The product description is where you actually sell your product if the title and images didn’t. A customer buying a 10-dollar chocolate bar or t-shirt might not bother reading a lengthy product description but someone buying a thousand-dollar computer almost certainly will. Your product description needs to convert as many readers as possible.
What should be included in product descriptions?
- Features
- Benefits
- Objection handling
Features
Features are easy. They are all about what your product is made of and what it can do. On a product like a pair of pants, stuff like fabric, waist size, color, pockets, zipper vs buttons, and the design are all features.
Features are especially necessary for technical products like computers where discerning customers are on the lookout for highest-performance machines at certain price points. But features are not that problematic as most sites tend to include them.
Benefits
Benefits are a little bit more slippery than features as quite a few stores tend to forget them. Benefits show how the features of your product help the consumer.
Take the aforementioned example about pants. Making the pants out of soft denim is a feature. But the fact that soft denim is less scratchy than regular jeans is a benefit.
Benefits are especially important when selling technical products that can be purchased by everyday people.
Take blenders for example. A site focusing on technical specifications is alright but failing to mention the benefits of your power output, stainless steel blades, AC induction motor, and the rate of revolutions per minute is a big mistake.
Objection handling
Customers will have concerns about your product and you need to address them before they are even raised. A lot of these will center around price and quality.
Why should they buy your products when there are cheaper options of comparable performance or build quality? Apple’s answer is that their iPhones take user privacy far more seriously than their competitors. The company has also successfully positioned itself as a premium brand so they can get away with higher than average prices.
Luxury fashion retailers insist their products are better designed, handmade, and of a higher quality than the budget stuff. If you offer free shipping, extended warranties, and extensive product guarantees, you can use those to address any customer objections.
Product description structure
The first few lines of your description are very important as almost everyone will read them. The NN Group wrote an excellent article about this subject. Many people tend to read the first few lines and then scan the rest of the text.