An irresistible product page is central to every great Shopify store. The crowning jewel of your website, it shows your customers what they came to see. Your Shopify product page can mean the difference between a sale or an abandoned cart, so it’s worth taking some time to get it right. However, to really master the structure, copy and design, there are some things you NEED to know about consumer psychology.
How to Build An Irresistible Shopify Product Page
In a 2018 survey, the consumer research body eMarketer asked respondents which parts of a product page influenced their decision to buy. The results were unsurprising…
Whilst most people are aware of the impact that images, product descriptions and reviews have on their decisions, there are a number of factors that shape consumer choices without them realising. These psychological effects are the key to making your Shopify product page irresistible.
One of the first insights produced by consumer psychological research was the speed with which customers make their judgements. Within 0.25 seconds of seeing your product page, important decisions are already being made…
Not only do consumers make decisions quickly, but they also tend to stick to them. Cognitive effects such as Anchoring and the Halo Effect describe how the first stimulus people receive shapes their evaluation of subsequent information. That means that the things people see in the first few moments have a disproportionate impact on their decisions.
Designing a Product Page For First Impressions
- Load Speed: The first thing to check is the loading speed of your page. The longer people have to wait for a response, the quicker their interest fades. In 2012, Amazon famously estimated that if their pages were to load one second slower than usual, they would face an annual loss of $1.6 billion. It is worth checking your loading speed on Pingdom or Google Page Speed to make sure your Theme is performing as well as it should. If you do spot a problem, it’s a good idea to check:
- Your tracking tags with Google Tag Manager
- Your Pop-ups and Plugins
- The size of your images
- Problems with your Liquid code
- Animated features like image sliders
- Engagement: Whilst loading speed is key, you also have to make sure that what loads is worth seeing. That starts with choosing the best product images for your Shopify product page. Because customers are not able to see your product in person, photography acts as your product’s ambassador. High-quality images go a long way in leading visitors along the customer journey as our brains are wired to better process visuals than text.
- Cognitive Ease: The less you make your customer think, the better they will rate their experience. Cognitive ease, which describes the fluency with which our brains processes information, is enhanced by structuring your page in an organised and digestible way. Visual cueing and a clear visual hierarchy improve the coherence of your page, facilitating trust, comfort and pleasure.
Truth is, people judge a book by its cover, and quickly. By designing your Shopify product page for speed, engagement and ease, you can make the most of your customers’ attention.
Everything you write on your Shopify product page should be chosen carefully. You need to communicate with your audience, give them enough information to make their mind up, and still leave time for them to buy your product…
The Devil In The Details
Some information might seem important, but it won’t affect your customers’ decisions. Other information might seem irrelevant, whilst actually making the difference between making a sale and losing a customer. Telling the difference between these two is tricky, and it requires you to get inside your customers’ heads. Some of the less obvious, but still important, details you might want to include are…
- Your product’s dimensions: The size of an image can be deceiving, so including the actual dimensions will help avoid misunderstandings.
- Materials: This doesn’t always matter, but in some cases it is essential. If you’re working for a sustainable brand or an ethical company, you need to be specific about your materials.
- Care instructions: This is something retailers often forget about. It’s particularly important because it encourages your customers to picture themselves in possession of your product and that triggers a powerful Endowment Effect.
“Benefits” vs “Features”
Marketers often separate product descriptions into two categories: “features” and “benefits”. Features are the qualities and selling points that makes your product unique. Benefits are the way these features affect your customers. To create a great Shopify product page, you need a bit of both.
For example, Chilly’s (a brand of water bottle) are masters of the product description…
On their product pages, Chilly’s explain that their bottles keep a drink hot for up to 12 hours. Great. So what? Well, Chilly’s puts that benefit into context…
Keep your tea or coffee hot for up to 12 hours. Perfect for those cold morning commutes.
By listing both features and benefits, Chilly’s creates a far more persuasive pitch. Their product images often take advantage of the Visual Depiction Effect; if a customer can picture themselves owning your product, it’s a much smaller step for them to buy it…
Many hands make light work, and many apps make an optimal Shopify product page. Apps and plugins allow you to communicate detailed information that customers would expect to find in a physical store. They are the staff that convey a sense of community, trust and, of course, the fun of shopping.
Trust Sign Plugins
Cart abandonment is huge issue in e-commerce, with multiple studies estimating abandonment rates as high as 80%. A recent study by the Baymard Institute suggests that 17% of abandoned carts are due to concerns about security. Apps like Trustpulse allow you to display symbols on your web page that guarantee the security of their transactions. Trust signs include:
- Security software
- Industry certifications
- Quality guarantees
- Returns policies
Gamification Apps
Apps like Swell or Spin To Win enhance your product page by using gamification. Gamification is engaging customers through the application of certain types of elements you would find in games, including rewards or point-scoring. The fun of gaming incentivises certain behaviours. Gamification can help optimise your product page by encouraging purchases by providing rewards for certain behaviours:
- Discounts for spending a certain amount
- Points for sharing a page
- Encouraging the purchase of a particular product
Gamification ranges from overt play (such as the examples above) to more implicit “soft” gamification (such as the validating green tick mark after successfully completing a webform).
Social Proof Apps
Social Proof is one of the most powerful tools in the marketer’s arsenal. When a potential customer is unsure how to act, they will often look to others for clues. Social Proof Apps provide a way of harnessing this effect automatically, increasing your conversion rate.
Apps like Nudgify, Fera and FOMO use live data from your store to display persuasive information about recently viewed and purchased items. One of the major obstacles to online sales is customer anxiety over not being able to physically handle the product. Consumer research has demonstrated that reviews are often the most important factor in shaping the purchase decision. By showing reviews and ratings on your Shopify product page, social proof apps increase trust in your store.
A lot of psychological factors are at play when a browser views your product page. Incorporating elements of social proof, gamification and trust signs make sure that your page is communicating the right messages to your visitors.
Your product is like a ring in a jeweller’s window. What makes it sparkle is the way you design your Shopify product page. Product pages give store owners the advantage of controlling everything the customer sees. By managing this display, you can leverage aspects of consumer psychology that make a product irresistible.
