With the internet at your fingertips, it’s easier than ever to search and compare product prices and features. All the more reason for your business to offer product comparison visualizations to give your customers the information they need at a quick glance. Learn how to use product comparisons to increase customer loyalty and reduce bounce rates on your website.
What is a product comparison table?
A product comparison table is a basic spreadsheet that stacks similar products, with the products listed as columns and the product’s key features or attributes (e.g., battery life, price, size) listed in rows.
Also known as a product comparison chart, these tools offer a visual way for consumers to assess the similarities and differences of multiple products. A static comparison table is preset by the site or company, while dynamic comparison tables let site visitors select different products or services they want to compare.
Benefits of product comparison for ecommerce
Beyond simply being a nice feature to offer customers visiting your ecommerce site, product comparison tables can help your business in the following ways:
Reduce bounce rate
The more tools potential customers have to make an informed buying decision, the more likely they are to follow through. Providing them with this information on a product comparison page increases the likelihood that they will buy something on the spot rather than leave (or bounce from) your site. A dynamic comparison table allows for interactivity, which can also keep visitors on your site longer, reducing the bounce rate.
Increase customer loyalty
Product comparison charts provide transparency. This not only gives customers specific information about your goods and services, but this kind of openness and honesty goes a long way with consumers. This can increase their trust and positive association with your brand, making them more likely to return.
🌟 Learn more about why brand trust is important and how trust is built.
Improve SEO
Offering product comparison modules engages customers, offers more chances for internal linking, and helps keep visitors on your page longer. The more time consumers spend on your ecommerce store, the more search engines are going to rate it as a high-quality site—a key factor when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.
6 tips for effective product comparisons
- Compare a limited number of products
- Highlight the important details
- Make it visually appealing
- Order products logically
- Compare apples to apples
- Limit the number of features
There are many ways to build high-quality product comparison pages on your site:
Compare a limited number of products
A good general rule is to limit the number of products you’re comparing to five or fewer. If your company offers many different versions of your goods or services, a dynamic product comparison table will let customers pick and choose which things they want to compare.
Highlight the important details
Customers generally utilize product comparison charts to make quick, informed decisions when deciding among multiple versions or brands of a certain product. Make it easier for them by highlighting the most critical information, such as price, size, or weight. Other, less important details can go near the bottom of your table, where users can find them if they want to dig deeper.
Make it visually appealing
Product comparison charts can engage customers with high-quality product photos, brand-specific colors, graphics, or even video. Doing so can help keep customers on your site longer and increase your conversion rates, potentially concluding with a sale.
Order products logically
The order of your product display should make logical sense. For instance, a tech website selling laptops might order its products from least to most powerful, or vice versa. The order you display product attributes is important too, and the top few rows of your table should represent the features customers deem most important.
Compare apples to apples
It’s not always easy to compare products. Sometimes certain product versions or brands don’t have the same features. This can create empty cells in your chart. If there are too many of these, customers may feel that the comparison isn’t useful and start looking elsewhere.
Try to avoid this issue by selecting details that are applicable across the products, even if this means leaving out certain attributes found in individual products.
Limit the number of features
Product comparisons are not meant to be comprehensive product reviews. Visitors to your site want a quick and easy visual way to compare and contrast products, not an exhaustive list of all the features.
Information overload may put off buyers, so identify which product or service features matter most to your customers and highlight those in your comparison charts.
How Shopify stores effectively use product comparison tables
Jibby makes powdered coffee and matcha supplemented with mushrooms, collagen protein, and other nutrients. The company’s website homepage, as well as its product pages, prominently feature a comparison chart showing how Jibby’s powders measure up against competitors MUD\WTR and Four Sigmatic.
The merchant shows shoppers how its offerings stack up versus the competition, using five attribute rows:
- Collagen protein (type 1 and 2)
- Tastes delicious
- Easy mixing and no sediment
- 100% fruiting body mushrooms
- Fair Trade Certified
The chart is simple and easy to read, and the additional green color coding of the Jibby column further emphasizes the differences between the coffee powders.
Product comparison FAQ
How do you create a product comparison?
Many website platforms and content management systems (CMS) offer built-in tools you can use to construct your own product comparison table or chart. Shopify also offers several dozen apps (both free and paid) that you can use to post product comparisons on your ecommerce site.
How do product comparisons work?
Product comparison charts and tables give customers a visual tool that lets them quickly and easily assess important differences and similarities between two or more products or services before they make a purchase.
What should you include in a product comparison?
Product comparison tools should include up to five different products or services (either your competitors’ or your own), as well as the most important attributes or qualities of those products, whether objective metrics such as price or more subjective ones like taste.
