the wrong item, if they purchase, is hugely increased. Returns then cause customer service traffic, as well as growth in an unhappy customer community. Conversely, happy customers who buy exactly what they require with no need to fuss over return postage will also strengthen your reputation and brand.

But writing product information and descriptions is not easy or quick to do. If you want them to be compelling and appropriate, which we highly recommend, you may need to engage a professional copywriter who has a way with words, necessary for selling the ‘post-purchase paradise’ of every one of your products to your audience.

But I have thousands of products!

If it’s a daunting task to put together product information and descriptions for thousands of products there may be a way that templates can be used to organise the information and description. A copywriter can help you with this by identifying the crucial elements of information the customer is most likely to need and devising a template accordingly. You can keep it simple at first, with basic product information such as dimension information and perhaps a brief paragraph of description.

A template won’t write the product information for you but it will make your information uniform across the board and be easier for customers to access when they are browsing. Also, it may be possible to then categorise your products into smaller groups so that some elements of the description can be utilised across other ranges. You may go from having thousands of product descriptions to write to a few hundred, depending on the categorisation.

Help with descriptions I already have

You can get help to review and refine descriptions you write yourself, to make them more appealing and engaging to your customers. Again, you would engage a professional copywriter who would edit your descriptions to be more customer-focused and in the right tone of voice and language that will best appeal to your customer-types.

A copywriter can coach you on writing your descriptions. They might advise you to:

• Be more specific about how and why your customer might use the product
• Describe what the product is particularly useful for
• How the product helps the customer and improves their life/solves their problem
• Refrain from excess bullet points, which can seem cold, in favour of description
• Utilise your brand tone of voice
• Check your spelling and grammar of descriptions
• Write in plain English

There’s no doubt that time and investment in better product information and descriptions will increase your sales and reduce returns, as well as abandoned carts. It is investment well-made and will undoubtedly build your online presence and reputation.

However daunting it may seem to create this content, which may change as your product ranges change, if you make a start, you are giving yourself sales collateral that will pay for itself over and over again. Whether you want to do it yourself and just get help with a template, be coached by a copywriter on the basics to set you off, or have a copywriter take on the full task, there are options to help you, according to your budget.

The last thing you ever want as an e-commerce business is for your customers to jump from your site to elsewhere. Great product descriptions and information that do your products and service justice ensure that yours is the site customers jump to and stay with.

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