Product Pages Without Dimensions

Smaller than it looked

In a shop, a customer picks the product up. They see its size, feel its weight, open the box and check what is inside.

Online they have a photograph and whatever the page says. When the page says nothing about size, they guess.

Some guess wrong and send it back. Others leave to find a page that answers the question, which is usually a competitor's.

Either way, the missing line of text costs more than writing it would have.

What shoppers need to know

• Outside dimensions, in centimetres and inches.
• Weight, which hints at sturdiness as well as shipping cost.
• Capacity or quantity, in units a shopper can picture.
• Materials and finish, stated plainly.
• What is in the box, and what must be bought separately.
• Compatibility, such as cooktop types or mounting hardware.

The fifth causes the most disappointed customers. A product that arrives without a part the photograph showed feels like a broken promise, even when the page never claimed it.

Why a photograph is not a measurement

Product photographs are taken close up, against plain backgrounds, with nothing nearby to compare. A small jar and a large one look the same.

Good lighting and careful framing make things look larger and more substantial than they are, which is partly what product photography is for.

Shoppers know this, so the cautious ones look for numbers. When the numbers are missing, the cautious ones buy elsewhere.

The photograph sells the product. The specification confirms it.

Capacity is where words mislead

Some measurements use terms that mean different things to different shoppers.

In a stovetop espresso maker, a cup means a small espresso cup, so a six-cup pot fills roughly one large mug. A shopper expecting six mugs sends it back.

Large, family size and generous mean nothing without a number, and serves four depends on who is eating.

Give capacity in millilitres or litres, then add a comparison a shopper can picture.

A worked example

An Italian deli sells cheese, cured meats and pantry goods over the counter. Its online shop ships kitchen tools from Italy across Canada: stovetop espresso makers, pasta machines and olive wood serving boards.

Nearly every return was a kitchen tool rather than food. Espresso makers came back as too small, and some as useless on induction cooktops, which aluminum pots do not work on.

Pasta machines came back when the clamp would not fit a thick stone countertop. Serving boards came back as smaller than they had looked.

None of those pages gave capacity in millilitres, the material, the clamp's opening or the board's size.

The deli measured every item, added a short specification list to each page in a fixed order, and photographed each espresso maker beside a standard mug and each board on a kitchen counter.

The espresso maker pages now open with the capacity in millilitres, the material, and a plain line saying whether the pot works on induction.

Customers can now see before buying what used to surprise them after it arrived.

Writing a specification list

Put the specifications in the same place on every product page, in the same order, so a shopper comparing two products finds the line they want without reading everything.

A short list beats a paragraph: dimensions, weight, capacity, materials, what is included, care, and country of origin where buyers care about it.

Give metric first with imperial beside it. Canadians measure furniture in inches and food in grams, often in the same kitchen.

Measure the product yourself where you can. Supplier figures are sometimes for the packaging, sometimes for the item, and sometimes simply wrong.

Put the numbers where shoppers look

Specifications hidden in a tab labelled Details, below the reviews, are specifications most shoppers never see.

On a phone the page is one long column, and anything collapsed behind a heading is easy to miss. Put the two or three numbers that decide a purchase near the price: size, capacity, material.

The full list can sit further down for anyone comparing closely.

Where it helps, put the key size in the product name too, such as a six-cup espresso maker or a 40 cm board, so it shows in search results and in the cart.

What is in the box, and what is not

List every item in the box, including the small ones: the clamp, the cutter, the spare gasket, the instructions.

Then list what a buyer might assume is included and is not: batteries, the attachment shown in the main photograph, the stand.

If a photograph shows an accessory sold separately, say so in a caption beneath it. That single line prevents an argument.

For gift sets, give each piece its own size or weight, so the buyer knows exactly what they are giving.

Photographing scale

Add one photograph per product that shows its size against something everyone knows: a hand, a standard mug, a kitchen counter, a doorway.

For products sold in several sizes, photograph the sizes side by side, so the difference is seen rather than described.

A photograph with a tape measure beside the item is unglamorous and very effective, especially for anything that has to fit somewhere.

Keep backgrounds plain and the angle straight, so the comparison is honest.

Use the questions you already get

Every return reason and every pre-sale email points to a line missing from a product page.

Keep a note of them for a month, grouped by product, and put each answer on the product page it concerns.

Phone questions count too. Whoever answers the phone knows which products prompt the same question every week.

Your web developer can add specification fields to the shop's product template, so every new product page asks for them before it goes live.

The counter-case

Some products need less. A book, a bottle of a familiar size or something bought every month needs a weight or volume and little else.

One-of-a-kind items need more, because no other buyer has reviewed the same piece.

And no specification list prevents every return. Some customers change their minds whatever the page says.

For most products, though: dimensions, weight, capacity, materials and contents, in a fixed order, with one photograph for scale.

Product by product

1. Start with the most returned products.
2. Measure each item yourself.
3. Write capacity in units shoppers understand.
4. List everything in the box.
5. Say what is not included.
6. Add one photograph showing scale.
7. Use the same order on every page.

Step five prevents the angriest returns. A product smaller than hoped is a disappointment, while one missing a part the buyer thought was included feels like being misled.

Writing measurements the same way on every page is the kind of detail settled in a brand voice that changes with whoever posts.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.