9 ways to write e-commerce product descriptions

A product description is the text on the product page that explains what it is, who it’s for, what benefits it brings and which details you need to know to buy it without doubts. A good product description starts from the customer, puts benefits before features, is easy to read on a smartphone and is true, verifiable and unique.

In a physical shop there’s a shop assistant to answer questions. In an online shop there’s the product page: if it doesn’t answer, the customer closes the page. Here you’ll find what a product description should include in 2026, 9 ways to write it well and how to use AI without ending up with product pages that all look the same.

What should a product description include?

A complete product description has seven parts. They don’t all have to be long, but none should be missing:

Part of the page	What it’s for	Example
Title	Say straight away what it is, with the words people search for	“Insulated steel water bottle 500 ml”
Summary (short description)	The 2–3 main benefits, near the price	“Cold water for 24 hours, fits the bike bottle cage”
Long description	Use, context, who it’s for and who it isn’t	How you use it, what sets it apart
Product details	Sizes, materials, compatibility, care	Table of features
Photos and videos	Let people “touch” the product	Lifestyle photos, close-ups, video of it in use
Price, shipping and returns	Remove doubts about the final cost	Times, costs, return conditions
Safety information	Comply with the law and reassure	Manufacturer, warnings, instructions

The last row isn’t a tip: since 13 December 2024 the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has required anyone selling online in the EU to state clearly, in the offer:

• name, trademark and postal and email address of the manufacturer (and, if the manufacturer is outside the EU, of the responsible person in the EU);
• information to identify the product, such as image, type, batch or serial number;
• warnings and safety information, in a language the customer can easily understand.

And if you show a discounted price on the page, the reference price must be the lowest of the last 30 days (EU Omnibus Directive). For PrestaShop 9 we developed Omnibus Compliance (€29 + VAT), which calculates it and shows it automatically on the product page, in product cards and in structured data.

How do you write an effective product description? 9 ways

We’ve put together 9 ways to write product descriptions that sell. They work for a shop with 20 products as well as for a catalogue with thousands.

1. Start from the buyer

Before you write, ask yourself who your typical customer is (the buyer persona) and what they want to know. The quickest way to find out is to listen to the people who already contact you.

• Reread the questions you get on WhatsApp, by email and in chat: every repeated question is a sentence missing from the page.
• Read the reviews, yours and your competitors’: they tell you what really matters to people who bought.
• Write in a direct, friendly way (more formal if your audience prefers it), but always clearly.

2. Put benefits before features

Features say what the product is, benefits say what it does for the buyer. You need both, but in the right order:

Feature	Benefit
Double-walled steel	Cold water for 24 hours, even in a car in summer
Screw cap with seal	You can put it in your bag without worrying about soaking your laptop
500 ml, 7 cm diameter	Fits the bottle holder in your bike and car

3. Avoid clichés

“High quality”, “unique design”, “the best on the market”: everyone writes them, so they say nothing. Replace every cliché with a fact. Instead of “quality materials” write “100% organic cotton, GOTS certified”, if it’s true and verifiable.

4. Use superlatives only if you can prove them

“The lightest in its category” only works if you say compared to what and you can prove it. The same goes for environmental claims: from 27 September 2026 the new EU rules against greenwashing (Directive 2024/825) ban generic environmental claims such as “eco-friendly” or “sustainable” if they aren’t substantiated. A precise fact (“packaging in recycled cardboard”) is better than a vague adjective.

5. Help people picture it in use

Buying online, customers can’t touch the product: the description has to help them picture it in their life. Say when it’s used, where, with what. Then let photos and videos do the rest:

• at least 3 photos, one on a neutral background and one with the product in use;
• a short video showing the product in action;
• alternative text (alt) describing each image.

6. Tell a short story

Storytelling isn’t a novel: it’s two or three sentences on how the product came about, who makes it, why it’s made that way. It works especially well for handmade products, food and design. For a USB cable, on the other hand, the right data is enough.

7. Write a persuasive description with concrete details

A persuasive product description uses concrete, sensory details: weight, texture, scent, sound, temperature. “It weighs 320 grams: you feel it in your hand, but not in your backpack” is more convincing than “light and sturdy”. Few adjectives, well chosen.

8. Show proof from other customers

People who are undecided look for someone who has already bought. Put reviews on the product page, with customer photos if you have them. Remember that if you show reviews you must say whether and how you check that they come from people who really bought the product: a verified reviews platform does it for you. A questions and answers section on the product page also helps, and creates useful text for Google.

9. Make the description easy to read

Most people read the product page on their phone, scrolling. So:

• a short summary at the top, near the price;
• bullet points for the details;
• short sentences, one idea per sentence;
• subheadings if the description is long;
• a table for technical specifications;
• real text, not text inside images, with good contrast: it’s readable by everyone, including people who use a screen reader.

Example: a product description before and after

Here’s a made-up example, to see the 9 ways at work.

Before

High-quality insulated bottle. Modern, elegant design. Ideal for every occasion. Exceptional product.

After

Cold water for 24 hours, even in the sun. The double-walled steel bottle keeps drinks cold for a whole day and hot for 12 hours. The screw cap with seal doesn’t leak: you can put it in your bag next to your laptop without a second thought.

• 500 ml, 7 cm diameter: fits the bottle holder in bikes and cars
• Weighs 320 g
• Dishwasher safe (body only, wash the cap by hand)
• BPA free

The second answers the real questions (how long does it keep things cold? does it leak? does it fit the bike holder?) and every sentence can be checked.

How do you use AI to write product descriptions?

AI is a great tool for product pages, especially when there are hundreds of products or lots of languages. It works if you give it real data and a person checks every text. The method we use in e-commerce projects:

1. Gather the real data: technical sheet, sizes, materials, customers’ frequent questions.
2. Write the instructions once: tone of voice, page structure, words to avoid, length.
3. Generate a draft for each product, starting from that data.
4. Check every text: numbers, compatibility, claims. AI sometimes invents plausible but false details.
5. Add what AI doesn’t know: your experience, advice from people who know the product.

Google is clear: it doesn’t penalise AI-written content as such, but it considers scaled content that adds no value to be spam. A thousand almost identical pages generated in an afternoon are exactly what to avoid.

Want to learn to use AI for this kind of work, on real projects? It’s one of the subjects of our AI Academy, in person at our office near Naples (taught in Italian).

How do you optimise product descriptions for Google and AI answers?

An optimised product description is unique, uses the words customers use and contains precise data that Google and AI assistants can pick up. In practice:

• Unique text, not copied from the manufacturer: dozens of shops use the same description.
• Customers’ words in the title and first lines (“insulated water bottle”, not just the manufacturer’s product code).
• Complete product details in PrestaShop’s features, not just in the text: sizes, materials, compatibility. Structured data can be filtered and read more easily. On PrestaShop 9, Flag Theme already gives you product pages with specifications and documents.
• Correct product structured data (price, availability, reviews), consistent with what’s shown on the page.
• FAQs on the product page, with direct answers: they’re the kind of text Google’s AI answers are most likely to quote.
• Meta titles and meta descriptions written by hand for the most important products.

In PrestaShop the summary (the short description) has a default limit of 800 characters, which you can change in Shop Parameters › Product Settings. Use it for the main benefits, and leave the details to the long description.

E-commerce product descriptions: where do you start?

Don’t rewrite the whole catalogue at once. Start with the 20 products that bring in the most visits or revenue, apply the 9 ways, measure the conversion rate of those pages for a few weeks and then extend to the others. A better product page is one of the quickest ways to increase your online shop’s conversions.

If you have a large catalogue, several languages or a shop to rebuild, Flag Agency, a PrestaShop web agency in Frattamaggiore (Naples, Italy), looks after product pages, translations and catalogue structure as part of PrestaShop e-commerce development, using AI where it saves time and people from the team where judgement is needed.