19 creative ways to display eCommerce products (w/ brilliant examples)

Even eCommerce stores with super attractive and high-quality products may often stumble in the product display department. Like a cluttered display with too much information or distracting elements. 

Smart and effective product display is a science. It effectively convinces the customer to purchase. It also helps reduce your marketing and advertising budgets by promoting your products. 

In this post, we talk about how you can organize your product layout and display to maximize conversions. 

19 eCommerce product display ideas to boost sales

As an eCommerce business owner, it’s intuitive to think of factors such as persuasion triggers, impactful CTAs, exit-intent pop-ups, etc. when it comes to boosting sales. However, there is one more important factor that you may be underutilizing—how you display your products. 

In this blog, we’ll be looking at just that—creative ideas you can use to display your products and boost sales. Let’s take a look.

1. One-size-fits-all is old school. Categories are cool. 

Gone are the days when you could use a template-fitting, static website and get by with it. Now, creative categorization and personalization are all the rage.

In the online world now, people want to easily find what they are looking for, and categories help them do just that. 

So, find a way to make categories cool: get creative, build immersive experiences, and look into bringing in interactive elements that will engage your audience.

Lush, for example, has prominently placed categories on the top of the website with sliding banners that effectively showcase the range of products as well as the highlighted offerings.

They also create immersive paths for their audience using category segmentation and curated content. For example, each of the main categories is broken down into subcategories which can be filtered through to browse through their product range.

A great tip here is to always use and highlight content that is on point with your brand language and connects with your audience. For Lush, it is the creative copy that supports their product display page.

Pro Tips:

• Develop creative categorization for your website—keeping in mind seasonal holidays, mood boards, and product benefits.
• It also helps to prominently display your categories on the top with sliding banners. 

2. Treat your copy like an elevator pitch

An important point to remember—one that we love reiterating—is that customers have a short attention span: 8 seconds, to be precise.

That means that you have 8 seconds to pitch your business and impress your customers. You’ve got to be precise. It’s best to stick to the point and get the job done.

That is exactly what IWC does. They use a clever hierarchy of information to present the important stuff—stuff that’ll make you want to read more—and then zoom in to additional details.

This strategy gives IWC a competitive advantage over other brands that spend too much time on their elevator pitch. You take one look at their webpage and you’ll know exactly what they do, what they deliver, and why you should buy from them. That’s the power of precision.

Pro Tips: 

• Take no more than 8 seconds to convey product USPs to gain a true competitive edge over other brands.
• Always use a clear hierarchy of information, prioritizing persuasion triggers and core messaging.

3. Don’t just show. Let them experience. 

It’s 2021. Customers don’t just want to see your products, they want to connect with your brand.

One of the hottest strategies for eCommerce right now is to let your customers experience your products and immerse themselves in your culture.

Especially with the launch of interactive features, brands are leveraging this across the world by giving customers the power to interact with products and experience them in a different way. 

Take a note from this beautiful example from Free People where the brand offers high-quality product images shot through different angles with the option to hover through. 

Pro Tips:

• Content is always king. Use it well. Take classy pictures, rev up your creative direction, and have fun with it. 
• Display your products in a way that doesn’t make it look like you are selling anything. Make it look natural, similar to how you would want it in real life.
• Let customers hover through. Sometimes, they don’t want to commit just yet, and hovering through lets them discover the product without even having to move to another page.

Write product pages that offer best-in-class experience. Read the complete product page guide

4. Bundle them up

Bundles are the holy grail of eCommerce. They are a simple feature used in order to increase sales for your online shop.

They help to sell more products in fewer clicks. They can also increase average order value, which means more revenue for you.

There are five main types of bundles:

• Product package or kit
• Upselling
• Package discount or tiered pricing
• Cross-selling
• Market segmentation

Depending on what you offer, bundles can be the secret weapon in your eCommerce arsenal.

Saje does a great job at this: displaying their bundle in a prominent manner that is instantly appealing to the audience. 

Pro Tips:

• Remember: customers like bundles as much as you do. For them, they’re a great way to bag a deal. Use that well & nudge your customers towards the bundles using a creative display.
• Persuasion triggers 101 — highlighting the price drop in red is a great way to bring in some excitement to your display and show your customers how good a deal the bundle is.

Want inspiration? Check out 10 product bundling ideas that actually work (with examples)

5. Less is more. Minimal is key.

Design is one of the most crucial and essential factors in making your product display look good. After all, if your website does not look appealing, you will lose customers, right?

But design is not the only thing that matters — functionality and efficiency do, too. That is why it’s important to display your products in a manner that is not only good looking but also efficient. 

Sure, go ahead and play around with illustrations, fonts, and all other pretty things. But also keep it clean. Display your products in a manner that is minimal and draws attention to what’s important.

If you need inspiration, Makr does a great job at this.

Pro Tips:

• Catch their attention. A minimal display draws eyes to what’s important: the products.
• Avoid using too many contrasting elements, heavy colors, or too much text. Keep it simple. 

6. Recommendations always work

Product recommendations serve two primary purposes: 

• Help brands showcase more of their products
• Make it easier for customers to find products they’d like

No wonder, product recommendations bag a valuable conversion rate. But, you also need to ensure that they do their job well: display them well, show relevant suggestions, and offer recommendations that will be valued by the customer.

Another good way to display recommendations is to highlight what other customers liked. That’ll bring in serious social proof points.

This example from Stelladot will show you what we’re talking about.

Pro Tips:

• Use complementary product recommendations to cross-sell your range to customers.
• Leverage the power of social proof by highlighting what other customers are buying, and in turn, increase your average order value.

Hey, you’ll love this: 17 Surefire ways to upsell in eCommerce & increase average order value

7. Reinforce decision making with customer reviews

Shopping online is easy, but shopping online from a brand you don’t know much about? Not so much. That’s where social proof comes in.

As a customer, you’re much more likely to finish a purchase when you know that other people, real people, have used and liked the product.

So, it only makes sense that as a business owner, you leverage this pot of gold. That’s exactly what REI does: they let their customers do the talking — and the proof is in the pudding.

Pro Tips:

• The key is in the details. Encourage your customers to leave detailed reviews, with pictures if possible. That’ll only increase your credibility.
• Offer incentives to your customers for leaving reviews. Maybe a bunch of points, a sweet little deal, or even a freebie on their next order?
• Be sure to include a scale for ratings as well. Ratings help potential customers quickly analyze whether they’d like to know more about that product or not.

8. Make your CTAs fun. Spark interest with creative content

It’s no secret that the generous use of subtle CTAs, like the product recommendations list, has a substantial effect on conversion rate.

However, here’s an idea with which you can make your CTA stick out: it’s time to break the ice and use some humor! In true Madewell fashion, they use clever copy & a clear hierarchy to encourage the audience to shop.

After all, having great conversions on your site is good, but having fun while doing it is better. 

That’s because if people are enjoying themselves on your site, they are more likely to stick around longer. If they’re having fun on your site, they are more likely to convert into sales!

So, make the experience fun: keep the flow easy, keep everything within reach, and make the customer journey hassle free. Take a note of how Madewell offers their “perfect, vintage jean”.

Pro Tips:

• Your brand has a personality. Flaunt it. Just like Madewell does above, build a narrative and align your CTAs around them. For eg, shop the story.
• Make each product pitch aspirational, one that encourages the audience to shop now. Convince them with CTAs such as Make ‘em yours.

Puzzled? Check out 21 ways to create call-to-action buttons that convert

9. Sway them with videos and AR experiences

It’s the digital age. Make good use of it.

New technologies are changing the way the market works. People can now get authentic experiences from the comfort of their own.

With such technology, the possibilities are practically limitless and brands like IKEA and Crate & Barrel are leveraging them to their advantage.

Proof? Customers are 64% more likely to purchase a product after watching a video.

For example, Crate & Barrel uses AR to help customers envision how a piece of furniture will look in their home.

Pro Tips:

• Video content goes a long way in boosting customer engagement. Use it well. Develop installation and how-to videos to further aid the customers’ decision making.
• Use augmented reality for an elevated experience that allows customers to truly connect with the product. Have a view-in-room option that lets them virtually experience the product in their own home.
• Leverage augmented reality to boost in-app purchases and make the customer journey seamless.

10. Offer them a downloadable product sheet

The product sell sheet is like a good, old-fashioned sales pitch that every entrepreneur once used to use — and still does at times.

What a website captures in multiple pages a sell sheet collects in one PDF. This is one detailed PDF that offers a true insight into your business — product USPs, benefits, value propositions, and everything else.

When used in tandem with a dedicated landing page, these product sheets can be used to cater to several levels of audience segmentation and offer each other exactly what they need.

Dole Food Service uses several brochures & sell sheets to cater to each category of their customers. They break it down into Full Product Line, K-12, Healthy, Frozen Fruits, etc.

Inside, they follow it up with unique information on each product: features, benefits, value propositions, and more. 

Pro Tips:

• Make the content useful. It should not only be an extension to your website but also offer additional information that makes it appealing to potential customers.
• Remember to cater to all levels of your audience — and cater to them in a manner that is appropriate for that audience group.

11. Clear their doubts with FAQs

If you own an online store, you know how challenging it can be to answer all your customers’ queries — especially if you have to do them all yourself. That’s where having an FAQ page helps.

An FAQ page is a great way of being there for your customers by answering their most common questions in a place that is convenient for them to find.

A classic FAQs page provides quick answers to the most common questions about your services, products, or business. However, you can go one step further and break this down into categories, segment it into audiences, and make them easy to filter through.

Check out how Skinny Dip does it with clear, well-distributed categories that spread across the full realm of customer inquiries.

Pro Tips:

• Keep the page neat and clean. When someone’s coming in with doubts, they’d like it to be solved quickly and easily. Having a well-structured page will help you do just that.
• Maintain three crucial elements: lots of negative space, a clear search button, and detailed answers. That’s all you need for a killer FAQ page.

12. Complete their journey with the product detail page

The product detail page is the culmination of the journey, the wizard. This is where the buying decision is finalized.

It contains everything a visitor needs to complete their purchase like price, stock availability, product description, and customer reviews. Customers can see what they are getting for their money, read any reviews customers have posted, and checkout with ease.

Once they land here, you know it’s a done deal — but you have to close it well. Check out this example from Rocky Mountain Soap that highlights all the important stuff: product details, customer reviews, value propositions, and more.

Pro Tips:

• Pitch to win. Treat your product detail pages like a closing pitch — ensure they have everything customers will need to finalize their decision. Make it as tempting as you can.
• Take them on the buying journey, giving them all the information they’ll need to seal the deal: price, description, customer reviews, and most importantly, the option to checkout.

Have you seen this? 20 best product page design examples in 2021 (+ expert advice)

13. Personalize their display based on their needs

The aim of any eCommerce site is to help customers find and purchase products easily. Your display needs to reflect that.

The more complicated your interface is, the less likely it’ll prompt customers to complete their buying journey.

Flashy websites are all the rage — but they can often hinder the buying process. Instead, opt for something that’s simple and clean, fast and efficient — something like Hollister has.

Pro Tips:

• The faster your checkout process, the better. So, prioritize things like customer journey, sort and filter options, prominent offer displays, and fast and easy loading.
• Personalization is critical. It helps you deliver the best possible experience to each and every one of your customers, allowing them to find exactly what they're looking for: product information, shipping options, payment options, etc. And what does that bring you? Faster checkouts.

14. Showcase your best first

In eCommerce websites, amidst the clutter of content, products, brand, CTAs, one thing stands out: the best.

When you add a bestseller tag to your product, people are instantly drawn to it — if only to know why and what makes it a bestselling product.

So, show them off. Display them in a prominent place, and make sure they get the eyeballs they deserve. Above-the-fold is always a good idea. That’s what Ace Jewellers banks on.

They not only display their bestsellers range above the fold but also follow it up with Bestseller tags on each product detail page.

Pro Tips:

• Make the Bestseller tag eye-catching but not flashy. It should look classy and match the vibe of your website.
• Throw in another persuasion trigger to make the deal even sweeter. Match your Bestsellers with limited edition offers, only X piece left tags, and more.

15. Incentivize your display with limited period offers

One of the most important aspects of running an eCommerce store is to incentivize your audience, and limited period offers are a great way to do this.

There’s often a deadline to such offers and, as in the case of any deadline, there’s an urgency to finish the task i.e. finishing the purchase.

When you enhance this experience with a catchy offer, vibrant design, and prominent display, it only makes things better. For example, Bassett. Don’t you love how they’ve done this?

Pro Tips:

• Have a deadline-based offer and a timer that counts down to it. Nothing better to create that sense of urgency.
• Keep a separate landing page for the offer, so you can not only track metrics but also give your customers a chance to check out quickly.

Check out Limited Time Offer: 10 compelling examples + how to copy them

‍16. Use whitespaces to emphasize product key features

You probably already know that you should point out specific product features that address your buyers’ specific problems.

But that’s not enough to make your product display stand out.

You see, shoppers are impatient. They have a short attention span.

That’s where using whitespaces comes in.

Whitespaces reduce the number of texts and page elements visitors can see at once. This design principle lets you draw shoppers' attention to key product features you want to ensure stands out to them.

New Chapter is a class act in using whitespaces to attract buyer attention. The vitamins brand uses a lot of whitespaces between product image displays, texts, and other page elements to draw the buyer’s attention to the uniqueness of each product.

The result?

Customers know the value they are getting on the fly without drowning in a boring sea of texts and similar-looking products. Also, the brand applied this principle in its entire online store design—not just product pages—so buyers can spot and respond to their calls to action easily.

Pro Tips:

• Use whitespaces to draw eyeballs to your product's key features and CTA buttons to nudge buyers toward conversion.
• Use whitespaces instead of dividers to differentiate or emphasize key elements.
• Too many negative spaces make your store look empty, so use whitespaces in moderation.

17. Encourage buyer action with product keyword filters

Studies found that conversion rates drop by 0.3% for every additional second of load time. It's also on record that websites that load within a second convert three times better than those with five seconds load-time. And five times when the load time doubles.

So, it's safe to assume shoppers prefer to find products faster.

And one way you can create a faster and more intuitive shopping experience besides boosting site speed is by enabling product filtering. It streamlines product discovery and reduces the time shoppers spend searching for items. 

The result? Twenty-six percent conversion rate increase. Impressive, right?

 Lush uses product discovery on each product page to make their customers’ buying experience faster.

The eCommerce store provides relevant product keywords to suggest specific product groups to buyers and make navigation and product searches effortless. The feature encourages shoppers to take action, tempting them with a sweet and seamless search experience.

Pro Tips:

• Allow shoppers to find products by clicking keywords instead of typing into the search box.
• Make the keywords match relevant product searches that buyers do on your store
• Ensure no filter returns zero results.
• Create a filter based on customers' search terms
• Make your filters mobile-friendly.

18. Simulate real-world shop display for a memorable shopping experience

Your buyers associate products to certain physical spaces. By replicating those familiar spaces online, you ignite the positive emotions they associate with those spaces.

For example, if you sell books, you could build your website to display them in a shelf-looking design. If you sell hoodies or other clothing items, you may want to have a closet-looking design to mimic an offline experience.

Likewise, if you sell jewelry, you can have them hanging on a mannequin or other jewelry displays to give a real-world feel of the product.

One of the benefits with display design is that, apart from calling up delightful memories, it uses more images and less text to emphasize the product’s appeal.

HeyShop does it well, and you can learn one or two things from them.

Product photos make up over 90% of the site's content, making the store noiseless. Also, the brand simulates real-world product displays to create memorable shopping experiences. For instance, it places books on shelves and hangs printed frames on the wall. 

Additionally, Hey displaces its bags hanging on real people’s shoulders. 

Pro Tips:

• Display products with lifestyle images shot from multiple angles.
• Make it possible for shoppers to see how the product looks in different colors, styles, and real-world spaces.
• Use only original product photos, don’t download from the internet.
• Your product features should show enough details and usable features.

19. New Arrivals, Best Sellers, and Deals: Command Buyer Response with Your Nav Bar

Studies show that improving your site navigation can boost conversions by 18.5%. But that’s if you tough the right emotions.

Customers have a strong positive association to new products, products that other buyers already use and love, and items that help them save money.

Emphasize these emotions right in your navigation bar. Provide them the option to click to these product categories and fulfill their hearts desires.

Try including these categories in your navigation bar like Streetwear Official does and track your conversions.

Having them there—above the fold—helps them gain shoppers' attention when they land in the store. In addition, it allows them to command immediate responses from buyers.

Pro Tips:

• Put your deals, new products, and best sellers navigation tabs towards the center-left of your nav bar to help buyers find them easily.
• Make your store navigation mobile responsive.
• Complement the navigation with a site search tool.
• About 55% of consumers want price reduction, adding your deals page on the navigation bar could be helpful.
• Use the A/B test to find what works for you.

And there you have it. 19 cool ideas for you to be inspired from. Check them out, get inspired, and keep this page bookmarked for future reference!

Most importantly, remember to make it yours. There’s nothing more appealing to your audience than a unified, brand-focused identity that speaks to them. Make them fall in love with your brand.