Have you ever visited a store’s website, found just what you were looking for, and made the purchase without hesitation or buyer’s remorse? That’s often a byproduct of a great product detail page (PDP).
Product detail pages play an essential role in the success of your ecommerce business because they inform and excite potential customers, prompting them to buy. Here are the essential components of a product detail page, along with best practices to help make your PDPs more effective.
What is a product detail page?
A PDP, or Product Detail Page, in ecommerce is a landing page that provides comprehensive information about a specific product, including descriptions, images, pricing, and customer reviews. Optimized PDPs include high-quality images, detailed product descriptions, and user reviews to enhance the shopping experience and boost conversion rates.
Although ecommerce product detail pages can’t replace an in-store experience where customers physically interact with your product, effective PDPs can bridge the gap by helping customers understand the key features and benefits of the product, providing a rich online shopping experience.
PDPs can support search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, improving your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) that bring you new customers.
Key features of a product detail page
- Product title
- Product description
- Additional product details or specifications
- High-quality digital assets
- Price
- Availability
- Quantity to purchase
- Call to action
- Return and exchange policy details
- Fulfillment options
Here are the essential elements that go into creating a compelling product detail page:
Product title
The product title helps customers quickly identify if the product is what they’re looking for and can influence their decision to explore more details. The title typically is the largest and most prominent text on the page. Titles should be concise, clear, and descriptive.
A title that’s optimized for search engines incorporates keywords that potential customers might use when searching for the product.
Product description
Product descriptions provide a broad overview of the product, typically sitting beneath the product title. These descriptions should contain essential information, including key features and materials.
The language should be appealing and aligned with your brand’s voice. Effective product descriptions help customers make an informed decision and persuade them to buy.
Additional product details or specifications
These sections provide further product attributes or technical specifications, such as sizes and color options, dimensions, weight, volume, brand, or model. These details help customers make purchase decisions, which can reduce returns, churn rate, and customer complaints.
High-quality digital assets
No product detail page would be complete without high-quality photos or video. High-resolution product images give a comprehensive view of the product from different angles and toggle options when site visitors change colors, materials, or sizes.
Product videos are another way to bring your product to life and earn the trust of prospective customers. They offer an engaging way to learn more about how a product works, along with its features, benefits, and uses.
Price
The product price is often the most important consideration for buyers. Therefore, place it near the call to action (CTA), such as a button to place an item in a shopping cart. You can also display discounts or price reductions, as well as different promotions, subscriptions, or buy now, pay later (BNPL) payment options. It’s also important to mention if shipping costs or taxes affect the final price.
Availability
Include product availability on a product detail page to let customers know if the product is in stock. If stock is limited for a particular product, displaying this can encourage a purchase.
Quantity to purchase
Include a small drop-down list or other order-quantity input field for selecting the number of items for purchase. You can set minimum and maximum order quantities here as well.
Call to action
Calls to action (CTAs) are short, concise statements designed to get customers to act and are therefore one of the PDP’s most essential elements for conversion.
Most CTA buttons on product detail pages encourage customers to purchase or add to their carts—Add to Cart, Buy Now, or Customers Also Bought, for example—and should be highly visible with simple copy.
Return and exchange policy details
Include relevant and transparent information about return or exchange conditions, or if a product is final sale. Return and exchange policies can make customers feel more comfortable purchasing from you, enhancing trust and building loyalty.
Fulfillment options
Include shipping information and timelines or other ways customers can receive your products, such as buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS). Since unexpected shipping costs are one of the leading reasons for cart abandonment, include exact shipping options and fees on the PDP if possible.
Best practices for a product detail page
- Harness the power of social proof
- Employ scarcity and urgency tactics
- Provide additional recommendations
- Optimize for mobile
- Optimize for search
If your PDP doesn’t give shoppers the information they want, they might decide not to buy. According to user experience (UX) researchers at the Baymard Institute, 44% of ecommerce retailers don’t have positive user experiences on their PDPs.
Here are best practices to help you create product detail pages to improve conversion rates and your customers’ shopping experiences.
Harness the power of social proof
Reviews and ratings are forms of social proof that have become integral to a buyer’s decision-making process, with most shoppers consulting customer reviews and ratings before purchasing.
Product ratings are typically positioned near the product title, while written reviews usually sit toward the bottom of the page. Including a search bar within reviews can also enhance their usefulness.
Other forms of social proof, such as user-generated content (UGC) in the form of photos, videos, awards, and trust badges, can also help improve conversion rates on PDPs.
Employ scarcity and urgency tactics
Most people don’t like the idea of missing out on something they want, which is why scarcity and urgency remain such effective marketing tools.
Showing customers that a limited number of items are left in stock, how many others have the same product in their cart, or a countdown timer for promotions are just a few ways to put scarcity and urgency tactics to work on your PDPs.
Provide additional recommendations
According to McKinsey, cross-selling—offering related products or services—can help increase conversions, boosting sales by up to 20% and profits by as much as 30%. You can encourage visitors to “Shop the Look” or “View Similar Items,” for example. You can also offer complementary product recommendations.
Optimize for mobile
With global mobile ecommerce sales reaching more than $2 trillion and accounting for 60% of all ecommerce sales, optimizing your PDP for mobile web browsers is essential. Ensure that your product pages perform well, appear as intended on mobile devices, and have quick load times.
Optimize for search
Product pages, which often dominate an ecommerce site, present significant opportunities for enhancing SEO strategies. Use relevant target keywords in the core components of your PDP, including the product title and the page’s title tag, product description, meta description, and alt-text for images or videos to increase search engine visibility.
What is PDP in ecommerce FAQ
What is a PLP in ecommerce?
Product listing pages (PLPs) are pages on an ecommerce site that display a group of products based on a category or a visitor’s search query. Users can access individual product detail pages from a product listing page.
What is a PDP on Shopify?
Within Shopify and other ecommerce platforms, PDP stands for product detail page. These pages provide customers with important product details, including product benefits, features, pricing, photos, videos, ratings, reviews, and other relevant information customers want to help them make a purchase decision.
What makes a good product detail page?
A good product detail page provides customers with all the relevant information they need, while offering them an engaging online shopping experience. Effective product detail pages include essential elements such as price, product photos or videos, availability, and a call to action. Best practices for designing PDPs include providing social proof, employing cross-selling tactics, and ensuring they’re optimized for mobile.
Do product detail pages impact SEO?
Yes. As the most common pages on many ecommerce sites, product detail pages can positively affect your SEO efforts by including relevant keywords in the page’s content, title tag, meta descriptions, and alt tags for photos and videos, among other tactics.
