You would think after so many years of e-commerce being such a common thing these days that every website would have a fantastic online present displaying their products in the right way to get that sale. So what makes a really good e-commerce site a really great e-commerce site different from all the rest?
Today I thought I’d take a look at Temple and Webster it’s one of australia’s most popular online stores for homewares and a variety of different products. And so I thought I’d unpack their individual product page to really show you how at a subconscious level the different things that they are doing on this page to make it a really good user experience.
The UX or User Experience is critical to actually convert people and get them engaged and get them staying on the page to make that sale. So what are they doing? Let’s take a look closely.
First of all at this level, we’ve got a hero shot the main product shot and it isn’t like any of these other shots it is in situ, it is displaying the product, uh in in a room, looking like it would on an everyday basis so it actually triggers that subconscious to go oh how would that look in my space and if you have a timber floor and some white walls or a grey wall then you can start to get a feel for this product and of it being suitable for you.
The other shots, and this is where it takes the most effort to really really present a product well online and this is what a lot of shop owners actually ignore. They do not put in the effort to create really really good photographs photography is the key it’s a visual medium.
So all our little thumbnails down the side here are technical shots they’re different angles different colors. So they haven’t just used color swatches here like little colored dots. They’ve actually got thumbnails of the colors that are available for the couch very very impressively done.
Choosing your colour here changes all these to the appropriate color of the couch. So we’re looking at lots of images taken lots of effort probably a several hour shoot just on one product for this store that has several hundred if not thousands of products available. So they’ve really made an effort here. The other thing that really sticks out now is video. Everyone loves video, Google loves video, people google wants you to stay on the page longer hence we have video.
It’s a great selling tool so instead of just sticking the video down in here as a play market they’ve highlighted as the go-to next thing you should watch if you’re investigating more closely with the product itself. So this is unique it’s highlighted or maybe not highlighted but it’s actually standing on its own very easy to see it’s not tucked down here somewhere, it’s right front and center.
So that’s the visual layer you’ll also notice that on this page the photos stand out! It’s because in a really solid e-commerce environment most backgrounds are white it allows you to highlight the product imagery and focus all the energy on those images that you’re looking at so over here in the in the engine room part of the site the name of the product is very very clear to read nice solid nice solid font, in this case it’s a short name but it’s the name of the brand and it’s connected to your search profile that you would type into Google as you’re digging down into the type of sofas in the search that you’re looking for so this is all connected to SEO and usability at the same time, UX at the same time. The next is subconsciously i want to know whether other people actually liked this product.
So here we go our five-star rating how many reviews 266 people loved this couch. I’m not going to go past this! This is great! I’m sold already 266 people have given it a four to five star review, happy days, this is going to be a good purchase! So i’m already winning here as well. Now the one thing, the one focus here is color is focused I’ve got my scribblings of course but the only thing that’s RED on this page aside from my scribbles are is the price. So it’s really drawing attention to that subconscious to go okay what do i need to focus on here what’s going to stand out and it’s the sale price of the product.
Now the interestingly thing is i think it’s the grey one is the only one that’s on sale all the others are the top price, so each that’s quite how they do that but it draws your attention to the price and it’s very clear what the price is and as you navigate around then you’ll be able to get a very clear indication of the price because that all changes as you click.
The next thing payment options can i afford it how can I pay for it? This is also very clear not only do you save 40 bucks but i can i’ve got my payment options of Afterpay Zip all these buy now pay pay later tools that are available now pretty much on every ecommerce store why are they? Because it converts more business people love paying later for something they are Layby thing can i have this now and chuck it and put on credit card or pay for it later.
So don’t overlook Afterpay or Zip and all those other options are available with that so many so many options there. In fact this is getting very crowded space now i would tend to go for ones that people know already brands that you can buy. You don’t want to create any roadblocks in your user experience they’re going to stop the buyer from making that buy decision. By having common names it allows that process to be much smoother.
Next is hey is this product actually available so many ecommerce stores display stock that is not available how annoying is that. So uh next line… 10 + in stock in Australia and the next is when am i going to get it? It might be in stock but it might be three or six days six weeks away or whatever that is. So it leaves the warehouse next business day.
So I pretty much know if I’m going to buy this, it’s going to arrive very very soon how good is that I know all that data now to simply display that is great to actually engineer that in a large ecommerce environment you need to be connected to your inventory control systems and have that data feeding in accurately in your site as well. So there’s a lot of moving parts to what would look like a very simple page to make that user actually click the add to cart that’s what you want the next step to be. But they’re doing their absolute best to do that.
In these shots there’s more shots here some of them are very very close-up shots of the actual texture of the fabric of the couch as well it really doesn’t leave anything to chance it’s the whole product presented in a value-add, hyper real or as real as it possibly can without having VR tools to show you that in its best way possible so if you’re delivering e-commerce or thinking about delivering e-commerce then you need to be putting in the effort these are what the good guys are doing is what the best guys are doing. You need to step up your product delivery and really focus on how that can really drive your sales a really good experience here, will mean more money in your account at the end of the day making more sales!
Best of luck!