Product Page

The product page is your opportunity to showcase your goods, highlight key features and ensure the customer has all the information they need to make a confident purchase.

4.1 Page weight

The ‘weight’ of the homepage will decide how long a new visitor has to wait for the page to load.

Many people choose to shop online because of the time saving advantages.  So as well as clear and logical site design and navigation, the speed of page loading is also an important factor for users.

Accepted best practice is that a homepage should load in less than 10 seconds.  The challenge is to test and fi nd the best balance between loading time and the use of impactful, sticky content.

For the purposes of scoring in this report, we used an ADSL broadband connection, for which a homepage needed to weigh 500kb or less in order to load in 10 seconds or under.

Average score: 12 out of 20 = 60%

High flyers: Asda, Vie at home, Avon

The retailers were a mixed bag in terms of homepage weights, with 8 of the 20 ecommerce site homepages we analysed weighing in at more than 500kb.

The Fragrance Shop, Game and hmv.com each weighed in at well over 1mb.

Whilst some will achieve swift loading times on a broadband connection (average speed of 2.95mbps), others run the risk of losing visitors simply because their homepages can take longer than 10 seconds to load on broadband and therefore much, much longer on dial-up.

We found that many of the retailers’ homepages with quicker loading times didn’t have to abandon the use of images and sacrifice impact or stickiness.

Best practice guidelines

* Ensure key parts of the page load quickly to capture and hold visitors’ attention

* A/B split test different weights of homepage, to test the effect on bounce rates

* Optimise image files to reduce their size to the minimum required whilst maintaining sufficient image quality

* Use Flash files and large animations with care

* Use analytics to profile your visitors by internet connection speed, before deciding on yourtarget homepage weight

Top Tip

1.  If you are going to use large images then consider using a CDN (content delivery network) to ensure that content is sent to the user at the highest possible speed.

Ensure that caching is enabled on your front-end servers so that information isn’t needlessly sent twice.

2.  Check your site in Firefox using the ‘yslow’ plugin for a test of overall performance of your page, and for tips on how to improve it.

3.  Check your analytics system to see if mobile browsers are making up a significant or increasing chunk of users.

If your site isn’t compatible, redirect them to a purpose-built mini-site with contact details or special phone number.

4.2 Product images

Showing off your products in the best possible light is a sure fi re way to entice website visitors to find out more and purchase with confidence.

By including multiple views of each product you increase the chances that a shopper will convert online rather than seek the product out in-store.

Average score: 43 out of 65 = 66%

High flyers: Play.com, Amazon.co.uk

We were surprised to find that not one of the 20 retailers we assessed offered 3D rotatable images.

The more detailed views of products a retailer can offer, the greater the likelihood of a conversion to sale.

Although all retailers provided at least one product image, just half of the retailers we examined provided two or more.
 
Even for entertainment products like books and DVDs, it’s beneficial to give customers the opportunity to read the back of the case, just as you would in the shop.
 
Amazon.co.uk was exemplary in this respect.

By allowing site users to look at both covers and also inside the books, they made the experience as immersive as if the customer were in a store.

Best practice guidelines

* Always include at least one, clear, high quality image of your product or service on the product page

* Include an image gallery to provide customers with multiple views of products and see them in context and in use

* Ensure products images are enlargeable, many ecommerce solutions offer this out of the box

* Include zoomable and 3D rotatable images to enable customers to get detailed, 360 degree views

* Include videos and animations of products where possible, but be careful only some ecommerce solutions allow you to do this

Top Tip

* Use thumbnails to reduce page weight and download times.

4.3 Merchandising detail

Converting an ecommerce site visitor to a purchaser is largely a matter of providing the user with enough information that they have the confidence to purchase.

During the course of our research, we looked at key online product merchandising techniques that help drive user confidence, including stock indicators, product comparison options and the option to select which currency to purchase in. Ecommerce solutions that offer these features are the solutions that deliver results for online retailers.

Average score: 41 out of 70 = 58%

High flyers: Argos, John Lewis, Play.com, Dixons

14 out of the 20 retailers provided a stock level indicator.

Those who failed to do this are risking losing potential sales.

Only 5 out of the 20 sites included a product comparison feature, with department stores leading the way – Argos, Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Comet and Dixons.

Customers who like to shop this way will simply go to a competitor site that offers a comparison feature if they need to make comparisons.

Most surprisingly of all, only 2 of the retailers offered pricing in a choice of currency on their sites.

Ecommerce solutions have the potential to give retailers access to a truly international and global market.

Those who offer flexible currency pricing place themselves in the strongest position to tap into these lucrative markets.

Best practice guidelines

* Provide an indication of stock levels to reassure customers that there will be no issues with the delivery of the product they want to order

* Provide an option for customers to compare their selection of products, side by side

* Provide multi-currency pricing options so website visitors from overseas countries can select the currency in which they want to see the price

Top Tip

* Make sure your copy is salesy!

Sell the benefits and features of a product, but also make sure you have a good collection of product shots and as much data as possible for the analytical
types.

If you have more copy, product imagery and product specification data than competitors, buyers will view you as more authoritative, and you are more likely to get the sale.

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