Fatal E-Commerce Website Mistakes Costing You Sales
Every E-Commerce website is its own animal. Sometimes sales happen instantly and other times it takes time to build up the traffic. This can depend on the size of the market, type of marketing, amount of digital marketing or just the quality or desirability of the product. Successor failure with E-Commerce websites can also be related to the mistakes you are or are not making. Here is a list of some common fatal mistakes that you are maybe making without even realizing.
Insisting customers create an account.
When people shop on your website, they want to buy the items and checkout as soon and as fast as possible. Many shoppers aren’t willing to share their information and pay more time than required in completing their order. Being requested to become a registered member may cause a negative impact. Provide your customers a choice of membership rather than making it mandatory.
Assuming partners or channels will sell for you
Hiring someone and giving them the responsibility of sales doesn’t mean that you can wash your hands of the responsibility. Also using only social media as a channel to increase sales is not enough. Although salespeople and social media are helpful and will make a huge difference, you, at least at the beginning, have got to perfect your sales process and continue to “pound the pavement”.
Thinking that everybody can/will buy your product
You have got to pick a market first! Know these people inside and out and then sell your product to them. This is the most fatal step not only for any e-commerce platform. You have to punch through the chatter of the market so that your product stands out.
Overwhelming your customers with shipping charges on your E-Commerce Website
About 40% of customers abandon their shopping cart if they are presented with unanticipated shipping costs. It’s perfectly okay to charge for shipping as long as it is clearly specified before and does not come across as a shock to your customer.
Bad online reviews
More than half of consumers base their purchase decisions on online reviews posted by other customers. If there are satisfied reviews by former customers, it is bound to influence the decisions of present customers. Studying your online reviews gives a great perspective into what you are doing right and how you can improve. Also not responding to bad reviews also demonstrates a lack of customer relation. Sometimes people are beyond help but at least if you provide a response it tells new prospective customers that you tried and that you want to make things right when there is a problem.
E-Commerce websites are everywhere and there are many different schools of thought on what makes a good online store. Avoid the above mistakes and you should be able to take your online store to the next level.
You can read about more online website mistakes or best practices here – Double Website Leads or here – Website Design 101. You can also download our 47 Point Home Page Checklist or for a personalized assessment of your website sign up for our FREE website rescue audit.
