https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ecommerce-product-pages/

Summary: Customers shopping online rely on product pages to decide what to buy. Help them by answering questions, enabling comparison, providing reviews, and facilitating the purchase process.

In ecommerce, product pages are critical to the success of a site. Customers need to have enough information to make an informed purchase decision. The product page, or product-detail page, is where users decide whether and what to buy. The page must include complete product information, educating and informing the user about the product in a straightforward way.

Online customers can’t touch the product, ask a salesperson a question, try an item on, or use the item before buying. Sure, motivated shoppers may be able to order swatches to feel the material. Or they can ask questions via live chat (usually as a last resort). The most intrepid shoppers may even be willing to attempt a virtual try-on tool. But all those have a high interaction cost, requiring strong motivation and willingness to spend a chunk of time in the app or on the site. In many cases, customers don’t want to invest that much time, so the product page needs to help them get their information as fast as possible. It’s in the store’s best interest to make sure that users’ questions are answered and that the product is accurately represented.

Poor product pages have two main results, both of which harm the customers’ relationship to the site:

1. Shoppers cannot decide if the product meets their qualifications and so abandon the purchase. (Better safe than sorry.)
2. Shoppers buy the wrong product, based on inaccurate assumptions, which results in unhappy customers or returned purchases. (The more people have been burned this way, the more they’ll be skeptical and react according to scenario #1 when encountering weak product pages.)

After analyzing hundreds of examples from our latest research across 49 ecommerce sites, we derived guidelines for how to design effective product-detail pages. This article presents a brief overview of our findings and recommendations.

What to Include on Product Pages

The product page is a workhorse with a lot of responsibility and jobs-to-be-done, answering customers’ questions and getting shoppers ready to buy. So, it’s critical that sites and apps get it right. Well-designed product pages have the following characteristics, which we have categorized as must-have, nice-to-have, and fancy features. (Don’t be fooled by the name “fancy” features — these elements can be distracting and disappointing if they aren’t truly necessary or well-executed).

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Anticipate and Answer Product Questions

Shoppers are looking to the product page to answer all their product questions. In our studies, the only participants who paid little attention to the product page were those who already knew the exact product they wanted. Even those product-focused shoppers needed the product page to confirm that they had found the correct item.

Many sites offered insufficient product information, which left users with unanswered questions and not enough information to make purchase decisions. While it is impossible to know every question someone may have about a product, some sites neglected to offer even basic product information.

One common concern about shopping online was having to return the item. When sites fully described products, users were likely to buy the correct item and were confident in their purchases. They didn't worry about potential returns. Effective product pages should describe products with text and images:

• Be complete, but not wordy or fluffy. Users are not looking for marketing fluff, but for a solid description of the product, how it can be used, what it looks like, and what it does. Users typically skim text when reading online, reading more at the beginning of a description than at the end, and more at the start of a line than the end of a line. Don’t waste the first few lines of product descriptions — get right to the gist. Descriptions should also explain any terms that users aren’t likely to know. For example, some items on Urban Outfitters’ site were labeled Urban Renewal Recycled. Product details explained what this label meant: each dress has been updated by hand so the item you receive will vary in color, tone + wear from the item you see pictured here.

  

  A product description on Urban Outfitter’s site included a section called “About Urban Renewal Recycled,” which helpfully explained that no two are exactly alike*.*

• Use images and/or videos to answer questions. Product images set users’ expectations about the products they are selecting and buying. Images and videos should work together with the description to give a complete understanding of the product. One product view is rarely adequate to answer users’ questions. Users appreciated sites offering multiple or animated views, including rotated images, details, enlarged pictures and images of the product in use or in context. A user on eBags was considering a tote bag based on the picture on the category page. As she clicked into the full product page, she said, “I’d like to know what the inside looks like.” When she got to the product page, she said, “Oh, here we go! This looks very nice! It has 2 side pockets.” She then went back to the category page and picked other bags she liked, immediately clicking to the product page and viewing the interior and detailed pictures. She said of another bag, “It’s nicely lined and it has this convenient side zipper.” She picked the bag without reading a single word of a product description.

  

  Shoppers on eBags.com relied heavily on detailed images of totes and briefcases to determine which bags were best for their needs.

Help Users Compare Products

Users frequently compared items on a site and wanted to see the same information about each item they were considering. Consistent information about comparable products was key. The display of information affected how easy it was to compare items as well. Some sites varied the page design or information available for products, forcing users to hunt for the information they needed.