The 3 Things Every Coffee Ecommerce Page Needs

Selling coffee online is hard. Making sure your product pages answer your customers’ questions makes it a lot easier.

Before a new customer hits “Add To Cart” for the first, they have to answer two questions. It’s your job to help them find the answers they’re looking for.

Here’s the first:

• Does this coffee meet my flavor quality standards?

Customers want signals that the coffee they’re looking on a screen will generate the flavor experience they love and expect.

If they get the feeling that, “Eh, maybe it’s not going to be so good,” they’ll click x and move on to another coffee ecommerce store.

If they see those familiar signals, realizing that your coffee is as high-quality as they want, they’ll ask the next question:

• But is this coffee really better than ______’s coffee?

Coffee is always compared, so to stand out, you have to give your customers something that’s incomparable.

Doing that isn’t as challenging as it sounds.

Here are the three elements every coffee ecommerce page needs.

Read: The 7 Ecommerce Emails That Sell Coffee On Autopilot

1. Basic Product Information

You’d be amazed how many companies forget to publish the most basic info about their coffee. As a customer, it’s a fast turn-off to not have your most simple questions answered.

Make sure to indicate:

• Product price
• Single purchase vs subscription
• Coffee bag size (in ounces or grams)
• Grind (even if you only sell whole bean, say it explicitly)

These are the bare bone details necessary to provide a surface-level user experience on your website.

Read: Selling Coffee Online? How To Not Get Lost In The Crowd

2. Coffee Details (Quality Indicators)

Most coffee lovers want some feeling of control and choice over their coffee.

Whether you use cute product names (Mainstay Blend) or origin-based names (Nyeri Hill Estate AB), make sure to offer enough information that both enthusiasts and casual coffee drinks can identify the details that matter to them.

Details to include:

• Taste notes highlights (3 key flavors)
• Origin details or history
• Roast level
• Expanded flavor profile (describe the flavor experience)
• Processing method
• Farm altitude

This is what people look for to answer that first question: Does this meet my flavor quality standards?

Some customers may be sold at the tasting notes highlights. Others may be looking for a specific process and altitude combo. With a high level of transparency, you can appeal to both type of customers.

Read: Stop Trying To Be Blue Bottle Coffee

Bonus points if you can communite these elements not just with text, but with visually interesting design elements.

I love this bite-sized section from Counter Culture that make it easy as a customer to quickly compare coffee details from page to page since there’s a repeatable convention for communicating flavor, roast, process, and more.

3. A Deeper Why (How To Win Comparisons)

Here’s the thing.

80% of coffee companies do all or most of the above. They have tasty descriptions. They name the farmers. They give lots of origin and processing details.

And this leaves customers asking the second question: But is this coffee really better than _____’s coffee?

Everyone’s coffee looks good on a screen. But how can customers distinguish which coffees are a spectacular fit for them?

Read: Are You Selling A Product, Or Transformation?

There are a couple suggestions you can add to stand out:

• A “why we love this coffee” section. Get a barista or someone in the company to write a few sentences on why the coffee is special. It can be about the farmer, a personal memory, anything. The idea is to humaize the coffee so it’s not just another option on a screen.
• A “this coffee represents” section. Is there something about the farmer or origin story that’s inspiring or meaningful? Infuse that into the product copy to make the coffee more than just beans in a bag, but a meaningful or impactful purchase.
• Sustainability or impact. Does this coffee accomplish something unique or interesting at any point in the supply chain? Talk about it not as an objective, outside observer, but as a curator who’s THRILLED to share such an important story and coffee. Keep it human.

This is the magic.

This is where a tasty coffee becomes a meaningful experience that your customers will want over and over again.

(And almost nobody does it. I hard a difficult time finding examples!)

Union Coffee focuses on impact in their product descriptions and ties the consumer’s decision to meaningful change in the world.

JavaPresse Coffee takes the origin or farmer story and connects it to an inspiring message that customers can use to refocus on what matters most.

Don’t settle for a “good enough” page. You may be able to keep existing customers, but you’ll have a hard time attracting new ones.

Sticking out with exceptional product pages isn’t hard, but you have to be willing to go one step beyond everyone else.

Shoot for meaning. You don’t just sell coffee beans. You sell refreshing mornings. You sell responsible sourcing and ethical consumerism. You sell moments that make your customers’ days better.

Sell that.