The product page is your sales page. The visitor has found your site, navigated through it (by searching or browsing), and arrived at a product page. Now it's time to convince him or her to actually click the 'Add to Cart' button and make the purchase. This article discusses product page "best practices" for creating a product page.

1. Put yourself in the customer's shoes. As you create your product pages, make sure that you constantly focus on the customer. Ask yourself, "If I was considering buying this product..."

• What features would matter most to me?
• What information would I like to see?
• What would my inherent concerns be?
• How concerned would I be about shipping issues?
• How concerned would I be about the return policy?
• How important would the warranty be?
• Would the quantity & quality of information provided be enough to convince me to buy?

Too often, ecommerce newcomers simply copy & paste the product description provided by their supplier without even considering the customer. Does it really make sense to show the width/height/depth dimensions as the #1 bullet point in the 'Features' list? Probably not!

Typically, the higher the price of the product, the more information you should provide about it. Would you purchase an $800 product after reading a short paragraph of text and a short bullet-point list of features? Probably not! Again, put yourself in the shoes of the customer and do everything you can to convince yourself to click 'Add to Cart'.

2. Use large, crisp product images. A picture is worth a thousand words, so a small, blurry, stretched product image isn't saying much about your product! Ask your manufacturer/supplier for as large and clear of product images as you possibly can. If necessary, try to obtain them from competitors' websites or from Google Image search (make sure to obey all copyright laws & not use any images with unwanted branding).

With Zulu Cart, you can upload multiple product images (not just 1). So if you can get your hands on more than just the main product image, get them and upload them. Zulu Cart even allows you to upload attribute-specific images to so customers can see the various styles, colors or types available. Utilize all of these features.

3. Use the 'Quick Overview' section to highlight the product's best features. The purpose of the 'Quick Overview' is to convince the visitor to keep the visitor on the page. It should be a quick, concise list of the key benefits & features of the product. To determine what content to put there, ask yourself, "What are the top 3-5 key features & benefits of this product?" We strongly recommend using a bullet list for the 'Quick Overview'. Paragraph form is too daunting (that's what the 'Description' box down below is for). Again, the goal is to spark the customer's interest enough to keep them on the page.

4. Use both 'Price' fields to show a savings. Which purchase would you feel better about?

     a) Price: $199.95
     or
     b) Their Price: $249.95 | Our Price: $199.95 | Savings of $50.00

In both cases, the price you pay is exactly the same! But the presentation of option b makes the customer feel good about the fact that they're saving $50.00 (even if only subconsciously). You should always show an inflated "compare at" price to make the customer feel like they are saving money. You can use any label you want: MSRP, Their Price, Compare At, Regular Price, or whatever you want (change it on the 'Store Design > Label Names' page in Zulu Cart). On this same page, you can also change the label for the lower actual price to be whatever you want (Sale Price, Our Price, Your Price, or whatever).

5. If you offer free (or uncommonly low) shipping, highlight it! Shipping is a big deal to people shopping on the Internet. Everybody has had the experience of thinking they're getting a great deal on something only to get to the very last page of the checkout process and find out the shipping charge is outrageous. So if you offer free shipping or if your shipping rates are fairly low compared to the competition, you should highlight it on your product page. Zulu Cart has a built-in feature that helps you highlight free shipping (you just need to turn it on), but you could also insert a 'Free Shipping' trust graphic that highlights it. One important side note: Make sure that you do NOT include the words 'free shipping' (or anything like unto it) in the product description itself because Google Merchant Center (the biggest free shopping portal that you definitely want to be in) will automatically reject your product feed if it sees those words in your product description. (We learned that one the hard (i.e. time-consuming) way.)

6. If possible, take the time to write unique product descriptions. When you first build your store, it's fine (for time's sake) to just copy & paste the product descriptions provided by the manufacturer or supplier. But as soon as possible, you should go back and update the product descriptions. Make them compelling and informative! Convince customers how great the product is and why they should buy it. Boast about its great features and talk it up. A well-written "salesy" product description goes a long, long way in boosting your conversion rate (plus, Google totally "eats up" fresh, unique content). Generally, it's good to "mix it up" with a couple paragraphs of text in addition to a nice bullet list of all the product's features.

7. Use product videos. People LOVE watching videos! Who wants to read, right? Ask the manufacturer and/or your supplier if they have product videos, and get them! Look on YouTube for a video promoting or featuring the product. Check your competitors' sites to see if they have product videos. (Obviously, you don't want to use a video from YouTube or a competitor's site if the video has branding or labeling that isn't yours, and be careful to respect copyright laws.) If you are able to get your hands on a good video, upload it to YouTube (if it's not there already) and insert the YouTube embed code into the 'Product Video' field on the create/edit product pop-up in Zulu Cart.

8. Utilize the tabs functionality for the 'Description' box. Zulu Cart has the unique feature of being able to create custom tabs (on a product by product basis) for the 'Description' box. Utilize these tabs to organize and highlight important information that would otherwise be "buried" in paragraph 3 or 4 of the product description. Following are just a few ideas of tabs you could create:

• Warranty Info
• Guarantee
• Options
• Testimonials
• User's Manual
• Specifications (Specs)
• Dimensions
• Return Policy
• What's Included

When a product has reviews, a 'Reviews' tab will automatically appear (if you've turned that feature on in Zulu Cart). Similarly, when you've inserted video embed code into the 'Product Video' field, a 'Product Video' tab will appear automatically. Also, if you've turned the 'Product Q&A' feature on in Zulu Cart, the 'Product Q&A' tab will appear by itself.

9. Use the customer reviews function wisely. Product reviews can build consumer confidence and convince people to buy, but the flip-side is also true. If your products have poor reviews, the reviews can really hurt your sales. You should also consider how it looks to the customer if product after product after product in your store has no reviews at all.

For these reasons, we've included several critical options for Zulu Cart's built-in product reviews feature. First of all, you can turn the reviews feature off completely if you want. (In some markets, it might make sense to just turn them off.) Second, you can edit or entirely delete reviews that have been posted. Next, you can set Zulu Cart up to alert you when a review with a poor rating (X stars or lower) is posted, so you can review it and remove/edit it if desired. Finally, you can specify the minimum number of reviews a product must have in order for the reviews to be displayed. (Customers can still write reviews for products, but they will not be displayed until the product has reached the specified minimum number.)

10. Utilize the 'Product Q&A' function to provide additional information about products. Zulu Cart has a feature that allows visitors to submit questions about specific products and for you to answer those questions and post the question & answer to the product page. We strongly recommend using this feature. If necessary, ask a few questions yourself and then turn around and answer them. This will make it look like many people have been interested in the product and have taken the time to ask questions. It will also allow you to give product pages a "human touch" by having more direct, straightforward Q&A dialogue instead of just the canned sales pitch in the 'Description' box.

11. Insert up to 3 'trust graphics' into the product page template. Trust graphics build customers' trust and confidence in your website and the products you're selling. On the 'Store Design > Product Page' page in Zulu Cart, you can insert up to 3 trust graphics that will appear on every product page. Check out Store Coach's Graphics Shop to see a wide variety of different types of trust graphics, including:

• Satisfaction guaranteed
• Lowest price guaranteed
• Made in the USA
• Free shipping
• Free shipping on orders over $XX
• Same-day shipping
• Privacy guaranteed
• Secure shopping
• Payment methods accepted
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Many more!