Product pages are the Grand Central Station of conversions with Rishi Rawat

AI-Generated Summary

We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Rishi, a Shopify product expert. Here are 5 key takeaways for optimizing your product pages: 1) Product pages are the Grand Central Station of conversions. They’re where buyers make the decision to buy or leave. 2) Pop-ups aren’t as effective as you think. Focus on valuable content, not annoying interruptions. 3) Content is king (but don’t be afraid to go long!). Detailed product descriptions are more effective than short ones. 4) Build trust above the fold. Establish your company’s credibility before highlighting product features. 5) Understand the filters buyers use. Address common concerns like “too good to be true” to build confidence.

AI-Generated Transcript

(00:00) you know email sign up popups or other popups in general um I actually don’t think they’re very effective I I don’t there are lots of other techniques that we can use if we’re trying to get people who are qualified to join our mailing list and I think the reason why popups have become so prevalent is because they

(00:19) do kind of work and but that doesn’t mean that what we can’t measure for the problem with measurement is that you’re measuring the impact of something but you are not able to measure how something increases annoyance right because annoyance can’t really be [Music] measured hi this is KH Gala welcome to

(00:41) another episode of the experimentation podcast and to this episode I’m excited to have rishy with us Rishi is a Shopify product guy and what’s unique about his about his approach is that of all visitors the website he laser focuses on the narrow segment of people who are interested but need a a little bit more

(00:57) convincing Rich glad to have you here today I’m so excited to be here khil uh thank you for that intro and I’m looking forward to providing as much value as I can to to any anyone who’s in this in this on this conversion optimization journey and I’m looking forward to our chat amazing Richi you know I got to ask

(01:16) you you know I would love to have some kind of a tagline as like the Shopify product age guy how did how did you manage to get that that uh that that that tag associated with you you know know uh I think the when I started off I didn’t have any particular love for product pages I was only interested in

(01:36) identifying friction and busting friction so we tested on the homepage we tested on email popups we tested on the category page we did lots of testing on the checkout flow because the theory was that you know a 5% Improvement on checkout is a direct 5% Improvement on the bottom line because everyone has to

(01:55) flow through checkout and so kind of an equal opportunity Optimizer and then what happened was obviously in that natural course of events I started doing lots of testing we we tested on landing pages as well and we tested on product pages as well and what I discovered was that for some reason product page when

(02:15) we made meaningful changes to the product page we were seeing this registering this pretty significant Improvement in conversion rates and I was like wow that’s kind of interesting so I kept on double clicking on that and eventually we realized that the product page was the most important page at least for the kind of experiments that

(02:35) we were running and when you reverse when you kind of work backwards to understand why that is I it made very clear sense to me and so the way it works is that when someone first comes to a website whether you drop them on your homepage or you drop them on your landing page the first thing they’re trying to do is they’re trying to figure

(02:52) out like it’s kind of like being parachuted into a different country the first thing you want to do is have I landed in the right country right so you’re trying to orient yourself and so when they come to a landing page let’s say you’re selling a supplement that’s reles back pain and that you know when they come to the

(03:09) landing page the first thing they want to know is that they want to say I want to see the specific product that you are selling that solves this problem so there’s a tendency to quickly and we notice this even in session recording so this isn’t just like a you know once we noticed that product pages were driving

(03:24) conversion rates we started looking at evidence to understand why the user Behavior why product pages mattered and in session recordings we noticed that when they would come to a landing page even though the landing page had a ton of content for them they were essentially ignoring that content and they were very quickly clicking through

(03:40) from the landing page to get to some page that was giving them information about a very specific the the solution to the very specific problem that they were having now that answer is not on the homepage because the website might be setting 10 different supplements one is for foot pain one for different

(03:58) things right so the hom page doesn’t answer that that back pain question and but the product page does and so they would very quickly come to the product page but once they got to the product page they would come to a grinding Hal because everyone you me and our moms know that once you go beyond the product

(04:16) page at some point you’re going to be pulling out your credit card now they don’t want to do that so the product page became this almost like the Grand Central Station where they were spending most of their time to understand if they should move forward or not or if they should leave the website and because

(04:30) they were spending so much attention on the product page the purchase decision was being made in the product page and that’s how that’s why product pages were having such a big impact and so that’s essentially the backstory for um how we decided to focus it on product pages amazing and at the same time you know

(04:47) when you think about product pages you know there’s so much effort put into it and it just comes off to me I think if you know people have like popups and stuff like that shop on product pages you know like what you what are your thoughts on popups given that I see them everywhere on every website right now

(04:59) you know email signup popups or other popups in general um I actually don’t think they’re very effective I I don’t there are lots of other techniques that we can use if we’re trying to get people who are qualified to join our meting list and I think the reason why popups have become so prevalent is because they

(05:21) do kind of work and but that doesn’t mean that what we can’t measure for the problem with measurement is that you measuring the impact of something but you’re not able to measure how something increases annoyance right because annoyance can’t really be measured and so this is the reason why we every brand

(05:39) is doubling down on popups and because they’re looking at their competitors and they’re seeing their that their competitors using it as well the assumption is they must know something we don’t know let’s double down and popups so I I don’t think they’re as effective as we think they are number one and if if the question is like you

(05:57) know on the product page like you know what’s the element that matters the most I think there are two elements there are three elements actually well there are four elements that matter quite a bit one is of course the offer the offer really matters um so if you have an offer that’s compelling it is going to

(06:16) have a pretty big impact on conversion rates your product image gallery really matters as well and I’ll explain to you why you know the the control the the point of reference for the Shopper is offline shopping right when I’m thinking of buying something online in my mind the anchor is the experience of going to

(06:35) a retail store and buying the product and in the Pro in the retail store one of the things that we all do whether it’s useful or not is we we inspect the product we lift it up we kind of look at it from different angles we read the label we read behind the label and the image gallery on the product page is

(06:52) essentially acting as a proxy for that behavior so that’s a very popular area we when we look at uh recordings we find that you know 50% of people will go through the image gallery many people will go through multiple images and so it’s a pretty high hotspot the third area that’s really important is hi this

(07:09) is Rommil Santiago from experiment Nation if you’d like to connect with hundreds of experimenters from around the world consider joining our slack Channel you can find the link in the description now back to the episode The the customer reviews so if you have reviews people want to read those reviews cuz that’s

(07:24) evidence that the product works the fourth area the one that gets the least amount of attention and the one that I focus on exclusively is the product description itself so I think a lot of brands are very aware of the importance of the image gallery and very aware of the importance of the product uh sorry

(07:40) of the um reviews and stuff like that and they give it appropriate attention they just don’t care enough about the description and therefore the description is very boring it’s like you know this product helps you with back pain it’s very good here if bullet points to talk about why it’s so good buy it and I think the description needs

(08:01) to do a lot more and so I think the description is the most important element on the product P thanks RI and if I can clarify you I think you mentioned s of four elements right you mentioned of the offer you mentioned the image you mentioned sort of the product description was there was there fourth

(08:17) category as well yeah reviews the reviews me I miss that and maybe it’s interesting isue because you know I think you I’ve read online you’ve talked about how like your big Insight was you saw someone go into a store they’re picking up an object putting it back down you say at the end of the day the

(08:30) person in chars the sales would look at the sale but it wouldn’t factor in the person who was kind of deciding between the object is it something ctively ining of a package in store is not this huge thing it’s a small tiny object is there something specifically about online that requires a greater description than

(08:44) let’s say a physical object is it just because they’re two different medium or is it just that people have maybe more bandwidth to read on on an online page versus a physical well so that’s a great question so the reason why so this is interesting interesting it’s it’s you know causation versus correlation um

(09:00) when you go to a retail store if you’re looking up any kind if you pick up a product you’ll notice the description is you know the description of the product is very short and to the point so the assumption is oh maybe that’s because consumers don’t care about more content and so we’ll follow that same principle online but it’s

(09:20) actually correlation it’s not causation the reason why on the product package the description is very small is because in a retail store there is a physical cost of having a bigger package and you know cost more material cost but there’s also higher Shelf cost so if I if there’s a bottle that I’m selling

(09:40) that has you know um I don’t know 1 in by 1 in Dimensions I want to be as close to 1 in by 1 inch as I can with my packaging because I want to keep my shipping cost low and that is why our description is so limited when you pick up a product on the retail store and so I think that the way to think about it

(10:00) and I this is this is a long-standing debate and I actually think it’s a pointless debate we have about should the content be long or should the content be short the content should be long and I’ll tell you why because when you have short content you are dissatisfying people who wanted longer content however if you have long content

(10:20) and a someone is convinced in the first three sentences they they’re not forced to read the whole content they can they can just Bas make make make a purchase so essentially longer content is more backwards compatible with more different types of buying personalities but shorter content isn’t forward compatible

(10:36) with people who need more content and so always have more content and there are many ways in which you can kind of deal with this if you’re concerned about for example uh pushing you know the the layout of the page pushing stuff below the fold then you can maybe show the first two the first maybe paragraph and

(10:54) then they you can have a little read more button and then when you click on it then you can expand out the content because at that point the user is telling you I want to read more so they’re they’re casting their vote so it’s a very simple sale to make at that point to say that let’s give them more

(11:11) content but by default you’re not showing overwhelming them with a ton of content but I think this I think trying to convey trying to convey the benefit of a complicated product that requires seven sentences of explanation in two sentences is the reason why descriptions are so terrible because in two sentences

(11:30) you are essentially boiling it down to this will help your improve your health and well that’s not substantiated there’s there’s not enough context there and you need seven sentences and so I think more content is is the way to go about it interesting you know you think about also I wonder if the other element

(11:48) as well is in terms of like let’s call it the time Factor right you’re in a store you’re physically there you’ve got in some sense you know I realize it is forced to make a choice but online you said you have the someone has the time to look at the different images spend time navigate look at the offer look for

(12:02) sales and why I mention that because when you mention sort of above the fold right because that’s where you first start off now would you mind talking about what do you think are the key elements that someone should definitely have above the fold um so I don’t have a strong opinion about that I actually don’t Focus that I

(12:17) think that the the if there’s one element again since I’m a copywriter I look at the world from a copyrighting perspective I think that the core idea that I want to communicate to a visitor especially a first-time visitor above the fold is that we’re different and here’s how we’re different that’s the core idea yeah what that does

(12:39) when you say we’re different it automatically creates a contrast against other com other Alternatives remember our when the first when the user first lands on the website they have multiple tabs open they’re looking at multiple they’re considering multiple Alternatives So when you say we’re different you’re automatically saying

(12:57) indirectly or saying we’re different from from other brands and that makes you stand out and then when you say here’s how we’re different you’re giving them it’s called the slippery slide effect where you’re kind of giving them a compelling reason to continue reading to understand why you’re different so

(13:12) that is what I try and communicate above the fold like if I can do that then the above the fold part has done its the purpose of the above the fold is not to close the sale the purpose the above the fold is to prevent them from exiting in 10 seconds and get them to read what’s more what’s on the page amaz see and one

(13:30) there I want to kind of focus a little bit more now you mentioned sort of you know you talk about branding right I know sometimes for some companies the question is do they start with sort of the company brand and then kind of talk about the product brand if you want product brand or product brand company

(13:43) brand any thoughts on on the product page what what what should someone be leading with yeah so I for first time buyers I always start with the company story with the company brand so imagine again I like to think in terms of analogies imagine if you saw an ad in a newspaper for uh a a play uh you know an

(14:03) Xbox unit and you’ve been wanting to buy one and let’s say the typical retail price was $570 and you saw an ad and it said we’re selling it for $320 you’re like that’s good and the name of the store is it’s a retail store right so it’s called you know it’s an ad and the retail store is you know um o x you’ve never heard of

(14:26) these guys before right and you know a lot of consumers won’t even drive to the retail store because they’re like who the hell is o x never heard of this guy never heard of this company even though the price is compelling I’m my red flags are all over the place whereas Best Buy even if Best Buy gave like a 5% discount

(14:45) you would you would drive to Best Buy because you trust that brand you know who they are even though Best Buy has nothing to do with the Xbox right I mean just literally the it’s like a they just have they’re just a retail store that has an Xbox like if the Xbox is crappy um Best Buy is not responsible for that

(15:03) so but still you give a lot of credibility to Best Buy because you trust them so I think the same happens when someone comes to the website you might have a product that promises to do lots of wonderful things you might have lots of social proof but if I don’t trust the people behind the product which is basically the people behind the

(15:21) company then whatever you say about the product is meaningless to me and so I feel personally that the right sequence is to very quickly first get them over the uncertainty about you as a company and then get them over the uncertainty of the product as a product amazing now here’s where I want to get the maybe the

(15:43) focus which is really about copywriting and the Power of Words now you know when you talk about you know for example can you share like what is your process when you do that kind of copywriting let’s say you say you know that first samp is sort of you know credibility of the company and then credibility of product

(15:55) how do you tackle that so what we’ve discovered is that and again whatever I’m talking about I am qualifying this for firsttime buyer so I think it’s important to understand that there’s a very big difference between someone who goes to Best Buy and has been buying from Best Buy many times versus someone who is walking into a

(16:19) Best Buy store for the very first time and I am focused on that firsttime buyer now for those firsttime buyers what we discovered is that irrespective and this is why I think that these lessons will be Universal for all of your listeners because whether they’re selling a b frame or they’re selling roller skates

(16:37) or they’re selling skateboards or back creams um back pain creams it’s the same the same checklist so the reality is that consumers see 347 ads every day it is mathematically impossible for them to objectively do a pro pro and cons analysis of the claim made by every ad and so our brains being the energy

(16:58) efficient machines that they are have developed these shortcuts for us to quickly make decisions and through the course of experimentation we’ve discovered nine filters that people use when they’re buying a product for the first time now not to say that there’s only nine filters what I’m saying is that these are nine common filters that

(17:16) apply no matter what they’re buying um so when I do copyrighting I am really focused on making sure that those filters have been satisfied so one of the filters is too good to be true so I basically ask myself is there a claim that we’re making here that comes across as being too good to be true is our

(17:35) price point and our discount coming across as being too good to be true is the are the images in our image gallery where we show lifestyle images feel seeming too exaggerated where it doesn’t seem too good to be because all of those too good to be true feelings actually act as a break for the consumer because

(17:53) they like wait a minute this something doesn’t add up here right so similar to that we have eight other checklist items and so what I do is when I’m working for a brand I basically go through those checklist items and I ask them I interrogate the client and I say okay well this image seems too good to be

(18:09) true to me what would you how would what can you say in order for me not to feel that way and usually the client has maybe another asset maybe there’s an explanation some context that I didn’t have and so I’m able to make updates to that image and I want to make sure that there’s nothing on the page that feels

(18:26) too good to be true so so that’s my copyrighting process I kind of go through this checklist of items and I um and and by the way this is available in my blog as well so I I you know um we can talk about it later on but bottom line is that I go through the checklist item checklist of items and I make sure

(18:41) that those criteria have been satisfied amazing Richi now um as we come towards the end of episode is anything that you’d want to focus on a highlight like you mentioned like your blog tell me tell me more about that please yeah I think I think the the big takeaway here is that number one is that um product

(19:01) pages really matter copy really matters focusing on first ireers really matter so anyone who’s listening who’s kind of nodding their header all three things they will get a lot of value by going to my website which is friction l-com docomo to friction l-com docomo there’s a hamburger menu you’ll see a Blog blog and in that Blog the

(19:28) first article right on top CU we kind of always bubble it to the top is nine truths about online Shoppers and in that article I list that filter mechanism those nine criteria I think they’ll get a ton of value from it we give examples we have um we connect to case studies from the blog as well and I think for

(19:47) someone who is interested in knows that word ma words matter understands that product pages are important and understands that converting first buers is drives meaningful Revenue impact they will get a ton of value from that article amazing Rishi so and you mention you mentioned the website frictionless

(20:06) Commerce but you know someone want to get in touch with you learn more about you what are different ways they can get in touch with you I think the best place to go is frictionless dascom let just go to frictionless DC commerce.com and you will actually my homepage is also very interesting I think people will find it quite

(20:34) interesting I just launched it uh redesigned it maybe like a week or two ago um I’m doing something kind of radical so I would say even just out of curiosity I want the listeners to go to frictional DC commerce.com and tell me what they think about the homepage amazing thank you so much for being a guest today I appreciate it thank you

(20:54) for having me hi this is Rommil Santiago from experiment Nation if you’d like to connect with hundreds of experimenters from around the world consider joining our slack Channel you can find the link in the description now back to the episode

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