Common E-commerce mistakes
E-commerce sites are used worldwide and are booming but many business owners whether their e-commerce site is C2B, or B2B or, B2C make mistakes with their site. So, what are the most common e-commerce mistakes that business owners make?
Mistake one – Take a good look at what you need
Before you even go online you need to take a good look at what exactly you’re selling. Different products will require certain packaging, shipping regulations, and age-restricted product verifications. Start by breaking your products down into “stores”. For example, if you sell clothing break it down into going outwear (men/women/unisex), casual wear (men/women/unisex), etc. What you’ll start to see is how many main pages you’ll need for your e-commerce site and how flexible the showcasing of your products needs to be.
When choosing a platform to showcase your products really think about your needs:
- Do you need to personalise your page?
- How many products will the site hold?
- Who’s your target audience?
- What is your brand?
I know this seems like very simple information, but these really are the foundation of your e-commerce.
Mistake two: Speak with your clients
I’m guessing, and forgive me if I’m wrong: if you’re looking to set up an e-commerce for the first time, then you already have a client base backing you and the products you sell. Correct? Yes, ahh good. What works for your brain doesn’t work for others, and that’s a fact. A big e-commerce mistake that new business owners make is forgetting who got them where they are today, hold on to those customers tightly.
Speak with your current clients about what platforms they use, what sort of layouts attracts them, and most of all – What makes them buy more. Ignoring the ideas of tried and trusted return clients will lead you into even more common e-commerce mistakes, these are the people who if you do this right – will continue to buy from you.
Look up other stores that sell similar products as you, obviously you don’t want to look exactly the same as them, but it will give you inspiration (don’t worry, there’s literally no such thing as original anymore).
Mistake three: Pricing and delivery
Never compromise on your prices, if someone else is doing the same product cheaper – let them. You don’t know how much delivery they pay, or how much it costs them to host their site, or even how much time they put into their store and products. Just leave them to do their store, and you do yours. On the flip side, don’t price yourself out of the market. Every buyer understands that occasionally there will be a price increase due to supply costs, shipping charges, … but again, reasonable price increases are okay, don’t just throw your prices up because you fancy a new pair of shoes or eating at Salt Bae’s restaurant.
Delivery charges and delivery times need to be specified and correct, none of this we’ll calculate your delivery charge at the end, it puts people off. There needs to be a balance between your pricing and your delivery charges, if you were to put every item up by £1 and then put a standard delivery charge of £6 then people will not buy from you. Would you pay delivery on a £1 item, no? I didn’t think so.
Chose a courier wisely, these people are your final frontier before reaching the customer, and if their parcel is lost, battered, or miss-delivered – you’ll be the one replacing it. Not all courier services have a good reputation, which can have a knock-on effect on your business if you don’t put the time into choosing. People will be put off from buying from you if you use a poorly rated delivery service.
Mistake four: Checking your website for updates and errors
Regularly run checks on your website for bugs, pricing errors, and everything else that can pop up from time to time. If a client reports an error to you, make sure that you have it checked and corrected straight away. Errors on your page cause your site to play up, which creates a poor user experience resulting in client loss, customers not returning, and sometimes not even completing their transaction. The user experience should always be one of your main focuses, as I’ve said before – your clients pay your bills. The better you treat them, the more loyal they will be to you.
If you wish to, run your website through the seasons. Create packages for the different festivities as they come up, if you decide to do extra for new clients, do something for your loyal clients as well.
By hiring the right web and e-commerce developer, you’ll be able to avoid common e-commerce mistakes.
Contact us for more information.