Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Abhyudaya Tripathi who is a digital marketing expert
Technological advancement has brought a new dawn to the world of business as e-commerce has dominated the market for over a decade. Thus, no wonder why companies have jumped into the business of online selling.
However e-commerce is not just buying and selling your products; it’s a full-fledged way to run a business online. So, this goes without saying that, companies have to pay proper attention towards the development and maintenance of their e-commerce websites too.
This post will outline all the mistakes to avoid when building your online business so you can start generating more sales and revenue. So let’s take a look at them, one by one.
1. Choosing The Wrong Platform
Choosing a platform is the most crucial step, and if you do a mistake here, then all your efforts will prove ineffective. Companies, especially startups often get confused while choosing a platform for e-commerce website development. However, it all hinges on business requirements and user experience goals.
In the end, what matters to businesses is which platform allows selling in the best possible manner. Several e-commerce development platforms offer free trials. And, I would suggest you to give them a shot before your choose your right one.
Here are some e-commerce platform to check out:
Shopify
LemonStand
Magento
BigCommerce
WooCommerce
2. Running Without Strategy
Be a smart entrepreneur; never waste your valuable time, energy, and other resources on running without any strategy. Make sure each part is clearly outlined and in the best interest of your business.
You can follow these points to get a good start. For Drafting Strategy make sure to:
Identify your market and buyers
Ask customers to leave feedbacks
Make every process transparent
Plan to ensure smooth supply management
Target mobile audience
Plan to provide uninterrupted service and support
Think social
Prepare policies
3. Not Adding Trust Factors
The success of an e-commerce business heavily depends on trust. You can enhance your e-commerce website’s trust factor by adding:
SSL certificate
Terms of use
Privacy policy
Refund/exchange policy
Furthermore, you have to ensure your visitors that their personal information will be kept highly confidential. And to build your trust factor even more with a professional website, you may want to keep in mind these design tips:
Keep design simple yet effective
Provide a clear product category and easy navigation
Align you CTA with your content
Add section for product reviews
4. Underestimating Mobile
Undoubtedly, mobile is the future and, if you ignore the mobile audience, then it may prove disastrous for your business. Which is why you can’t shy away from the fact that modern day buyers have become more mobile and powerful than ever. They love to perform online searches on their smartphones or tablets in order to make the best buy.
Therefore it’s essential to make your e-commerce site mobile-friendly to your target audience.
RELATED POST: Mobile is the Future of E-commerce. Here’s How to Prepare For It
5. No Contact Information
Greatest mistake you can make will be the possibility of losing trust in the market if you hide your contact information. If you think like a normal buyer then it’s you right to know with whom you are dealing with.
Showing all crucial contact details like customer care number, email address, office address, and phone numbers increase trust factor and give your buyers a reason to shop on your e-commerce site. Hiding contact information makes you a suspect entity. Consequently, you lose trust in the eyes of customers.
So, make sure to list all essential contact details on your website to become trustworthy.
6. Overusing Popups
A study reveals that 98 percent of the visitors never buy when they first arrive on your site, and around 55 percent visitors leave your site in just 15 seconds.
So, the stats clearly indicate that you have a very short span of 15 seconds to convince visitors to make a purchase from your site. However, it all hinge on users’ intent.
In this situation, popups come into action as it enables you to capture information from your visitors such as an email addresses. If you succeed at capturing their emails, then you can entice them with some exciting offers delivered to their inbox so they visit your site again.
Popups have also shown to be highly effective at recovering shopping cart abandonment rate. But remember to use them in moderation.
7. Depriving Your Customers of Free Shipping
You can’t deny the fact people love freebies, and if you provide them free shipping, then sales conversions are more likely to happen on your e-commerce site.
Take a glance at this striking information regarding free shipping:
A survey unveils that around 73 percent of the online buyers considered free shipping as a decisive factor to complete the purchase. And, if you offer the same, then it could improve your sales dramatically. While those who don’t, are likely to face high shopping cart abandonment rates.
8. Not Exhibiting Product Reviews
If you believe in transparency, then you must add product reviews section on your e-commerce site. A study by E-consultancy indicates that before purchasing a product, around 61 percent of customers go through reviews.
Product reviews help people make their buying decisions by highlighting what others think of your products. Doing so will enhance your credibility, and undoubtedly lead to an increase in conversion.
RELATED POST: 7 Strategies For Attracting More Customer Reviews
9. Overseeing the Power of Social Media
If you don’t leverage social media to target buyers, then you’re probably making one of the greatest business mistakes.
However, promoting business on social media is a serious task, as you have to be cautious about overselling your products and services. Therefore be sure to do it responsibly so that you maintain your brand loyalty in the eyes of your fans, followers, and customers.
RELATED POST: How To Use Social Media For Your E-Commerce Business
10. Not Measuring Performance
If you don’t monitor performance regularly, you are making one of the biggest gaffes as it may prove a stumbling block for your business to achieve heights.
However don’t go too far, just think of a gift shop owner who on a daily basis will check key figures such as revenue, the number of sold products, and total visitors to get key insights and to determine whether they are on the right path.
Similarly, being an owner of e-commerce business, it is your responsibility to get a website developed with Google Analytics on board. You can get crucial data about your website’s performance from Google Analytics so you can better understand the areas you lack at to improve it further.
RELATED POST: 9 Key E-commerce Metrics Every Entrepreneur Needs To Track
Did we miss something? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
About the author
Abhyudaya Tripathi is a digital marketing expert with over 8 years of precious experience and presently he is an Associate Director at ResultFirst Organization. He is extremely passionate about making information seekers and quest lovers aware about digital marketing.
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