How to Write Product Descriptions That Sell

Nobody has ever bought a bullet point

Here is a description of a candle: soy wax, 220 grams, 45 hour burn time, cotton wick, lavender and bergamot.

Every word of it is true and none of it is why anyone buys a candle. The person reading it wants to know whether it will actually smell of anything from across the room, whether it is a decent thing to turn up with at a dinner party, and whether lavender means the nice kind or the kind that smells like a hospital corridor.

A description sells when it answers the question in the customer's head. That question is almost never the specification. It is usually some version of will this work for me, and will I regret it.

In plain English

Feature:: A fact about the thing. 220 grams, 45 hour burn time, hand stitched.
Benefit:: What that fact does for the person buying. Burns all evening without needing replacing.
Objection:: The private worry stopping someone buying. Too expensive, will not fit, will not last.
Keyword stuffing:: Cramming search terms into text until it stops reading like English. Helps nobody, including your ranking.

Start with the real question

The reason most AI-written descriptions are terrible is that people ask for a description. What you should give the AI first is the customer.

Not a persona document. Just a sentence or two about a real person who bought from you, and the thing they worried about before they did.

❌ Weak prompt

Prompt

Write a product description for a soy wax candle, 220g, 45 hour burn, lavender and bergamot.

Output

Indulge in the luxurious ambiance of our premium soy wax candle. Expertly crafted with a natural cotton wick, this exquisite candle delivers 45 hours of enchanting lavender and bergamot fragrance to elevate any space.

Indulge, luxurious, exquisite, elevate. It could be any candle from any shop, and the reader learns nothing they did not already know from the photo.

✅ Good prompt

Prompt

Write a description for a 220g soy candle, lavender and bergamot, 45 hour burn, hand poured by me. My actual customers are people buying a small present for someone they like but do not know well: a neighbour, a colleague leaving. Their worry is that scented candles are often either overpowering or smell of nothing. Address that directly. 90 words, plain, no words like indulge, luxurious or elevate.

Output

A candle for the awkward present. Strong enough that you notice it from the doorway, mild enough that nobody has to open a window. Lavender first, then something sharper underneath so it does not tip into hospital corridor...

It knows who is buying and why they hesitate. The specification is still in there, but it arrives as reassurance rather than as a list.

Prompt you can copy: description built around the customer

Write a product description.
THE PRODUCT: [what it is, plus the three facts that genuinely matter]
WHO ACTUALLY BUYS IT: [a real customer, in a sentence. Not a marketing persona.]
WHY THEY BUY IT: [the occasion or the problem it solves]
WHAT WORRIES THEM BEFORE BUYING: [the real hesitation]
WHAT MAKES MINE DIFFERENT: [honestly, even if it is small]
Answer their worry directly. Lead with what it does for them, not what it is
made of. [90] words. Plain English. Ban these words: indulge, luxurious,
elevate, curated, artisanal, game-changing, unlock.

Checkpoint

Tell the AI who buys the thing and what worries them before they do. Everything good in a description comes from those two answers.

Where to find the real questions

You do not have to guess what customers want to know. They have been telling you for years.

Your inbox is full of pre-purchase questions. Your reviews say what people were relieved about and what disappointed them. The thing you find yourself explaining every single time at the market stall is, without exception, the thing missing from your description.

Prompt you can copy: mine your own messages for what to write

Below are real questions customers have asked me before buying, and some reviews.
Personal details are removed.

What are the five things people most want to know before they buy?
Which of those does my current description fail to answer?
Rewrite the description so the top three are answered in the first 40 words.
MY CURRENT DESCRIPTION:
[paste it]
CUSTOMER QUESTIONS AND REVIEWS:
[paste them]

Writing for a person, not a search engine

There is a strong temptation to write for Google instead. Resist most of it.

Keyword-stuffed descriptions read like they were assembled by a machine that had the concept of English described to it once, and shoppers can smell it instantly. Search engines have been penalising that for years, and AI-powered search is even less impressed by it.

Use your customers' actual words, which is a different thing entirely. If people ask for a cake for a christening, the word christening should be in there. That is not optimisation, it is just describing the thing the way buyers describe it.

One sensible search instruction: ask ChatGPT or Gemini to write the description naturally, then to write a separate title and one-line summary using the phrases customers actually type. Keep the description human and put the search work where it belongs.

Never let AI generate claims about your product. It will confidently write waterproof, hypoallergenic, handmade in Britain, lasts five years or suitable for sensitive skin because those phrases fit the pattern. Some of those are regulated claims. Every factual statement must be one you wrote and can stand behind.

The three-length trick

You need the same product described at three lengths: a title, a short line for a listing or a social post, and the full description. Ask for all three at once, from the same brief, and they stay consistent.

Prompt you can copy: one product, three lengths

Using the brief below, give me three versions of the same description.

A title under 60 characters.
One sentence, under 25 words, for a listing or social post.
The full description, [90] words.
Same voice throughout. All three must lead with the same single idea about why
someone buys this. Do not repeat the title word for word inside the description.
THE BRIEF:
[paste your product, customer and worry from earlier]

The read-back test

Read the finished description imagining a real customer standing in front of you. If a sentence is one you would never say out loud to their face, delete it. Nobody has ever stood at a market stall and described their own soap as artisanal.

📝 Quiz

Question 1 of 4

What is the most important thing to tell an AI before it writes a product description?