Consumers have the world at their fingertips when shopping online thanks to e-commerce. With just a few clicks, they can choose from different brands, features, sizes, and colors and easily compare competitors’ prices. So how can you position your product to be the one that lands in their shopping cart? We’ve recapped the latest trends in online shopping behavior below to help enhance your e-commerce strategy for 2021.
Cross-Platform Synergies are Foundational
Let’s say you’re in the market for a new tennis racquet. You start your online search at Amazon, which leads you to the Wilson website for more information, then after a price comparison, you ultimately purchase the racquet at Walmart.com.
For today’s savvy online shoppers, this customer journey is very common — so retailers must deliver a cross-platform shopping experience across retail, search and social. In fact, according to a recent Kantar Media study, 63 percent of shoppers do their initial product research on Amazon, 57 percent use Pinterest to find inspiration, and half of all consumers use Google to discover new brands and products. Your e-commerce strategy should ensure there’s consistency and relevant content across all the platforms your customers use.
What is a Product Detail Page?
A product detail page (PDP) is a page on an e-commerce site where an individual product “lives” online as its main page on the site, complete with details about the product. Details typically included on a PDP include price, dimensions, color(s), features, warranty and other more product-specific details. In most cases you are given the option to add the product to your shopping cart from here.
What is PDP SEO?
Nearly half of the people who purchase your product will visit the PDP to learn more before they add the item to their cart, and recent trends are showing users are increasingly going beyond page one and digging deeper. With PDPs serving an essential role in the decision-making process, brands should ensure each item’s individual page is search engine optimized (SEO) with effective keywords and tagging. Proper PDP SEO will increase traffic to your e-commerce site and viewership of each product.
When thinking about improving PDP SEO, it’s important to understand how consumers search before bidding on category search terms. Consumers are more likely to search for a specific type of product over a singular brand, so it is beneficial to include broad category search terms to increase your PDP SEO.
Appeal to Skimmers
E-commerce shoppers tend to skim webpages, so skip the fluffy language and wordy PDP copy to cut straight to the chase: What is the product, what does it do, what are its benefits and what options are available?
Images are another way to quickly and effectively convey essential product information to e-commerce consumers — as long as you use the right pictures. The photo gallery of a product should include different angles of the product, the product in use to provide a sense of scale, close-ups of any product details and color variations. Video tutorials for set up, proper usage, maintenance or cleaning of the product are also valuable to users.
Let Customer Reviews Shine
To learn more about products, 95 percent of e-commerce users rely on customer reviews, according to a UX study by the Baymard Institute. But just having customer reviews available isn’t enough. As a best practice, a ratings distribution summary should be shown graphically on the page. Using a system of points or stars, allow users to filter reviews to home in on why some customers loved the product, while others felt it didn’t meet their expectations. Until a product has received an adequate sample size of reviews, it’s best to hide the ratings distribution summary since it can easily be skewed by only a handful of respondents.
Don’t Forget to Cross-Sell
Every product page on your e-commerce site should include additional products that a user might be interested in. If you sell home furnishings and a user is browsing for coffee tables, there’s an opportunity to show that person more than just alternative styles of tables that you sell. Consider including complementary objects and accessories, like side tables, lamps, area rugs and throw pillows.
Implementing these tips is an opportunity to enhance the user experience and increase your sales. If you need help positioning your products online, our teams in Raleigh, NC and Chapel Hill, NC are just one phone call away.
