Optimizing Your Ecommerce Product Information for More Holiday Sales

The holidays are quickly approaching. Whether you’re ready or not, shoppers are curating their wish lists and preparing to uncover the best deals online. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, and retailers are double-checking their product listings to ensure their product information is optimized well for the holiday season.

But what does an optimized product listing look like? What information are customers looking for? How can you help your products show up in search engine results? 

Last year, November ecommerce sales reached $100 billion for the first time. This year, that number could be even higher. Now is the time to make last-minute changes to your product listing strategy so that you can take advantage of these record-breaking numbers and see an increase in web traffic and cart conversions this holiday season.

Tips for Optimizing Ecommerce Product Information for Better Listings

Point-blank: You can’t sell what your customers can’t find. 

Whether you’re building a product listing on your ecommerce store, Google marketplace, Amazon, or elsewhere, you must ensure your listings are optimized for search engine results and compel buyers to take action.

Keep reading as we go over some product information fundamentals and best practices for creating an irresistible product catalog. 

Choose the Right Marketplaces and Platforms for Your Business

While hundreds of thousands of ecommerce retailers sell products on Amazon, it doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. Yes, Amazon is an ecommerce giant that provides online sellers with vast opportunities, but this comes with ferocious competition and high listing fees.

Amazon is great, but the most successful businesses diversify their selling opportunities to niche marketplaces such as Etsy, NewEgg, Uncommon Goods, and others. These options have more seller-friendly policies, they’re less competitive, and they’re less focused on discounting. Selling on unique marketplaces can help you build a customer base without surrendering as much on your margins.

Once you’ve decided which marketplaces make sense for your business, it’s time to do your research. Your listings should be as detailed as they are on your own website, but keep in mind that each platform has its own product listing requirements. 

Depending on the size of your catalog, optimizing listings per platform may require a lot of man-hours. If you’re selling on multiple platforms and marketplaces, you should consider a product information management platform that allows you to automate this workload. 

Experiment With Descriptive Product Titles

Regardless of where you’re listing products, your titles should always be detailed. You can spend hours crafting the perfect product description, but people don’t always read them. They read the product title before deciding whether they’re interested in learning more. 

You must also consider search engine optimization. Be it Google, Amazon, Etsy, or something else, every platform has specific SEO and ranking principles. It’s your job to identify keywords, analyze what works best, and adjust your product information and titles accordingly. 

In some cases, short and sweet titles are your best bet. On other platforms, titles stuffed with long-tail keywords perform better. Figuring out what works best on your preferred platforms and for your brand is an art, so you’ll have to test your titles cleverly and see what generates the most interest.

There are a few things you’ll always want to mention in the title:

• Brand
• Model
• Other vital information such as color, size, etc. 

You’ll need to experiment with which piece of information goes first. And keep in mind that titles have character limits, so use your characters wisely. Finally, remember about half of all shoppers are on their mobile devices and viewing your titles from a smaller display.

Provide Value Statements

Next, don’t forget to provide valuable information in your product descriptions so that your customers can tell whether your product is the one they’re looking for. Your product information should be complete. Think about your product description as your sales pitch to your buyer—this is your one chance to get it right. They should find everything they’re looking for in your description and not have to look elsewhere.

If the platform you’re using will allow, use bullet points in addition to a paragraph description to present your products. To ensure that your products are more discoverable on search, always include use cases and relevant keywords when applicable. 

Use High-Quality Photos and Other Rich Media

While most marketplaces and platforms will limit the number of product images you can upload, you should always include as many as you can. 

Make sure the images you include are high-resolution lifestyle images in addition to use-case images. Your main image should be the best photo and each secondary photo should show all angles and details of the product. 

If your platform allows you to include other rich media, definitely do that as well. Things like short videos and 360-degree photography help customers make informed decisions and reinforce your brand value. A customer is more likely to buy when you inspire confidence so they know exactly what they’re getting.

Get Creative With Shipping Pricing and Bundles

Free shipping has become a market standard. If possible, always include shipping in your product pricing to give the impression that you’re providing free shipping. 

However, if you’re struggling to get good shipping prices from your suppliers and manufacturers and your margin is smaller, this may be impossible. If this is the boat you find yourself in, experiment with kitting and bundling your products together with accessories. 

By bundling products, you’re able to spread your margin, giving you a larger percentage to work with. For example, if you sell tea, offer some filters, diffusers, distilled water, or other accessories that appeal to tea lovers. While the shipping will cost the same, you get a bigger profit. 

Optimizing Product Information: The Main Takeaways 

This holiday season, avoid putting all of your eggs into one basket and try selling on multiple platforms instead. Just make sure you’re optimizing your product listings across channels so that you get your products in front of a bigger audience. 

The main takeaways here are:

• Diversify to platforms and marketplaces that best resonate with your brand 
• Explore what works specifically on each marketplace and platform
• Use as many photographs and rich content as the platform allows
• Continually experiment with product titles and descriptions
• Find ways to reduce shipping costs and maximize your margins

Strengthen Your Product Information and Listings With Flxpoint

When you’re managing a catalog of thousands of products that you source from multiple suppliers and data sources, you need an automated approach to product information management. 

Use Flxpoint to automatically detect and map overlapping products from multiple sources to build listings that maximize your profit margins. Ensure that your listings are the best of the best by verifying, merging, and augmenting data from multiple sources.

Flxpoint provides an industry-leading product information management dashboard that makes it easy for you and your team to master a growing product catalog. Ready to see how it works? Talk with an expert today.