Step 1
Mine the doubts
Reviews, returns reasons, support tickets and on-site search, read and categorised. This is where the content of every description comes from.
Articles and written content · Product and category copy · Sydney
Product and category copy
A product description has one job that a photograph cannot do: answer the specific doubt that is stopping this person from adding to cart. Most descriptions instead restate what the picture already showed.
Grab the snowball. Give it a spin, and watch it grow as you scroll. Just like your catalogue.
1real doubt answered per product
3questions a page must clear
From reviewsthe doubts are already written down
At scalea template that does not read like one
The short answer
What makes a product description actually sell?
A product description sells when it answers the specific doubt stopping the purchase rather than describing what the photograph already shows. A category page sells when it helps someone choose between options rather than listing them.
The doubts are rarely a mystery. They are in your reviews, your returns reasons and your support inbox, already written down by the people who had them. Almost nobody reads those before writing product copy, which is why so much of it answers questions nobody asked.
We write from that material, at a scale a real catalogue needs, using the same analytics behind our search work. Because our Snowball SEO platform automates the search heavy lifting other agencies bill by the hour, more of your budget goes into the writing. It sits inside our wider content writing service.
The difference
What is your copy competing with?
Not other writing. It is competing with the photograph above it, the reviews below it, and the reader's assumption that they already know what this is.
Where the real doubts come from
- Reviews, especially the three-star ones, which are the most honest
- Returns reasons, which are doubts that were answered too late
- Support tickets and pre-sale questions, already categorised for you
- On-site search terms, which show what people expected to find and did not
What wastes the space
- Describing the colour and shape the photograph already shows
- Brand story on a product page, where nobody is asking for it
- Feature lists with no consequence attached to any feature
- The same fifty words rearranged across four hundred products
For the imagery those pages need, that is our ecommerce photography service, and the two are usually briefed together.
The cost
What drives the price of product copy?
Catalogue size and how different the products genuinely are. Four hundred variants of one product is one writing job. Forty genuinely different products is forty.
A pilot
Ten to twenty products
Your best sellers and your worst performers, written properly, so the approach can be tested against real numbers before the whole catalogue is committed.
Catalogue rollout
Hundreds
The full range, written to a structure that varies by product type, so it reads as written rather than generated.
Category and collection pages
The layer above
The pages that help someone choose between products, which are usually the highest-value pages on an ecommerce site and the most neglected.
We quote per product band and per category page after a free consult and a look at your reviews. See our guide to copywriting services for the wider view.
What moves the number, in order
Volume matters, but variety matters more, and most catalogues have far less genuine variety than their product count suggests.
- How many genuinely different products, rather than how many SKUs
- Whether reviews and support data exist to write from
- How technical the products are, and whether claims need substantiation
- Category pages, which are a different and slower job than product pages
- Whether specifications need normalising across suppliers
- Marketplace variants, since each has its own rules and character limits
Start with twenty, not four hundred
Write your ten best sellers and your ten worst performers, publish, and wait a month. The best sellers tell you whether the approach holds up where you already have traffic; the worst tell you whether copy was ever the problem.
Very often the answer for the worst performers is that the copy was never the issue, and knowing that before rewriting four hundred pages is worth considerably more than the pilot costs.
We will tell you if that is what the data says, including when it means a smaller job than the one you asked us to quote.
The scope
What you receive
Written to fit the product template, and structured so it can be loaded rather than pasted.
Product descriptions
Long and short versions where your template needs both, answering the real doubt rather than restating the photograph.
Category and collection copy
The page that helps a buyer choose, which is where most ecommerce copy budgets should go and rarely do.
Titles and meta descriptions
Written for the click and for the shopping results, within the character limits each surface actually enforces.
A structure, not a template
The shape a description takes for each product type, so it scales without every page reading identically.
Specifications, normalised
Consistent units, names and ordering across suppliers, which is dull work and one of the most common causes of lost sales.
A loadable file
Delivered as a spreadsheet or feed your platform can import, rather than as a document somebody has to copy from.
The return
Which pages are actually worth rewriting?
Not all of them, and rarely in the order a catalogue export suggests. Two groups are worth the effort and the rest can usually wait.
The return rate is a copy metric
A product returned because it was not what the buyer expected is a copy failure wearing a logistics cost, and it is measurable in a way almost nothing else in content is.
Sizing, materials, what is in the box, what it does not do. Every one of those is cheaper to answer on the page than to process as a return, and the products with the worst return rates are telling you exactly which answers are missing.
So we start from returns data where it exists. It is the closest thing to a direct measure of whether words worked that any content work ever gets.
The process
How product copy gets written at scale
Two to three weeks for a pilot, then a rolling cadence sized to your catalogue.
Step 2
Structure per type
The shape a description takes for each product category, so scale does not mean sameness.
Step 3
The pilot
Ten best sellers and ten worst performers, written and published, so the approach is tested where you already have data.
Step 4
Measure
A month of real numbers on conversion and returns before the rest of the catalogue is committed.
Step 5
Rollout
The catalogue written in priority order: categories, then best sellers, then the pages with the most doubt attached to them.
Step 6
Feed and load
Delivered in a format your platform imports, with the specifications normalised so nothing has to be retyped.
The brief
What to ask before you buy product copy
Product copy is bought by the word more often than any other kind, which is precisely the wrong unit.
Have you read our reviews?
The doubts are already written down by the people who had them. A supplier who has not read them is about to guess at what your buyers want to know.
Are we starting with categories or products?
Category pages usually carry more traffic and are where the choice is made. Starting at the product long tail is the most common and least useful order.
How will this scale without reading identical?
Ask for a structure per product type rather than one template. One template across four hundred products is visible to any buyer comparing two of them.
How is it delivered?
A spreadsheet or feed your platform can import, not a document someone has to copy from four hundred times. Ask before the work starts.
We are happy to answer all four and to read your reviews before you commit. For the imagery, see our ecommerce photography service.
Start here
Ready to answer the real question?
Send us your worst-performing product page and your review export. The free consult is a working session, not a sales call, and you leave with three things whether or not you book us.
- The doubts we found in your own reviews, sorted by how often they appear
- One product page rewritten, so you can see the difference rather than trust it
- A priority order for your catalogue, and a fixed price per band
Good questions
Product and category copy FAQs
What makes a product description sell?
Answering the specific doubt that is stopping the purchase, rather than describing what the photograph already shows. Those doubts are usually already written down in your reviews, returns reasons and support tickets.
How much does product copywriting cost?
We quote per band of products and per category page rather than per word. What moves it is how many genuinely different products you have rather than how many SKUs, whether review and support data exists to write from, and how technical the range is.
Should we rewrite the whole catalogue?
Almost never all at once. Start with category pages and your best sellers, publish, and wait a month. Very often the worst performers turn out to have a problem that was never about the copy, and knowing that is worth more than the pilot costs.
How do you write hundreds without them reading the same?
A structure per product type rather than one template, and real detail from reviews and specifications rather than adjectives. One template across a catalogue is obvious to any buyer comparing two products.
Can this help with returns?
Often, and it is the most measurable thing in content. A product returned because it was not what the buyer expected is a copy failure with a logistics cost attached, and the products with the worst return rates tell you exactly which answers are missing.
Do you write for marketplaces too?
Yes, and each has its own character limits, prohibited claims and formatting rules. Copy written for your own site and pasted into a marketplace listing usually breaks at least one of them.
What about specifications?
We normalise them: consistent units, names and ordering across suppliers. It is dull work and it is one of the most common reasons a buyer comparing two products gives up on both.
How is it delivered?
As a spreadsheet or feed your platform can import, with long and short versions where your template needs both, so nothing has to be retyped page by page.