The six things a buyer checks on a product page before committing

A product page carries a long list of things the store wants to say and a short list of things the buyer wants to know. The buyer's list is the same on almost every page: when will it reach me, is it in stock, can I send it back, what is the full price, what does it look like, and what did other people think. A page that answers all six near the buy button sells. A page that hides any one of them below a size chart and a brand story sends the buyer to a marketplace to check.

We have rebuilt product templates for stores across toys, electronics and rental catalogs, and the job is the same each time: find where each of the six answers went, move it up, and delete what was standing in its place.

A delivery date is a date, and "3-5 business days" is not one

The buyer wants to know whether the item arrives before Saturday. "Ships in 3-5 business days" makes them do arithmetic: count from when, does the courier add days, is Sunday a business day. That arithmetic is work the buyer did not come to do. A line that reads "Delivery by Thursday, 18 September" answers the question they had.

To show a date you need three inputs: the buyer's pincode, your dispatch cutoff, and the courier's transit time for that zone. Ask for the pincode on the product page and remember it. Compute the date from the current time against the cutoff, so an order placed at 4pm on Friday shows Monday's dispatch, not Friday's. Where COD changes the estimate, or a pincode is out of the serviceable set, say so in the same line.

Stock state has to be true, including for variants

"In stock" on a page where the buyer's size is sold out is a lie the buyer discovers at add-to-cart, or worse, at the cancellation email. Stock state belongs on the variant, and the page should show it the moment the variant is selected: available, low, or out. A greyed-out size in the picker is clearer than an error after the click.

"Only 2 left" is fine when it is the real number. A store that shows "only 2 left" on every product has taught its buyers to ignore it. Pull the count from the same inventory source that checkout reserves against, and if that source cannot answer live, show "In stock" and nothing more specific.

The returns policy is read before the buy button, or not at all

A buyer weighing an unfamiliar brand is asking what happens if the item is wrong. The answer is usually one sentence: "7-day returns, pickup from your address, refund to source." That sentence belongs within sight of the buy button, not on a page linked from the footer. The full policy can live behind a link; the summary cannot.

Say what is not returnable too. Innerwear, opened consumables, and customised items are common exclusions, and a buyer who learns the exclusion after ordering leaves a review about it. If COD orders are refunded differently, by bank transfer instead of to source, state that where COD is offered.

The price on the page is the price at checkout, tax and shipping included

In India, consumer prices are quoted inclusive of GST, and buyers expect the number on the page to be the number they pay. A page that shows a pre-tax price and adds GST at the cart has not offered a lower price. It has broken the buyer's trust one step before payment. Show the inclusive price, and mark it "inclusive of all taxes" where the invoice will split it into CGST and SGST later.

Shipping belongs in the same treatment. Free shipping above a threshold is a fine offer, but the page must say what happens below it. Once the buyer has entered a pincode for the delivery date, the shipping charge for that pincode is known, and the page can show "₹1,299 + ₹49 shipping" or "₹1,299, free delivery" instead of leaving the buyer to discover the number in the cart.

Discounts follow the same rule. A struck-through ₹1,999 next to ₹1,299 is honest only if ₹1,999 was a price the item sold at. The Legal Metrology rules govern the MRP on the pack, and a struck-through price higher than that MRP is a compliance problem, not a marketing tactic. When a coupon applies on top, show the final figure the buyer will pay, not the coupon code.

Images answer questions, or they are decoration

The first image sells the product. The rest exist to answer what the buyer would check in a shop: how big is it, what is the material, what is on the back, what is in the box, how does it look in use. A gallery of eight angles of the same front view answers none of those. Six images that each answer one question do the work.

• One image with a familiar object for scale, or a hand holding the product.
• One close-up of the material or texture at a zoom level a phone can render.
• One of the back, base or underside, wherever the ports, labels or seams are.
• One of the full box contents laid out.
• One in use, in the setting the buyer will use it.

Serve those images at the size they are displayed. A 4,000-pixel-wide original sent to a 400-pixel-wide slot on a phone is the first thing we find when a product page loads slowly on mobile data. Resize to the slot's width, keep a larger version for zoom, and check dimensions against the marketplace's rules if the same set is going to Amazon or Flipkart, where the main image has its own background and size requirements.

A star average hides what the buyer wants to know

4.2 stars from 300 reviews tells the buyer almost nothing. Whether the 1-star reviews are about the courier or about the product tells them a lot. Show the distribution, five bars from five stars down to one, and let the buyer click a bar to read that group. A product with a split between five stars and one star is a product with a sizing or a quality-control problem, and a buyer who can see that split can decide with their eyes open.

Show the most recent reviews first, not the highest. Mark verified purchases. Let buyers attach photos, because a photo from a buyer's phone does what a studio image cannot. If you have three reviews, show them with the count; an honest "3 reviews" beats a hidden section.

What to take off the page

Everything above competes for the space between the title and the buy button. To make room, remove what does not help the decision: a brand story that belongs on the About page, a "customers also bought" carousel above the fold, a countdown timer that resets on reload, trust badges for gateways the buyer has never heard of, and a chat widget that covers the buy button on a phone. Each was added to improve the page. Together they push the six answers below the fold.

What should a product page show before the add-to-cart button?

The delivery date for the buyer's pincode, the true stock state for the selected variant, a one-line returns summary, the full price with GST and shipping resolved, images that answer size, material and contents, and a review distribution instead of a bare average. Everything else moves below the button or off the page.