Why your product descriptions read like the manufacturer’s PDF

You sell a wooden chopping board. The product description on your shop reads, in its entirety:

Features:
· FSC-certified European oak
· Dimensions: 40cm × 25cm × 2cm
· Oiled finish
· Hand wash only
· Made in Portugal

This is the manufacturer’s PDF. The manufacturer wrote it to be filed by purchasing managers at five different shops, all of whom needed the same facts in the same order. You then copied it into your shop, where it is now read by a person who is trying to decide whether they want to spend forty pounds on a chopping board for their kitchen.

The person trying to decide is not a purchasing manager. They do not file things. They want to know whether the chopping board will be the right size for the bread they slice, whether it will look pleasant left out on the counter, whether the oil will need re-applying, whether the corners are sharp enough to be a liability around children. The manufacturer’s PDF tells them none of this.

What a product description is actually for.

Three jobs, in this order:

1. To tell the customer who the product is for.
2. To describe what the product is like in use.
3. To quietly reassure the customer that the obvious objections have been thought about.

The specs are not the description. The specs are a small table at the bottom of the page, in monospace, where the people who care about specs (perhaps fifteen percent of buyers) can find them. The other eighty-five percent want a paragraph that reads like it was written by a person who has actually used the thing.

The chopping board, rewritten.

A large, flat board for everyday use — big enough for a whole loaf of sourdough, small enough to live on the counter without taking over. The oak is dense and forgiving; it takes the knife well and stays mostly silent under it, which matters more than people realise. Re-oil it once a year, never put it in the dishwasher, and it will outlast most of the other things in your kitchen.

Specifications
European oak (FSC-certified) · 40 × 25 × 2 cm · oiled finish · hand wash only · made in Portugal.

Eighty-three words of description, twenty-two of specifications. The customer now knows it is for everyday use, that it will fit a loaf of sourdough, that the wood is dense, that knife noise is considered, that maintenance is once a year and clearly defined, and that the shop expects you to keep it for a long time. The specifications are still there, just in their proper place — at the bottom, in support.

Notice what the rewrite did not do. It did not invent claims (“the finest oak in Europe!”). It did not pad with adjectives (“artisan crafted to perfection”). It did not lecture (“in an age of disposable kitchen tools…”). It described what the thing is like, and stopped.

Why it matters for search, not just sales.

Google reads product descriptions and forms an opinion about what each page is “about.” If your description is the manufacturer’s PDF, identical to twenty other shops selling the same item, Google has no way to prefer your page over theirs. The page is, in Google’s assessment, duplicate content. It will pick one shop to rank for the search and bury the rest.

If your description is, by contrast, written in your own voice, with details only someone who has held the product would write, it is — in Google’s assessment — your page about this product. Even when the product itself is sold by twenty other shops, your description is not. You move up the results page for being interesting, which is a phrase that should not need saying, but does.

The formula, since you will ask.

The Goblin is reluctant to formulate things, because formulas tempt people to fill them in mechanically, which produces the next manufacturer’s PDF. But fine.

1. One sentence on who it is for and what they will do with it.
2. One or two sentences on what it is like in use — a sensory or operational detail, never a feature claim.
3. One sentence on maintenance, longevity, or the obvious objection.
4. A short specifications block, set apart from the prose.

That is the floor. Some products want more — a paragraph about the maker, a note about the sourcing, a story about the design. Most do not. Four sentences and a spec block is a respectable place to land for the great majority of small-shop products.

Rewriting your product descriptions is the slowest improvement on most shops and also the highest-impact. Twenty product pages, twenty minutes each, you have spent a working day; you will see results within a quarter. The Goblin will, if you summon him, do ten of them for you for two hundred and forty-nine dollars, which works out at twenty-five each, with his signature on the cover.

— The Goblin, with no patience for the word “features.”