My wife and I are opening a new business. We are buying a lot of equipment, and I’ve spent more time shopping on ecommerce sites than I have in several years. As a former merchant, I judged those sites themselves almost as much as I did the products I was researching. And I was amazed at the incredible investment some stores have made in unique product content.
I was equally amazed at the lack of information on many others. In almost every product category, I found an exceptionally high quality site that stood above the others, especially for products that are complex and expensive. I also found that the prices for the high-content stores were competitive. That really made my buying decisions easier.
Descriptive Product Content
In short, helpful product information — along with the lowest price — will usually close the order. The kinds of content that are critical today include the following.
- Original product descriptions. Google and everyone else are not interested in the descriptive hype from a manufacturer.
- Great pictures. An ability to look at several angles, zoom in, pan around.
- Videos. Instructional videos or reviews are a compelling way to present your company's expertise and detailed product information.
- Reviews. Customer reviews are critical.
- Blogs. A good place to offer short product reviews and write-ups.
- Related items. This helps buyers think of options and other accessories they may want or need with the products they are researching.
- Technical specifications. This usually comes from the manufacturer or supplier: Size, height, weight, and performance specifications.
- Options. Be clear about what's included in the product and what might cost extra.
- Competitive products. It helps to bring competitive products together and present what’s good, bad, and different about them.
- Flexible descriptions. Since multichannel selling is so popular, you need to support long and short descriptions, different image sizes, and long and short headings.
That’s a lot of content. Merchants who produce any or all of it know what an investment it is. But they also know the return on that investment is significant.
My Shopping Experience
One of the items we need is a high end, automatic coffee machine that can make coffee-shop-caliber espresso drinks, and be as simple to use as an iPhone. I’ve likely visited every U.S. website selling coffee machines — and there a lot of them. I watched videos on a dozen different machines, read reviews, studied blogs, evaluated technical specs, and then repeated that process. These devices cost from $1,000 to $15,000, and I was determined to know what the differences in price actually buy.
The website where I found the information I was looking for is Whole Latte Love. The site's home page is comparable to several others. It's attractive and modern, with many paths, and several promotions and featured items.
I found Whole Latte Love from a video it posted on YouTube. As it turned out, that’s where I found most of the competitive sites. Once on WholeLatteLove.com, I realized it was an incredible resource. I rarely left once I landed there. Here are a few screenshots of why I liked it so much. Let’s start with a product page.
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