Great product page design creates great customer experiences.  However, there are two significant challenges product pages face. 

First, there are many types of buyers that engage with product pages - from those exploring to those ready to buy now. And second, products are diverse. Each has it's own set of attributes, making any one product  page design unlikely to fit each product perfectly.

This post explores product design best practices to create amazing customer experiences. We look at how to use design to provide optionality for customers in three important areas: product page images, the "buy area", and cross sales.

Product page design is challenging for a few reasons. First, the page is high stakes. Every customer passes through your product page. Second, not everyone who sees your product page is at the same stage of the buyer journey. 

Some visit product pages searching for the right fit. Others are researching. And still others come with a full intent to buy the exact product they are looking at.

Thirdly, eCommerce stores typically carry many types of products. However, despite carrying products with varied attributes, many eCommerce stores use a single product page template.

In other words, eCommerce stores find themselves trying to optimize for many types of products and customers with a single design.

These different needs put insane demands on a product page, and most fail at doing it well. To help, we broke down how Target treats their product page. 

Images remain one of the most crucial elements in a product page design. Some best practices for product page images are

Details matter. To help customers see and understand their products, Target enables an intuitive, easy to use zoom feature on all of their product images. 

Simply hover over the image and it will be resized, allowing you to inspect any part of the image you'd like. 

Many products have variations.

You should change the featured images to match the product attributes selected. 

In this case, the product is a short sleeve t-shirt dress. The dress is available in 9 different colors.

Target does an excellent job dynamically changing the featured images to match the selected color. 

Customers can now inspect the exact color they are interested in. 

I love how Target incorporates user generated content into their product page designs. 

In this case, after the three model image shots they begin displaying images of regular customers with the dress on. 

How does Target curate these posts? One way is via their Instagram channel. They've created a hashtag #targetstyle to give customers an easy way to engage with the brand. 

They are then able to quickly search for uploaded images that fit their criteria for a product page image. Next, they send a simple comment to the profile asking for permission to use the image on their site. 

Again, they make use of a hashtag to make it straightforward for their team.  Below is an example exchange.

And the team doesn't stop at just one user generated post.

Multiple user generated images makes customers feel confident in buying the item. 

Target's feaure images incorporate a model to allow visitors to see how the dress fits.  Things like how tight it is, how short the dress is in length and sleeve, and neckline are all difficult to describe in words.

Even better, visitors are able to see how the dress fits on non-models through the user generated images. 

Target doesn't overload the image carousel. Instead, they make it obvious that more images are present by placing a dark overlay and messaging letting site visitors know how many images are available. 

This is the only dark overlay on the entire product page. 

The "buy area" describes the widgets where customers can actually purchase the item.  

Traditionally, on desktops this is above the fold on the right hand side. Best practices for product page buy areas include

Target does an excellent job addressing multiple buyer types at once.

Not all product page visitors are ready to purchase. 

Target does a great job providing quick links to jump to other parts of the page. At the top they give two options. 

The first is to see reviews in detail. 

The second jumps to a Q&A section. One interesting tactic they use is organizing the FAQ questions by popularity. Those that are asked most frequently get pulled to the top. 

I particularly like that Target allows customers to answer and provide feedback on the items. They dynamically insert a label "Target Team Member" when they themselves provide clarification to the FAQ. 

Still other customers are looking to purchase later. We've seen online purchase behavior incorporate more and more research - most notably in the emerging research online, purchase offline behavior.

Here, Target gives customers an easy way to save the product to a personal list, or register it as a gift. 

Target curates looks for their products. 

Looks are part education and part upsells. They educate customers on how to put various items together to create an entire outfit. In the process, they create implicit cross-sells.

We explore looks in more detail here. 

Lastly, Target does an amazing job exposing the various options in an intuitive, easy way. 

The key is exposing the product attributes visually as opposed to hiding them in drop down menus. Visitors can easily see various color options and have quick and selecting their preferred color and size is as straightforward. 

Finally, I want to explore product page cross sale best practices.

Personalization technology has opened up numerous ways to make powerful, relevant recommendations. Here's a short list of product page design best practices you can implement to increase profits. 

As mentioned, looks do more than educate customers. They provide a natural way to offer complimentary products. Here, Target gives an assortment of looks for the product. 

When you click on one of the looks, a simple item widget pops up. You can easily navigate to any of the complimentary products, save them, or view more details. 

When you offer various product attributes, it is important that you personalize the cross-sales you make. 

Dynamically personalizing looks are a fantastic use of dynamic content.

Here, Target dynamically updates the looks widget to match the selected product attributes. Both the images themselves, as well as the matching accessories are changed in real time.

Target's product recommendation widget is flexible. It offers a simple navigation bar to allow customers to filter the recommended products. In this case, the product we are viewing fits both a crew neckline as well as a mini length. 

Target gives us the option to filter based on either. 

Likewise, selecting "show more" will expand the number of suggested items.  This functionality is perfect for shoppers looking to add to their cart or browse. Instead of having to navigate back to the category they came from, they can see what items they want on page.  

Lastly, Target makes it easy for shoppers to find previous products. Their second product recommendation widget is recently viewed items. 

As shoppers go through the product catalogue, this is a running in-session history of products they have expressed interest in. 

Product page design is crucial to convert visitors to customers.

In order to satisfy the requirements of multiple types of customers and properly present the right offers, you should consider partnering with a personalization vendor.

Barilliance powers hundreds of eCommerce store's product pages with personalized content. Click here to see if Barilliance is a good choice for your store.