How to Write a Product Listing for Shopify
It is normal and easy to start writing the specification of your products or manufacturers’ description on Shopify Product Listing and assume that customers don’t really care about them. That they already know what they want, they just want to buy and leave, right?
Wrong, your visitors want you to give them a strong reason for them to pull their money out in exchange for your product. Personally, I can’t remember any online product I got that I didn’t go through the product description, except it was recommended by either my family or close friends. Even statistics from Nielsen Norman Group showed that 20% of purchases that didn’t convert were because of poor product descriptions.
In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to write a product listing for Shopify Store that converts visitors to buyers.
Ways to Write a Product Listing for Shopify
1. Have a Target Audience
Growing up, there is this popular saying the recited in my high school, “where everyone is talking, nobody is talking.” This just applies here, where you intend to market to everyone, you are marketing to no one.
Imagine a scenario where you want to write for a huge crowd of buyers in mind, your thoughts will just be moving from different gender to another, from different age groups to another, from different animals to another, etc. Your product description will end up not having any single person it is speaking to.
See how Qalo interacted with its customers in one of its product listings.
Notice how they used “you,” and “your,” they were focusing on a particular category, which is the working-class people that deserve to be loved. To add to that, they created a separate category for it, “limited edition,” so, to ring the bell that only a few people have it.
Which is also a good selling point for those that love to have unique items.
Just imagine selling a product face-to-face, then using the same method to write your product listing.
2. Sell the Benefits not the Features
Writing a product listing for Shopify that converts requires you to focus on the benefits and less on the features. This is not only for Shopify stores or any other e-commerce, it is for everyone that participates in the art of selling (which I believe everyone does one way or the other).
Tech industries usually fall victim to this, because they have this excitement whenever they launch their new product, they can see what it can solve, and they want to communicate to those around them about it, but end up doing it with their industrial jargon.
Whether you’re in tech or not, your ideal customers want to know and “FEEL” what’s in your product for them. “Feeling,” because humans are emotional beings, and Zig Ziglar said it better, he said that “People buy on emotion and justify on logic.”
So, while writing your product description, start with the why,
- Why do they need your product?
- Why should they leave your competitors and purchase from you?
And see how Staples explained why you need their Basic Tech Dual Monitor Arm, and remember, I said tech people are always guilty of focusing on features rather than benefits, but they did it differently.
Notice that they started with a “Dual monitor arm elevates your screens off the desk to eliminate clutter and free up space.” This alone explains why you need their product.
This will even expose the problem you have (but never realized), “that you need to organize your screens and free some reasonable space on your desk.”
3. Avoid Cliche
There were days “best product,” “excellent quality,” etc, worked perfectly on customers, but not now. Besides, who will release a product and won’t say it’s the best?
My favorite in this scenario is Tentree’s product listing on their Treeblend Wrap Top.
They didn’t start saying their product is outstanding, they said their product “can do it all,” they went further to explain exactly what they mean. Also notice they called their product, a “lightweight wrap top,” which speaks volumes for those that want something light once they put it on.
4. Don’t make it long
Sadly, online attention is reducing, and recent research from eye square proved that the average attention span of internet users is now 2.5 seconds. So you either make it very short or have a brilliant reason for them to continue reading.
Bullet points could help them to learn more about your product and why they should commit their time to read it, and money to buy it.
For instance, see what AdoredVintage did
They made their description short (not so short) and they also explained what they are offering you in a simple, very short bullet format.
5. Provide Social Proof
People are more likely to purchase a product when they see other customers that purchased it and are happy. So showing potential buyers the review other buyers (adding their images will be better) made over your product is a great strategy for writing a product listing for Shopify.
Also, if you have received any award, or your product was featured in any publication, it’s still worth letting your customers know.
I just love how Goodfair did theirs
They included the rating 7000 happy customers gave them, different publications that have featured them, and also testimonials from happy customers (with their faces).
6. Include Keywords for Search Engine Optimisation
SEO for Shopify stores is another topic entirely, but adding some keywords to your product description we go a long way to helping your product rank on Search Engine. But, at the same time, avoid keyword stuffing.
Conclusion
If you can properly follow this writing product listing for Shopify guide, you are on your way to converting those visitors into customers.