4 horrendous product page mistakes

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Sep 1, 2017 / by
4 horrendous product page mistakes

Selling physical products online is easier than ever before. You can set up a Shopify store and start drop shipping products from Aliexpress very quickly, without any previous experience.

Additionally, it’s not hard to perform some market research and figure out what types of products people are searching for, so you can deliver it to them.

In addition to providing the right product for the right audience, you also need a product page which encourages people to make a purchase. Much has been written about how to create a highly converting product page, but what not to do is just as important! Here are some of the worst product page mistakes you can make.

1 – Unprofessional images

If you’ve taken photos of your product with your laptop’s embedded webcam, don’t expect anyone to take you seriously. If you intend to sell a particular product on a large scale, please find a professional photographer in your area and book a photoshoot.
Laura Teuscher states:

Draw attention to your item by setting it up against a plain white or neutral backdrop. To make an image look even more professional, take your photos on a continuous background, a background without visual angles – such as a curved white poster, for example.

Sometimes, marketers use product images that are taken directly from the website of manufacturers – with Chinese text included! If you’re going to use a manufacturer’s images, at least pay a freelancer on Fiverr to edit out any watermarks or irrelevant text.

Customer feedback2 – No reviews, bad reviews or suspiciously positive reviews

It’s a tall order trying to convince someone to purchase from you when there is no social proof available. Reviews are a great form of social proof, but only when they’re authentic and positive.

Sophia Bernazzani states:

Social proof is the idea that consumers will adapt their behavior according to what other people are doing. It makes sense, right? When we see a line of customers waiting to eat at a restaurant or a photo of a celebrity drinking a certain brand of coffee, it lends an air of gravitas and quality to the product, doesn’t it?

One of the best ways you can demonstrate social proof is to request video reviews from your previous customers in exchange for a discount. It doesn’t matter if the review is filmed on a smartphone – in fact, low video quality can actually be beneficial because it makes the review more believable. Check out the pro-aging skincare brand, Boom, for a great example of how video customer reviews can be utilised for social proof.

3 – Inferior sales copy

One of the biggest sales copy mistakes is listing the features of a product, rather than discussing the benefits. Remember, potential customers don’t care about you or your product – all they care about is what positive influence the product will have on their lives.

Most marketers understand that purchasing is an emotional rather than logical process. By discussing benefits rather than features, you can tap into emotion and encourage people to buy.

Additionally, be sure to provide an FAQ section to alleviate fears and proofread anything you write before publishing. Grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes are also totally unacceptable for product page sales copy.

4 – Complicated checkouts

Your “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button should be conveniently located and ideally in a colour that contrasts with the rest of your branding. Having a small, innocuous “Add to Cart” button that doesn’t scream to be clicked will hurt your conversions.

Also, some companies force customers to register accounts before they can complete their purchases. This will hurt your conversions too, because people want to be able to checkout as quickly and simply as possible. Additionally, be sure to mention all shipping costs up front, because if unexpected costs appear during the checkout process this will lead to abandoned carts.

Conclusion

Creating a high-converting product page is an art and it takes time to get good at. Usually, you’ll need to do some split testing before you’re able to create a really good product page. However, if you avoid these 4 mistakes you’ll have a headstart over most of the competition!

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