10 Mistakes Every New Ecommerce Website Should Avoid
Do you own an e-commerce site or planning to have one? Well, you must know that you have a tough competition out there. Thus, you have to be more cautious and better than your competitors. This is the era of online shopping and e-commerce stores are meant to make profits. Since the competition is high; all you need to do is think out of the box while planning your strategies.
Often new e-commerce websites tend to make mistakes which, if avoided, could save the trouble. Every startup is inexperienced and ‘Trial and Error’ is a must follow approach. In startups, blunders are supposed to happen and you should deal with it but, it’s always better not make one.
Let’s check out some mistakes that every new e-commerce store should avoid.
1) Website which is not SEO friendly.
The very 1st thing you need for an e-commerce store is an e-commerce website. Develop e-commerce website which is SEO friendly and technically correct. SEO is the only factor that will rank your website on Google’s 1st page. If your website doesn’t follow search engine rules, there are fair chances that your website will never be able to compete with your competitors.
If you already have a website, it’s time to work on its SEO. You must focus On-Page as well as Off-Page optimization of your e-commerce store.
If you wish to avoid all sort of SEO nuisance, you can hire an SEO Agency to do SEO for you. We at Nethority are experts in e-commerce SEO; check out our Ecommerce SEO packages.
2) Bad user experience
Your customers are visiting your online store but if your website’s load time is high or if they find themselves getting stuck while navigating then, your website has a bad UX. You need to provide best user experience to your customers as first impress matters a lot. Make sure that:
- Your website loads quickly
- All products are easily accessible by your customers
- Menu has listed all available categories
- Home page has banners and sliders to flaunt deals and offers
- Shopping cart is not complicated
- Users can add product reviews
Take care of your customers and you’ll surely make a sale.
3) Not categorizing products
An e-commerce website has thousands of products and many new products are added every day. You have to place every product under appropriate category and subcategory. Adding product pages without any grouping will eventually create a chaos for you. Moreover, placing product under proper category will help users to navigate without any complex.
4) Not adding the product description
When a customer comes to your product page and doesn’t find enough product description, then he may not likely buy that product. The product description should not be the one provided by your manufacturers. You need to write product description considering the information your customers will need before buying it. The product description is the content that Google will prefer for ranking thus, make sure you don’t duplicate it or repeat it.
If you have thousands of products and you can’t write individual product descriptions for all these products, then make sure that at least all popular products have a description.
5) Keeping hidden charges or taxes during check out
Many e-commerce websites add additional charges like shipping, GST or other service taxes during payout time. Your customer may feel cheated or disappointed when they’ll see their cart bill more than what they expected. To avoid this, you must mention shipping charges, exclusive taxes and other additional charges on the product page itself. Best will be to include the taxes in product cost itself.
Here’s a tip: Give offers like free shipping on some minimum purchase. This will increase your sale value.
6) Selling at a high price than competitors
This is obvious that people won’t buy from your store if they are getting the same product at low price on another store. So try to make your product cost lower than your competitor’s. Now, this can be difficult if your manufacturer isn’t proving you products at a low price. Then, you need to come up with some discounts and offers from your end. Yes, this will affect your profit but don’t think of making money initially. In e-commerce, you need to invest and work at no profit for few months. And, that’s ok. Your competitors must have followed the same ‘No Profit’ rule in their early stages.
7) Non-attractive product images
The products you are selling should be attractive and clear. These images are the representatives of your products thus make sure that the images are clear and of good quality. Add multiple images each showing different angular views. Usually, it happens that color of a product is seen different on display as compared to the original product. Thus, try to capture the true color of the product.
Note: Do not add very large size images on your site as it may result in slowing down your website by increasing the load time.
8) Not adding ‘About us’ and ‘contact us’ page
When your online store is new in the market, people may often find it difficult to trust your website. This is where your ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ page may come in handy.
Create an incredible ‘About Us’ page which should be customer focused. Mention your vision and mission along with – why your customers should buy from you. Your ‘Contact Us’ page should have details like your HQ address, customer care number and a feedback/message form. Contact us page will make it easy for your customers to send you messages, feedback or complaints.
9) ‘Delivery Not Available’ at majority of zip codes
Your e-commerce store is available to everyone who has access to internet connection. Wow, that’s huge audience. But what if you are selling your products in some particular cities only?
Suppose, if your website says that you sell products pan India but the majority of Indian cities are out of your reach for delivery, then this makes a bad impression. Thus, either specify your target cities on your website or make sure to have a wide area access for delivery.
The point is – your customers should not recognize that you won’t be able to send them the product after they have already wasted a lot of time on selection of right product. This may annoy them, won’t it? Thus, invest in logistic services and cover untouched areas too.
10) No proper customer care service
An e-commerce store has to deal will issues such as the return of products, damage during delivery, wrong product delivery, after delivery support, etc. If you don’t give proper customer care service, then your first-time buyer will never convert into an all-time buyer. Now, considering that you are a startup and you can’t afford to have a CRM team, you can start with email support initially. Do respond to each and every email you receive. Always prioritize customer complaints and provide a friendly customer care service.
To start an online store you might need to pull out all the stops. Initially, you may face many problems and make mistakes. But, that’s OK. It’s the part of the game. This article will help you to make better decisions and avoid mistakes that would have cost you time and money.
