Are you selling products online? Do you have an online catalogue that your potential customers browse and search for their needs? The following article details which information are “a must” when considering publishing your online products – or services.

Many times I helped companies going online with their e-business. One of the first things I ask them is if they really have rich information about their products to put it online. So we start talking about their ERP and how that application manages their products catalogue in order to export them to the ecommerce application.
 
Once, a customer says: -I do have the information of all the products I sell in my 30 stores. Wait me here. I’ll back with you in a minute.
After five minutes, he returned from his office with more that 30 magazines and he started pointing me the products he sells.
-This is my catalogue. I manage all the product information from these publications.

At first glance, I thought he was kidding. How a 30 stores company could manage their catalogues with only some industry magazines? No information was stored in any application or system.
 
Time later, in another company, the customer brought me their digital catalog to be published online. It was a spreadsheet with lot of codes, and where almost each word was truncated because their ERP product tables didn’t support long names. So, I received information such:

HAND MADE FLWR.POT W/ DECOR. RINGS M. SZE.

He pretends their online visitors understood that the product refers to a “Hand made flowerpot with decorative rings – Medium Size”. Inedible, don’t you think? And that was one on the most legible names!.

When going online with your products catalogue in order to introduce your company into the e-business, you should understood that the online visitors can not touch nor sense the product, so extra information in needed in case you really want to seduce them with that item. It’s not the same as selling the product in the real store, because with no extra effort (just putting the product in your shelves and with a visible price will be ok), the product can be purchased by anyone inside.

So, what’s necessary for publish your products online?

Name: The name you’ll use for your product must represent the best description of it. You should not use very long names (such as “Exclusive purse made in Italian leather with bronze decorations, double organizer inside and three extra compartments outside…) because your visitors will not pay attention to them. In other hand, do not use very short names that let you apply the same name for different product (for example: Leather purse). Choosing the right name for each product will help your visitors understand what that product is and, in case they are interested in, read more information in the product’s description.

Images: In the online catalogues, especially those ones oriented to final consumers, the image is the first thing that most visitors focus their attention. If that image is nice, bright and clearly shows your product, your visitor will become interested in the product and go ahead with the description. If not, you will be losing a potential purchase.
On every catalogue, there are several images that can be easily found for each product:
Thumbnails: These are small images that have no more than 3-5 Kb each. Thumbnails are very useful when a page displays more than one product, for instance, when your visitors browse a category, or when they do a search in your catalogue. Because many products appears in one page, you have to show all with a tiny image in order to let them see, at first glance, which product is the one they are looking for. Using small size images will decrease the total time that the page loads in the browser. Remember, visitors don’t like to wait too much. Depending on the catalogue and the design, thumbnails could be from 90 px. width up to 150 px. width.
Normal Size: Once a visitors clicks on a certain product, the catalogue must show all the information of that item, including an image larger than the thumbnail. I call this a normal size image. This picture should have more quality than the smaller one, and has to show your product in their best face. The main objective is to attract your visitors purchase decision with that picture or, added to it, with the item description.
I personally like normal size pictures with a white background, because they focus on the product and nothing more, but I saw many sites that have very nice pictures with background that looks really fine. Having or not background depends on the product type. For instance, a digital camera will look better without any background, but a dinner table should have a background n order to help your visitor’s imagination figure how that table fits their rooms. Depending on the site design, normal images size should be no more than 50-60 kb.
Larger Images: many people like to see the product detail, especially when they have special details, such a home made flower pot or a leather purse. Those details only appear in larger images that can reflect with precision those little things that can finally decide the purchase. These images should be accessible with a click on an icon, near the normal size image or close to the product description. Many catalogues use popups to show these large size images in order to maintain the main window open. Other catalogues uses some extra tools because they know that popups are blocked by many browsers. Larger images have no size restriction. If a visitor wants to open them, they know that it may take more time to show this detail picture. Having more that one larger size image will be useful, in case they show your product in different positions, angles or capture different details.

Description: Once your visitor get a good impression with the thumbnail and the product title (in that order), the description should finally help the purchase decision. While the thumbnail is shown, only a short description or your product should be available. When the visitor click on the item, a more detail description is required. I’m tired of seeing online catalogues with very nice products and at very low prices, but, with poor descriptions. Those catalogues don’t sell all they could because people are not attracted with those catalogues. Many visitors think that if a store doesn’t pay much attention in the online product catalogue, they should not care enough for their online costumers; so, they decide to buy in another place. Detailed description should be different according to each product type. A book should have different detail than a video camera. For instance, an electronic product requires all the product specification (maybe bulleted), and a couple paragraph about the product benefits.

Next week you’ll find the second part of this article.