It’s no secret that ecommerce has soared in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, online shopping reached levels last year that it wasn’t projected to until 2025. As the holidays approach, organizations must think of their website as a department store display window, making your product pages the equivalent of that fitting room experience.
While organizations prepare their website for the holiday season, product information and data management are a vital component to increasing ecommerce sales. Product information and data management tools can help in their own way, but optimizations to the actual content on product detail pages (PDPs) can make a vast improvement to landing on the top page of related search queries when searching for gifts for loved ones (or themselves) this holiday season.
Here are several strategies for optimizing content and and page real estate as you prep your PDPs for the holiday shopping season:
Give your product copy a lift
While web and product marketing teams may A/B different content and media on PDPs all year, consider the holidays a chance to refresh PDPs with new or updated content. Your product pages should be a place for customers to learn, your brand voice to shine through, and keywords that mimic the language your customers may use to search for that product.
Additionally, your product description serves as your meta descriptions on search engine result pages, so consider the extra effort to make sure each product has a description that reads well, is error-free, and includes holiday search terms when relevant.
Check out your top selling products - what could make it better? What do they have that other products may be missing? Similarly, bring up one of your lower converting products and consider who would purchase it. What information is needed to get them to convert?
As you review, consider adding or updating the following types of product information:
- Unique product features
- Material and fit
- How to use the product
- Product specifications
- Manuals and support
- Customer questions
Professional product imagery and videos of the product in use
Just as you would design a compelling window display in a physical store, give just as much attention to your ecommerce product photos! Hire a professional to ensure they’re well-lit and show off your product from every angle. Consider complimentary backdrops, videos of the product in use, and photos pointing out unique features. This helps your audience see how the product can serve real-life needs.
To take it one step further, depending on your product, consider augmented reality to create an immersive experience for customers before purchase. Brands like IKEA and Warby Parker allow customers to virtually place furniture in their home or try on a pair of glasses—conveniently bringing the fitting room experience of the product to the consumer.
Cross-sell related items or bundle products
The easiest way to boost customer cart sizes? Promote products that go together! Also known as cross-sells, here are two different ways of doing this:
A “Frequently Bought Together” or “Related Products” block can be used to promote products that are often bought at the same time or compliment the product being viewed. This feature is great for companies that sell base products with ancillary items or accessories.
Offer “Bundles” of products that are designed to be bought or compliment one another. Bundles are another great way to incentivize a discount for buying both or multiple products at the same time. This is a great feature for companies selling complete sets, whether you’re inviting shoppers to ‘complete the look’ or curating a collection of matching items, such as kitchenware or gaming accessories.
Offer personalized or recently viewed recommendations
There are many ways to personalize a PDP. Consider using tools, like Optimizely, to offer personalized recommendations based on recently viewed products. “Trending Items” and “You May Also Like” blocks are great choices to show hyper-relevant items based on what products a shopper has shown interest in.
Give viewed products a second chance by offering a “Recently Viewed” block of previously looked at products. This can help keep already interested in products top of mind and encourage boosted cart sizes.
Other best practice tips for recommendations:
- Place ‘Recently Viewed’ at the bottom of PDPs to remind customers what products might be worth a second look
- Use ‘Frequently Bought Together’ or ‘Related Items’ (try both!) below the product description and image to give shoppers a place to click next
- If you’re offering bundle-style recommendations, place those as close to the ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ button
Enable reviews and showcase user generated content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) through reviews instills last-minute purchase confidence, often getting shoppers past remaining obstacles to conversion. In fact, ninety-one percent of people read online reviews, and eighty-four percent of those people trust them.
Encourage your customers to share a review after purchase, and automate emails to remind them to review products shortly after they’ve been delivered. Make the process as easy as possible, allowing them to select 1-5 stars and give more details, such as comments, images, or videos if they want to.
The holiday season is a great excuse to update PDPs and ensure they are optimal for search during the peak of time for online shopping. You can also leverage heat mapping tools, such as HotJar, to identify opportunities for improvement, specifically, areas of a page your customers might be skimming over more quickly than you expect. A/B test small variations to discover if your PDP is fully optimized, and make informed changes where necessary.
Happy holiday season optimizing!