As an e-commerce consultant, I’ve seen, and worked with hundreds of different e-commerce websites. One area which a lot of do it yourselfers don’t put much thought into is the product page. This is where you are supposed to sell your product to your visitors. In order to do this you need great photos with multiple views, detailed descriptions and copy which grabs your customer’s attention, and other features like related products, and product reviews. All these features really help to convert your visitors into purchasing customers.

Most Miva Merchant store owners just use the default layout Miva provides for the product page (PROD). While this is a good starting point, it is simple, and lacks essential features and creativity. If you really want increase your sales, you have to spend a lot of time and effort perfecting your product page. Because of Miva 5’s Store Morph Technology virtually any layout can be achieved using Miva Merchant.

To better understand what makes a good product page lets look at some examples of some of the bigger online retailers.

Office Depot

Take a look at a product page for Office Depot.com It is simple uncluttered and straight to the point. It has a nice product photo, with the option to view a larger image. It also has a detailed description with the size specifics as well as its speed, power and warranty information.

Some of the other features to notice:
Related Items
You might also consider
Customer Reviews
Mini Cart with Free Shipping offer
Add to wish list

Now someone might argue that all these features are too complex, however every single one of these features can be recreated in Miva using the Store Morph Technology and external modules.

Here is another example: Anthropologie.com

There product page is even simpler than Office Depot, however it offers some really nice features.

The best feature on the page is the product zoom. They have great images with the ability to zoom in and out as well as pan left and right. They also have multiple product views: Front, Back, Left, Right, Toe, and On Model. This is a great selling feature. They also have real time inventory if you hover your mouse over the sizes, and simple but effective related products.
My best advice for anyone who is interested in optimizing their product pages is to look at your competitors. See what others are doing and try to do it one step better. There are thousands of e-commerce website out there to get ideas from. You know your products and your customers best. Try to implement features which will benefit them the most. The changes you make will really have a positive effect on your bottom line.

About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, Ca. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce.  Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.