The most neglected page on your online shop
Most small online shops put real effort into product photos and almost none into the words next to them. The description ends up as two vague sentences ("Beautiful handmade candle. Makes a great gift!") or, worse, text copied straight from a supplier's catalogue.
That's a problem, because the product page is where the sale actually happens. It's the page your ads, your social posts, and your search results all point to. The photo gets attention; the description answers the questions standing between a customer and the buy button. And it's the text on that page that decides whether you show up in search at all.
The good news: writing a strong product description is a learnable formula, not a talent. Here it is.
Why descriptions earn their keep three times over
They convert. An online customer can't taste the preserve, feel the fabric, or smell the candle. The description does the work your shop assistant, your packaging, and the product itself would do in person. Every unanswered question - How big is it? Will it survive courier delivery? How do I care for it? - is a reason to hesitate, and hesitation kills online sales.
They rank. Google can't read your photos (not reliably, anyway). The text on your product pages is what matches your products to searches like "fynbos honey Cape Town" or "handmade leather belt South Africa". A shop full of one-line descriptions is nearly invisible in search.
They get you recommended by AI. When someone asks an AI assistant where to buy something, the systems doing the recommending read product pages. Clear, specific, well-structured descriptions are exactly what they can work with - the same principle we covered in what GEO is and why it matters.
The formula
Work through these five parts, in roughly this order:
1. Lead with the outcome, not the object. The first line should tell the customer what this product does for them, not repeat what the photo already shows. "Slow-simmered fig preserve that turns a cheese board into the reason people stay for one more glass" beats "This is a 250ml jar of fig preserve."
2. Be specific - specifics sell, adjectives don't. "High-quality" and "beautiful" are claims; specifics are evidence. Made from what? Made where, by whom? How long does it last? What exactly is in it? "Hand-poured in McGregor from soy wax with a cotton wick, burns for around 45 hours" does more selling than "premium quality candle" ever will.
3. Answer the practical questions. Size, weight, dimensions, ingredients or materials, care instructions, shelf life, what's included in the box. Put these in a short bulleted list so they're scannable. This is also where you head off delivery doubts - if the item is fragile or perishable, say how you pack it and how it ships.
4. Say who it's for. "Works beautifully as a gift for someone who has everything" or "Sized for a family of four" helps customers recognise themselves - or the person they're buying for.
5. Handle the objection you hear most. Every product has one. Too expensive? Justify the price with what goes into it. Unusual material? Explain why you chose it. Whatever question you answer most often over email or at market stalls belongs in the description.
A before and after
Before (real-world typical):
Delicious fig preserve made with love. 250ml. Great on cheese boards. Order yours today!
After:
Whole figs from the farm down the road, slow-simmered in small batches with a squeeze of lemon - nothing else. Dark, sticky, and not too sweet, this is the preserve that disappears first off a cheese board, and it's just as good spooned over plain yoghurt.
- 250ml glass jar, around 280g
- Ingredients: figs, sugar, lemon juice - no preservatives or pectin
- Unopened shelf life of 12 months; refrigerate after opening
- Couriered nationwide in bubble-wrapped, box-packed parcels - we've yet to lose a jar
Pairs particularly well with a sharp mature cheddar or a soft goat's cheese. If you're building a gift box, it sits happily alongside our fynbos honey.
Same product. The second version answers the questions, earns the price, mentions the words people actually search for ("fig preserve", "no preservatives"), and even cross-sells another product.
Never paste in the supplier's description
If you resell products, the manufacturer's stock description has usually been pasted onto dozens of other websites. Google has no reason to rank your copy of it above anyone else's, and customers can smell catalogue text a mile off. Rewrite it in your own voice, even briefly - why you stock it, who it's for, what your customers say about it. Your opinion is the one thing competitors can't copy.
Write the way your customers search
You don't need keyword-stuffing - you need the ordinary, specific words a customer would type. If you sell "artisanal hand-crafted vessels", but your customers search for "ceramic coffee mugs", the search engines will take you literally. Name the product plainly in the title and first line (what it is, what it's made of, where it's from), then let the rest of the description add the personality.
A useful habit: listen for the exact phrases customers use in emails, reviews, and at markets, and use those phrases in your descriptions. They're your keyword research, free.
Formatting matters as much as the words
Online shoppers scan before they read. Keep paragraphs to two or three sentences, put the specs in bullets, and make sure the description is readable on a phone - that's where most South African shopping happens. One more technical note: your shop platform should be marking products up with structured data (Product schema - name, price, availability, reviews) so search engines can show rich results. If your platform was built properly, this is already happening; if you're not sure, it's worth checking.
Where to spend the effort first
If you have two hundred products and limited time, don't try to fix everything at once. Start with your bestsellers and the products that bring people in from search, write those descriptions properly, and work down the list. Ten excellent product pages beat two hundred mediocre ones.
Good descriptions do more for your shop than most paid advertising, because they improve every visit - from ads, from search, from social - at no ongoing cost. If you're setting up a shop or your current one isn't converting, we build e-commerce sites designed to sell, and we can add a shop to your existing website without starting over. For the bigger picture on getting an online shop off the ground, start with our guide to selling online in South Africa, or get in touch and we'll talk through what your products need.