The user journey: 7 ways to optimise your product page
When it comes to your online bookstore, your product pages are a critical gateway to the checkout. The user has found a book they’re interested in, and now it’s your job to make them feel informed, reassured, and guided on their path to purchase. Give them everything they need to hit buy. To help you understand exactly how, here are 7 ways to optimise your product pages for a best-in-class eCommerce user journey.
Before we dive in, here are some things to keep in mind. As always, it’s about being crystal clear (in your language and layout), and about thinking like your user. You also need to make it easy for users to exit the product page and find a similar title; to guide them towards something that is right for them, if this title isn’t. Help them browse in all directions (left, right, up, down). It’s also worth noting that you don’t want to overwhelm your readers with information. Set up your product pages in a way that makes sense for you, your brand, your books, and always ensure these optimisations add value to the users.
Think of this, as with other articles in our user journey series, as “product pages 101”. Here are our top tips:
7 ways to optimise your product pages
1. Format options
Display all your formats clearly so it’s easy to choose between them and quickly show the user what you’re giving them: choice. Choice gets lost in a dropdown.
2. Add to cart buttons
There should be no doubt in the user’s mind of the intended route to purchase. Give them one clear path (one add-to-cart button). One big button is preferable to a stack of affiliate retailer links, because those will not help your D2C sales, they will send users away from the site. You’ve got the benefit of having them on your website, so tell them how to buy from you.
3. Product metadata
Ensure your metadata is clean and coming through correctly: cover images, titles, contributors, descriptions, prices. Pricing is key for selling into different currencies. Often, if a vendor doesn’t ingest a price in the currency you want to offer through the data feed they get from you, Canadian dollars for example (CAD), the function won’t be possible on the site.
4. Extra content
Think of different types of content that adds value to your user and can help them decide whether or not to buy e.g. a look inside feature, product images of the physical book, an add to wishlist button, reviews or ‘praise’, clear links to the associated subject/series to aid browsing, videos of authors. What would help users make that purchase by understanding the book better?
5. Digital format specific messaging
eBooks and Audiobooks may require a unique user journey. This will be the case if you sell your digital titles directly to readers from your bookstore somehow. If so, you’ll need to communicate exactly how that journey looks. We recommend adding a message explaining how users will access their books so they understand the process. Set it to appear whenever a digital title is selected. You should reiterate this message in the cart and checkout, to make sure it’s clear throughout the user journey. Don’t let users be surprised by the fact they need a new app, for example. Arm them with knowledge.
6. Quantity field
Let your users set how many copies they add to cart with an adjustable quantity widget. This likely will only apply to print formats (paperback and hardback).
7. Related products
Add a related product carousel to enable smooth, lateral browsing. Think about how this related product carousel is populated and set up. It may be that you can indicate ‘related titles’ as a field in ONIX (your book data feed), or that you can power it with the category codes applied to your books (BISAC or Thema, for example). Work with your web developer to see what’s possible.
What’s next?
These 7 tips on how to optimise your product pages on your online bookstore should give you a strong foundation for a seamless user journey. All of them are united by a desire to be clear, all the time, and to think of your user journey from your user’s perspective. You may need help from your web developer and other partners (like print distributors) to achieve all the recommendations, but these things are worth taking the time to get right. Read more articles from our user journey series to get the whole picture.
