15 Ways to Improve ‘Product Page’ UX of E-commerce Platforms
The product page of e-commerce platforms is critical to users’ buying decisions.
The product page of e-commerce platforms is critical to users’ buying decisions. It's one page you go through before proceeding with and completing a purchase; therefore, this Baymard study highlights 15 best practices that power the experience of people exploring this section of e-commerce platforms.
Provide ‘in-scale’ photos
‘In-scale’ photos are important for users to get an idea of a product’s relative size. Since users cannot evaluate the size of a product as they would in physical stores, helping them know the actual product size is just… *chef’s kiss*. This is reminiscent of my recent learning about mental models. This point is best achieved by placing the product next to a human, a computer-generated model, or an object of familiar size as reference point.
2. Use Sample Photos of a Human-Model
While “in-scale” photos are great, they are not enough for some products. Products designed to be worn like apparel, and accessories (bags, jewelry, etc) are better displayed with a human model for users to get the truest sense of the said product. That’ll help with understanding the visual qualities of a product and ease of decision-making.
3. Provide Complementary Accessories Image
Users are likely to discount some products when they’re not sure what comes with them, and because many users make their conclusion from the product images in the main gallery, it's advisable to show everything a customer gets in a single image. Also, companies can consider adding optional accessories and real-time price differences.
4. Allow Users Buy “Out of Stock” Products by Increasing Delivery Time
If a product is temporarily “out of stock”, users should be able to complete the purchase by having a longer delivery time. Otherwise, they’ll likely leave that platform and look for the product elsewhere. It’s always best they decide whether or not to buy an “out of stock” item that would ship at a later time than normal.
5. Make ‘Save’ Feature Easy to Access and Use
While most customers use the cart to temporarily save products, a minority use the “save” or “wishlist” features, as they would rather not register or provide personal information yet. It’s important to allow any ‘save’, ‘favourite’, or ‘wishlist’ feature to be used by guest customers. While platforms have good reasons for insisting on registration first, it could be at the expense of scaring away a significant amount of visitors.
6. Show ‘price per unit’ for Products Sold in Varying Quantities or Amount
Providing a ‘cost per ounce’ as detail on the product page allows for easy comparison against similar items. Users should be able to rely on their own arithmetic skills to compare prices across products sold in varying quantities. Without a ‘price per unit’, it’s difficult to weigh prices and also thwarts the possibility of bulk orders on the site. This exercise happens at crunch time while users decide whether or not to add an item to the cart and disruptions here could result in dissatisfaction or abandonment.
7. Provide a ‘Total Order Cost’ Estimate Near the “Buy” Section
Users shouldn’t have to add an item to a cart before seeing additional/hidden costs like taxes, shipping, and oversized item fees. There are instances where shipping cost becomes a surprise at checkout, leading to abandonment because an estimate wasn’t provided on the product page.
8. Link ‘Return Policy’ from Product Page Content
Online shopping is riddled with the possibility of seemingly perfect products not working for some customers. Therefore, information on how to send back items is one that users take very seriously, as it influences the buying decision for many. Especially for products like apparels, users should have early & easy access to the return policy while shopping. Always advisable to show a summary of the return policy prominently on the product page and the copy should be written in plain English for an average person to understand.
9. Place ‘Free Shipping’ Info near the ‘Buy Section’
Placing a ‘free shipping’ banner at the top of a site poses a risk of banner blindness among users. Most people take any banner as ads and try to avoid it. They will overlook it and instead focus on exploring information within their desired product page. It’s always advisable that “free shipping” offer is placed near the ‘buy’ section on the product page, where it’s easier for most users to locate.
10. Provide Highly Scalable Spec Sheets
Products with plenty of specifications can be organized better and more conveniently. Spec sheets of products with more than 10 specs should be grouped into sub-sections of related information — each with a title easy to scan and understand. This also helps users zero in on the exact spec they’re interested in per time without going through it all.
11. Check Vendor-Supplied Specs to Ensure Consistency & Uniformity
As products on some e-commerce platforms are supplied by different vendors, it’s always advisable to use the same unit of measurement when displaying products that are comparable. Using different units of measure means forcing users to mentally convert them before making logical comparisons of products’ attributes.
You shouldn’t place two products in comparison to each other and use different units for specs (inches vs centimeters, gram vs kilogram). This occurs mostly when multiple vendors share spec sheets for the products they supply and the e-commerce platform didn’t post-process the data to ensure consistency on its platform. Don’t have one product in inches and the other in centimeters or so.
12. Explain or Define Some Specifications Label in the Spec Sheet
Some terms in a spec sheet may be vague to users, which makes comparing items difficult. As many platforms use terminology that requires domain-specific knowledge, it’s important to use explanatory tooltips for terminologies that are not common to everyday people.
13. Request Only Highly Relevant Personal Reviewer Info
Asking for too much info before users submit a review may cause a shortage of review content on e-commerce platforms. Users should be given a simplified review form that wouldn’t put them off as reviews serve as unique sales content for platforms.
14. Respond to Negative User Review
Not responding to negative reviews could leave users doubtful about the platform’s quality of service. People will likely feel more at ease with an e-commerce platform that is attentive enough to the dissatisfaction of past customers. While a response to a negative review does not change the dissatisfied customer to a satisfied one, it has the positive effect of showing new users that the company cares and has proactive, easily reachable customer support.
15. Provide Ratings Distribution Chart at the top of the Review Section
Some users prefer to use a product’s review summary to know if a product is being well or poorly rated. The absence of this feature means users are deprived of the possibility to perform a quantitative interpretation of reviews. Like in the above design, the majority of 520 reviews being 5 stars gives an idea that people like the product.