Product descriptions

Many ecommerce sites make the mistake of using the original manufacturers’ product description or don’t include any description at all – your site’s copy must be unique, for SEO purposes and for credibility.

Use short sentences on each product description and bullet points to emphasise features and benefits. Users don’t want to spend too long on the page – they want to view your product, read about its benefits and features, and quickly browse over the delivery information before (hopefully) proceeding to checkout.

ASOS is a leading online fashion retailer and their product descriptions follow a good format:

• A short, concise paragraph listing key features/benefits
• An easy on the eye information box with tabs highlighting delivery options and their returns policy
• A prominent CTA (Add to bag button)

However, I think bullet points would serve just as well as a succinct paragraph and I’d personally use both: a descriptive paragraph to sell the garment and bullet points to list its features. It’s important to remember that the user has a picture of the product, and often a video, but they cannot get a proper feel for the item like they would in a shop, it’s the copywriter’s job to convey the texture and feel through words.

Good practise

Avoid jargon – If you are writing descriptions for technical products you will need to include some specialised language but remember to simplify everything. The majority of people won’t understand technically-worded descriptions so break down the copy by describing how each technical point will benefit the user.

Write unique product descriptions – Original and compelling copy will attract the reader whereas copied product descriptions will bore the reader and produce duplicate content, which doesn’t rank well.

Find a tone of voice – You’ll need to find out your target market to decipher your tone of voice and you must keep it consistent throughout the whole site.

Highlight benefits – Everyone wants to know how a product is going to benefit them, what’s in it for your customer?

Your site’s copy should be an integral part of your marketing strategy, it should show off your company’s personality and help to sell your products. Get in touch if you need any help with your ecommerce site.

More than that though, it means that if you’re looking to create an ecommerce website, or upgrade an existing one, we are more than capable of building it for you from top to bottom, using Linnworks to give you complete control over your online business and designing a great looking site to attract your customers.

Here’s some more information about Linn Systems and how Linnworks can help your business. You can view our listing on their site here.

About Linn Systems

Linn Systems started off as a bespoke system development company specializing in ERP and MRP satellite systems back in 2005.  Since 2008 we have started selling our core products to the mainstream users without any tailoring or bespoke consultations.

Our place in the industry is in software development and solution vendor sector. We develop software systems for small, medium and enterprise size businesses for one purpose only – to automate as much as possible in a day-to-day business routine. Our core products are aimed at online retail sector and small business administration, manufacturing and automation, as well as reduction of work-flows. Long story short – we make computer programs that run businesses.

We have strong revenues and financially very sound company with many opportunities for growth.

About Linnworks

Linnworks is a multi-channel order management and stock control system which integrates the whole selling management process for all your selling channels in one place.

All orders from multiple channels and numerous websites are downloaded into one central place, where you can print all invoices, shipping labels, picking and packaging list at a click of a button, as well as keeping track of order life cycle and manage returns and resends.

Linnworks order management software also controls your inventory levels (purchasing, restocking of your inventory from suppliers) – when a sale is made the system automatically deducts stock and can synchronize the stock level changes across all your selling channels.

What’s more, with Linnworks there are no binding contract agreements to worry about, and no commissions or costs per transaction. Linnworks comes with clear, affordable up-front costs together with exceptional levels of support and documentation.

In September last year Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey announced that he would be launching a new startup: Square.  This service would provide IPhone users with a dongle-like square add-on that would allow them to take credit card transactions my simply swiping them through the square and entering their payment details using the phone.  You can even use the IPhone interface to scrawl your signature with your finger.  The receipt is then emailed through to the buyer and the who transaction is logged with geo-location.  The benefit of all this is that the entire transaction is kept clean, simple and paperless.

Impressively, the device plugs into the IPhone via the audio input jack and is synced up to software on the phone.  Initial beta models of Square have been made solely for the IPhone, however it is expected that it will be modified to work with Blackberry’s and even perhaps older models of mobile phones.  There is little doubt that Square will prove to be a very innovative and useful application for those doing business on the move.

You can follow Square’s development via their Twitter profile.

A few weeks ago in a post I wrote I jokingly touted the myth that us SEOs could soon be out of work.  As I sit here typing  now my face is somewhat straighter, however I can assure you that my eyebrows are very much raised.  The reason for my bemusement is due to new legislation that has just been approved by the Council of the European union that requires web users to consent to the use of internet cookies.

We assume that most of our readership are educated in such jargon, but for the uninitiated cookies are basically small pieces of text stored on a user’s computer by their web browser that contain bits of information such as user preferences, shopping cart contents, tracking web movements or any other data that needs to be used by whatever website is being browsed.

This isn’t the first time that the subject of cookies has made the news, having previously been subject to UK regulations in 2003.  This stated that companies had to declare certain information about the use of cookies on their sites – more specifically that users should be “provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information”.  Being the law abiding citizens that Fluid Creativity are, we of course adhere to this but now that law has now taken one big preposterous leap forward.

The laws that come into effect within the next 18 months would mean that users would have to agree to websites making use of cookie information.  Precisely what form this would take is uncertain however it is speculated it would be via the use of that bain of the internet – the pop-up window.  A few years ago, our government’s proposed introduction of ID cards  caused such a furore that in comparison this extension of the previous law on cookie usage may seem reasonable to the casual observer.  As so much business and industry depends on targeted online advertising and tracking of internet traffic, the implementation of such laws is clearly so misguided as to be laughable.  There appears to be an exception to this law whereby cookies can be utilised for the provision of a service that is “strictly necessary” and has been “explicitly requested” by the user.  How broad these definitions extend we will no doubt see by companies wishing to push the boundaries of this law in order stay profitable.

Apart from knowledge acquired whilst watching Judge Judy, I’m no legal mind however I can’t seriously see these laws being accepted.  I anticipate there will be a groundswell of dissent similar to that for which we have seen for the proposed ‘3 strikes’ law for persistant file sharers.

Surely our law makers are more grown up than this.

Magento is an open source e-commerce platform with an impressive feature set out of the box and is built using the industry standard Zend Framework. The community edition of Magento is free to use but for larger stores there is an enterprise edition available with an expanded feature set and a support agreement with the developers of Magento.

Why use Magento?

Magento has an impressive feature set out of the box. Some of the available features include:

• support for multiple currencies / stores
• support for multiple payment providers
• related products
• discount codes

In addition if you find a feature you need that is not in the box there are a large amount of both free and commercial extensions that can be installed to bolt on new functionality to your store.

Magento may not be suitable for all projects however. As with all off the shelf software it relies upon the user changing their working patterns to match the software, rather than the software working the way you want to work. However for start ups or businesses on a budget it’s a cost effective way of getting your shop up and running as quickly as possible.

What can Fluid do for you?

Here at Fluid we have a number of Magento projects under our belt and depending on your budget we can provide anything from a simple installation to a full custom design for your store. We have also worked on extending Magento with custom functionality – whatever your imagination can think of we can provide it. Each new Magento store needs skinning to make your store stand out from everyone else, so it’s never a simple case of software installation. Think of Magento as a basic structure which needs adding to and modifying…

If you are interested in any of our Magento services get in touch today to discuss your requirements in more detail.

So the other day I’m on Twitter and one of the chaps I was following tweeted this:

And I felt like I could chip in with a bit of advice, which I did:

So I’ve felt like I’ve done my good turn for the day – I’ve helped out a fellow shopper.  No sooner had I imparted my expert electrical retail knowledge on someone that I spotted Richer Sounds themselves had followed me.  And they were all like:

And I’m down with that so I was all like:

As requested I followed them back and before I know it – BOOM – one of these bad boys drops into my Twitter message box:

£10 worth of vouchers for simply entering my address?  It’s like a small lottery win.  I duly oblige and sure enough 2 days later an envelope arrives with the vouchers and a nice little compliments slip:

I promise I was happier than I attempted to look in that picture.  So I wandered down to their shop and ended up buying an £80 set of headphones (well, £70 if you count  the vouchers – either way they’re up on the deal!).

So there you have it!  Okay they didn’t approach me on Twitter and say ‘buy this product’ but what they did do was to offer me a big insentive to check out what they had for sale, knowing that if I saw something I liked I’d get a discount.  I happen to think it’s a very good idea.  How scalable that idea is another question entirely – but the combination of appropriately targetting a potential customer on Twitter, engaging them then offering them an actual insentive to buy seems to me a real source of potential.

Oh, and to preempt those that may think I was offered an insentive in return that I plug the aforementioned shop – I can assure you I wasn’t.  However if the said shop wants to give me a load of free stuff then email me!