A business is full of risks and challenges. There are circumstances when you rise on the top and situations when you experience a strong downfall. Whether the money is yours or someone else, risk is essential to grow your business.
One of the best quotes by Elon Musk, "It's okay to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to your basket." To control this basket, you need expertise and tactics. Therefore, preparation is required to step out with the confidence of avoiding the common mistakes that we do so that the eggs in the basket remain unharmed.
eCommerce business is not different from this concept. Budding entrepreneurs often lack the proper expertise and tools that drive the growth of their business resulting in loads of mistakes in the eCommerce space. You can partner with any Best Magento Development Company for all your eCommerce needs.
This blog highlights all the possible mistakes that an entrepreneur makes while selling online in their eCommerce journey. Let us check them.
The mistakes that are often made by the eCommerce business owners are:
- Choosing a wrong eCommerce Platform
- Target Audience not defined
- Scalable website design and complicated navigation
- Underpricing the products
- Improper Branding
- Repelling Checkout process
- Poor customer service
- Non SEO-friendly website content
Let us checkout these 8 eCommerce mistakes in detail if you are aiming to scale your business to newer heights.
Choosing a wrong eCommerce Platform:
Your selection for an eCommerce platform for your e-store is critical. One wrong choice and it will cost you:
- Revenue
- Conversions
- Traffic
- Security
- User-experience
- To avoid these costly fixes at a later stage, the following research will guide you to select a perfect eCommerce platform for your e-store:
- The products you plan to offer
- Your plan to scale your business
- The amount of control you desire to have on your business
- The control you would like others to have on your website.
- The budget you have
- Tools that your platform needs to integrate
- The design you want to opt for- template or custom
- The experience your customers are looking for
The choice of your eCommerce platform decides the fate of your business. With the capability of showcasing products on your e-store, it also attracts the users towards your business and contributes in scaling it to newer heights.
Target audience not defined
You are on the dais standing with the mic and ready to perform, but there is no one to hear. What is the purpose of taking efforts and preparing a performance when there is no one to see?
You have a website, a full-proof plan to begin with your business, but you have not defined the set of audience to pitch your product. This is one of the most common mistakes new entrepreneurs make while landing into the eCommerce pool.Â
- A proper market research that includes:
- The pain points of your target customers
- How the product will serve the needs of the audience
- The solutions they have tried to serve their needs
- The content that engages them the most
- What kind of communication do they prefer to understand about a product?
If your research is around these questions, you will definitely define your target audience. Defining a set of audience for your product is necessary as they would resonate with the brand message touching their pain points and the desire for a solution that they would be getting from you.
Scalable website design and complicated navigation
A website's importance is not hidden to us. Websites don't limit themselves to market your business around the globe and get a maximum reach. They play a very important role in establishing credibility for your business.
A website design should be so flexible that all the important elements vital to your business to get into the new markets is easily incorporated. With the growth in business, your website should be able to integrate complex features, and capable enough to offer a wide range of products catering to the needs of your audience.
You can discuss with your eCommerce platform representative and web developer to opt for a website design that would grow with your business needs. This is necessary if you want to avoid expensive, time-consuming hurdles at later stages.
What is the use of having a business website that doesn't convert your visitors into customers?
Functionality and design are the two important elements of your eCommerce website. Difficult navigation including ambiguous terms, difficult to find the content, and features not working properly will repel the customers from your website. This directly affects your online sales and revenue.
This problem can be solved by consulting a UX expert for making your website's navigation smooth and accord your customers with an enjoyable user experience.
Underpricing the Products
You are selling a coffee mug at $10. You have a list of expenses like production, marketing the product and business, business listing, and cost incurred in the platform. Do you think with offering such a low price for a product, you are actually making money?
Indeed, you are losing more money. eCommerce is costly and you will often lose your money if you are unaware about the figures.
The eCommerce space is wide and highly competitive. Whether a novice user or a pro, you need to get into the tune of this ever-changing market.
If you would have estimated the total expenses behind a single product, you would have correctly priced your products. Pricing them upwards for a positive cash flow would be the right decision for your business. In this example, it would be ideal to price the product to $20 keeping in mind all the taxes and expenditure you incur.
Have you done a financial analysis before deciding for the prices of your products?
Your financial analysis for pricing a product should include:
- Shipping
- Returns
- Overhead costs
Improper Branding
Be honest to yourself!
Did you pick a domain name randomly and quickly planned for your business and products? Did you give a shot at the SEO concepts and the product relevance to the name?
You have a business plan that is about fragrances. If you name your company as Ashley's Secrets, how people know what exactly you are selling online? You aren't a celebrity, then how people will know you?
It seems if you will need a rebranding.
It is mandatory for you while you launch your eCommerce business to:
- Name the company relevant to your business.
- The name of the company should reflect the product you are selling
eCommerce potential is known to all. Right from expanding your business with new product categories to branding, keep in mind that your company name never holds you back.
Repelling Checkout Process
Are you ready to close the deal?
But damn! They have abandoned their carts and walked away without making a purchase.
Lots of eCommerce businesses suffer from shopping cart abandonment. A complicated checkout process is one of the major reasons held responsible for this.
Fumbling up through the checkout process makes a user frustrated. Long and slow process, long forms, forceful registration, lack of payment options, declined credit cards, lack of trust symbols, and so on are repelling agents for the customers to give up at the checkout process.
- To make your checkout process enticing:
- Make the process simple
- Uncluttered design
- Outline precise steps
- Eye-catching buttons
- No hidden costs
- Trust Symbols
Poor Customer Service
An ideal Customer service includes:
- The way you respond to the queries of your customers on various platforms.
- The way you address the problems over phones and email.
- Follow-up
- Fast-track process
- Highly responsible and attentive
Often entrepreneurs overlook the customers' complaints and held them on deaf ears. They respond late to the queries, show impatience towards them, and doesn't offer refunds. They have a slow response time towards the queries or issues raised towards their services and products. Such poor customer service will result in losing existing customers.
When you are into the eCommerce pool, you need to provide the best customer service in the market as it is an important metric in increasing the sales of your e-store. You should be able to access your customers in every step right from acquiring information to follow-up. This way you can assure them about round the clock support for any issues that would rise as soon as possible and resolved quickly and professionally.
Non SEO-friendly website content
Does you eCommerce business depends on the organic traffic?
If this is the case, then the content of your website should cater to the SEO guidelines and users requirements.
Most of the e-store owners underestimate the existence of content on their website. They treat it as if it is just a piece of content to fill up the place. The content on your website is an opportunity to attract the maximum traffic and have loads of conversions for your business.
Your content should be optimized for search engine traffic adhering to the requirements of your target audience. Every piece of content, right from your Homepage to the product descriptions, should be perfectly blended keeping in mind the target customers for your business.
Focusing on the right keywords as per the niche and a content that is SEO-friendly makes your website and products ready to compete in the market to sell.
You can also read: 7 eCommerce mistakes one should avoid
In a nutshell
We come to the end of the blog. It is expected that the reader has taken the top 8 mistakes that almost all entrepreneurs do affecting the online sales. Working on these mistakes will surely make you achieve the desired growth in business with maximum sales and revenue.
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