Product page checklist: what shoppers need to see before they add to cart

Nearly every online purchase goes through a product page, so small gaps there cost a lot of sales. Baymard Institute’s latest product page benchmark found that 52% of leading desktop sites and 62% of mobile sites have “mediocre” or worse product page usability, and that test participants often abandoned suitable products purely because of fixable usability issues.

Here’s a checklist built from that research, adapted for UAE stores.

Images

• Several images: front, back, detail, in use.
• An “in scale” image showing size against a person or familiar object. Baymard found 42% of users try to judge size from the images, and 37% of sites lack such an image.
• A human model for anything worn (clothing, bags, jewellery, watches, cosmetics).
• Images load fast and can be zoomed on a phone.
• Alt text describing the product.

Variants and options

• Sizes and colours as buttons, not drop-downs, with out-of-stock options visible. Baymard found 57% of sites don’t use buttons for size selection.
• Size guide next to the size selector, with measurements in centimetres.
• Selected options clearly highlighted.

Price and total cost

• Price clear, including whether VAT is included.
• Delivery cost and time near the add-to-cart button, ideally the lowest delivery cost by default. Baymard found 67% of sites don’t estimate total order cost there. Extra costs at checkout are the top reason for abandonment in Baymard’s surveys.
• Price per unit for products sold in different sizes or quantities (81% of sites don’t show it).
• Payment options visible: cards, Apple Pay, cash on delivery, instalments (Tabby, Tamara) where offered.

Delivery and returns (UAE specifics)

• Delivery times by emirate, and same-day or next-day cut-off times if offered.
• COD available, and any COD fee.
• Returns policy linked or summarised on the page. Baymard reports 60% of users look for return information on the product page.
• Contact option for questions: WhatsApp button with a pre-filled message naming the product. See mobile next-step buttons.

Product information

• Original description, not the manufacturer’s copy.
• Answers to the questions customers ask: material, dimensions, fit, care, compatibility, what’s in the box.
• Key details scannable (bullets or a short spec table), with more detail below.
• Arabic version reviewed by a native speaker, if you sell in Arabic.

Reviews

• Reviews shown with rating distribution and recent reviews.
• Respond to negative reviews, styled differently from the reviews themselves (89% of sites don’t respond).
• Customer photos browsable across reviews.
• Review request in your post-purchase flow. See post-purchase flows.

Mobile

• Add-to-cart visible without much scrolling, or a sticky add-to-cart bar.
• Buttons large enough to tap.
• Nothing important hidden in tabs that people won’t open.
• Page fast on mobile data.

Saving and comparing

• A wishlist or “save” option that works without creating an account (89% of sites get this wrong, per Baymard).

Search visibility

• Unique title and meta description for top products. See Shopify SEO.
• Product structured data (price, availability, reviews) matching the visible page. Most Shopify themes include it.

How to prioritise

Start with your top 10 products by revenue and your top 10 by traffic with a low add-to-cart rate. Fix the gaps that affect most pages at once in the theme template (delivery estimate, returns link, size buttons), then content gaps product by product.

Frequently asked questions

Does every product need long content?

No. Every product needs the answers its buyers look for. A simple consumable needs less than a sofa or a dress.

Should we show stock levels?

Showing that a size is out of stock before selection avoids frustration. “Only 2 left” is fine if it’s true.

What should we measure?

Add-to-cart rate by product, product page exit rate, and questions received about each product. Rising questions about the same detail mean it’s missing from the page.

If you’d like your product pages audited and improved, that’s part of our online store service.