The eCommerce market is expected to surpass $52 trillion by 2027. That’s nearly 4 times as large as its 2021 value.
More customers mean more competitors. While eBay and then Amazon long dominated the eCommerce scene, the pandemic created a shift. With more time spent at home, consumers had more time to shop around.
Because of that, smaller eCommerce sites have more opportunities to make their mark. How can an online marketplace stand out amongst the growing competition?
The first step is retaining customers. The number one way to do that is product page enhancements.
That’s right, it’s not all about SEO! There’s no point ranking highly on a search engine if customers abandon or don’t even fill their carts. For long-lasting success, your product pages have to convert browsers through to purchase.
Then your site traffic and search engine rankings will organically increase. And your product pages will be optimized enough to sustain your success.
Here’s our guide to specific product page enhancements every marketplace should be making and why.
Improve Loading Speeds
As basic as it sounds, loading speeds can make or break organic traffic generation. If your site or your product images take a few moments to load, it can put users off completely. In fact, 53% of people expect a web page to load within 3 seconds.
If it loads too slowly, the same survey found that nearly half of customers will be dissatisfied. And if they click away from your site that quickly, it hurts your traffic substantially.
Buyers want a swift, painless experience. Don’t give them time to second-guess their purchase or your professionalism!
Accurate Product Information
The best product page enhancements are all about product information. Product data enhancement is the key to winning more site traffic. Attention to detail at this stage is the number one way to push customers through to purchase.
eCommerce product data includes written information, as well as images and other details. We’ve broken down how to improve each area.
Product Descriptions
Product data is everything. Potential buyers want to know every detail about your products. Data-driven product catalog management should be central to your strategy.
That goes beyond dimensions and delivery dates. An eCommerce product description should be as thorough as seeing it in person.
In a brick-and-mortar store, shoppers can pick up the product. They can feel its weight, gauge its size, and read more information on the package.
eCommerce marketplaces can combat these challenges by providing just as much information.
If any product information is missing, consumers won’t have the confidence to buy. Or they may return the product.
For online purchases, the average return rate is a staggering 20%. The problem is not just lost revenue, it’s a loss of confidence in your marketplace.
If your product descriptions do not accurately represent the product, they won’t just return it – they won’t come back. That is less site traffic from repeat customers, which leads to less organic traffic generation.
Clearly, an accurate product description is key to repeat customers, which drives organic traffic.
Accurate product data also helps your product get identified by search engines. Besides a clear description, search engines respond well to these details:
- Global trade item numbers
- Manufacturer part numbers
- Brand names
- Stock keeping unit numbers
Consistently structured product data is also helpful for both search engines and consumers. On every product page, data should appear in the same order and in the same places, so people know where to look.
This is especially important if several stocked products are relatively similar. Their differences and unique identifiers should be clear enough that customers and search engines can distinguish between them.
High-Quality Images
Good images are just as important to consumers as good data. Bad images, or worse, none at all, reflect badly on your business. If you can’t provide several high-quality images from a variety of angles, buyers jump to questioning your authenticity.
Your goal should be to provide enough images that users feel they’ve seen the product in person. That will give them the confidence to buy and come back in the future.
Visible Product Reviews
Reviews add to your site’s verifiability. In fact, nearly 90% of customers surveyed said that they read reviews before purchasing a product online. The same survey found that even more than 90% of people trust reviews as much as recommendations from people they know.
Make sure it’s easy to leave a review so that previous buyers do so.
Include an image option with reviews so that buyers can upload images alongside them. These candid review images add to buyer confidence even more than professional ones.
Buyers are also interested in your responses to reviews. If any customer leaves a negative review with a complaint, you may want to respond to save face.
According to the survey mentioned earlier, these business responses are read by and are important to nearly 60% of customers. Make sure you represent your business well and respond in the most considerate way possible.
Product Page Enhancements for Your Online Marketplace
Putting these enhancement tips into practice will win you more traffic. But working with us gets that number even higher.
Our solutions for marketplaces go beyond product data enhancements. They win more traffic by fixing attribution, removing duplicates, forecasting demand, ensuring accurate taxonomy, and creating an optimal shopper experience.
Don’t struggle through manually improving product pages in-house. Instead, let us go through your marketplace with a fine-toothed comb and find every optimization opportunity.
Book a demo with us today to learn how.
