Four templates, starting one paragraph below this one. If you searched for a product description template free of charge, you did not come here to read two thousand words about why descriptions matter. Copy the block that matches what you sell and fill in the brackets. Delete any line that does not apply — every template here has at least one field most sellers will not need.
Template 1: apparel
[PRODUCT NAME] — [WEIGHT + FABRIC] [GARMENT] in [COLOUR] [One sentence: when you would actually wear it. An occasion, a season, or the outfit it finishes off.] Fit: [Cut] — [runs true to size / size down for a closer fit] Model: [Height], wearing size [SIZE] Fabric: [Composition] · [weight in gsm] · [stretch: none / 2-way / 4-way] Care: [Washing instructions, six words maximum] Why it is made this way: [One or two sentences on a construction choice the customer would otherwise never notice — the seam, the lining, the hem, the button.] [Size guide link] · [Returns window]
Apparel returns come down to fit or feel, and both are decided before the order is placed. The model height line and the gsm figure are there to answer them. If you fill in only three brackets on this one, make them fit, model height and fabric composition — the rest can wait until the photography is done.
Template 2: consumer electronics
[PRODUCT NAME] [MODEL NUMBER] — [what it does, in twelve words or fewer] Works with: [devices, OS versions, ports, standards] Does not work with: [the thing buyers assume it works with] In the box: - [item] - [item] - [item] SPEC VALUE WHAT THAT MEANS IN USE [spec] [value] [plain-English consequence] [spec] [value] [plain-English consequence] [spec] [value] [plain-English consequence] Not for you if: [the honest disqualifier] Warranty: [length] — [what it covers, what voids it]
The line people flinch at is Does not work with. Put it in anyway. An unanswered compatibility question is either a support ticket or an abandoned cart, and the buyer who reads the disqualifier and orders regardless is the buyer who keeps the product. That third column matters too: a value with no consequence attached is a spec sheet, not a description.
Template 3: food and consumables
[PRODUCT NAME] — [FORMAT], [NET WEIGHT or COUNT] Tastes like: [three concrete comparisons — the word "delicious" is banned] Texture: [one or two words] Intensity: [mild --o------ strong] (heat, sweetness, roast, acidity) Use it for: [the dish, the drink, the moment] Pairs with: [two or three specifics] Servings: [how many, and how long an opened pack keeps] Ingredients: [full list, in order, copied from the pack] Contains: [allergens] Also handled in this facility: [allergens] Storage: [before opening] / [after opening]
Three concrete comparisons beat any adjective — people can taste "burnt caramel and orange peel" and cannot taste "rich flavour profile". The bottom half of this template is not copy. Transcribe the ingredient and allergen lines straight off the pack rather than paraphrasing them, and check what your market requires you to display before you publish.
Template 4: homeware and furniture
[PRODUCT NAME] — [MATERIAL] [OBJECT] for [ROOM] Dimensions: W [ ] × D [ ] × H [ ] cm ([ ] × [ ] × [ ] in) Usable height: [seat height / clearance / gap between shelves] Weight: [ ] kg · Holds: [max load] Boxed: [ ] × [ ] × [ ] — through a standard doorway: [yes / no] Materials: [surface] over [frame], [finish] Assembly: [parts] · [tools included: yes/no] · [realistic time] Care: [how to clean it] · [what will ruin it] Belongs in: [two or three rooms or styles] Lead time: [in stock / made to order, [X] weeks]
Furniture returns are logistics, not taste. Someone bought a shelving unit that will not go up the stairs. Boxed dimensions and the doorway line cost you one measurement each and prevent the expensive kind of return, and giving dimensions in both metric and imperial stops half your customers doing arithmetic on a phone.
The apparel template, filled in
Field Linen Shirt — 200 gsm washed linen shirt in olive
The shirt you pull on over a t-shirt when a September evening turns cold.
Fit: Relaxed through the body, straight hem — size down if you
want it closer
Model: 183 cm, wearing M
Fabric: 100% European flax linen · 200 gsm · no stretch
Care: Machine wash cold, line dry, iron damp
Why it is made this way:
At 200 gsm this is heavier than most shirting, so it hangs away from
you instead of clinging, and it does not go see-through in hard light.
The side seams are French seams, which is why there is nothing
scratchy inside the hem.
Size guide · 30-day returns
A sentence, a spec block, one honest explanation. Nothing in it could be lifted onto a competitor's page and stay true, which is the only test that reliably separates useful copy from filler. Notice what is missing: no company history, no "premium quality", no paragraph explaining that linen is a natural fibre.
Filling in the brackets without writing filler
Fill the spec block first. Numbers, materials, dimensions, compatibility — that part you cannot fake, and it is the part you will not be rewriting next quarter. The opening prose line gets written last, because writing one good sentence about a product is much easier after you have stared at its specification than it is to start with the sentence and then reverse-engineer facts that support it.
Then run every line past one question: could this sit unchanged on a competitor's page and still be true? "Premium quality materials" passes that test on roughly every product page on the internet, which is precisely why it does no work. "200 gsm washed linen, heavy enough that it does not cling" fails it. Cannot be moved. That is the whole trick, and most description advice takes two thousand words to avoid saying it.
The content for the brackets already exists inside your business, in three places nobody treats as source material. The questions customers send before buying. The reason codes on your returns. And whatever your best salesperson says on the phone in the ten seconds before someone decides — that sentence is usually better than anything the marketing team has written, and it is free.
Numbers beat adjectives every time. "Lightweight" is a claim; 340 g is checkable. Go through your draft and replace each adjective with the measurement behind it, and where there turns out to be no measurement behind it, that is worth sitting with for a moment rather than reaching for a synonym.
The bracket most people skip is Why it is made this way, which is a shame, because it is the one that pays for itself. One construction decision explained plainly does more for trust than three paragraphs of brand story. It signals that somebody who actually understands the product wrote the page. It is also the single hardest field to fill from a language model, since the answer is not on the internet — it is in your factory, or your supplier's email, or your own head.
Draft them with a model if you want to. It is genuinely good at turning a spec sheet into that third column, and genuinely bad at every other field here. Two rules, then. It never invents a number, and it never writes the construction line. Anything you cannot check against a document or a physical sample on the desk in front of you does not go on the page, however well it reads.
On keywords: put the search term in the title and in the first sentence, then leave it alone. Repeating it in every heading was a tactic that stopped working a decade ago, and it makes the page unreadable in a way shoppers notice even when they cannot name it.
Last thing, and it matters more than any individual description: pick a field order and keep it across the whole catalogue. A shopper comparing two of your products should find the weight in the same place both times. When they cannot, they stop comparing and leave.
How long should each description be?
As long as the decision takes. A refill pouch of coffee that the same person has bought four times needs two lines and a spec block, and padding it out is actively worse than leaving it short. A sofa needs the doorway measurement, the fabric rub count, the delivery terms and the lead time, and if that runs long, it runs long. Word-count targets from SEO plugins are the wrong frame entirely. Marketplaces cap you anyway, and the caps differ by platform and change without much warning.
Three lines to delete from every draft
- "Premium quality materials." Name the material, or cut the sentence.
- "Perfect for anyone who..." Anyone is not a customer. Name one person.
- Any sentence addressing two audiences at once. Beginners and professionals do not buy the same thing for the same reasons. Choose.
If you delete a line and cannot replace it with something specific, notice that. Sometimes the copy is vague because the product is.
What a product description template free of charge won't fix
A template hands you structure. It does not hand you the facts, and the facts are the work — the brackets take longer to fill than the template took to design, which is the point.
It also will not rescue weak imagery. Photographs answer scale, colour and texture faster than any sentence can, and they answer first, before a shopper has read a word. If that side is not solid, no amount of bracket-filling helps: start with your product photography and make sure the files are sized correctly for the platform, then come back to the copy.
Before you paste these into your store
Run one template across ten products before you commit it to four hundred. You will find a bracket your catalogue cannot fill and a field you need that is not here — a certification, a lead time, a compatibility caveat particular to what you sell. Fix the template then, while fixing it is cheap.
