It’s not easy to run an e-commerce business. You have many obstacles to pass, you can make mistakes, but it is more important to focus on fixing them. We have created a list of common e-commerce mistakes that you might also be making, so you can avoid them while you prepare yourself for success. Keep reading and ask yourself, “Am I doing this? If yes, how can I fix it?”.
1. Not understanding your target audience and defining it wrong
This is a common mistake among businesses. Imagine you have the perfect website with an incredible design and excellent products. Is that enough? Not really. Just presenting the same offer to the whole audience is not what you should do. Your audience needs your product and, as you probably already know, different groups have different needs.
How to fix this:
Define your target audience. Develop a marketing strategy that centers your target audience. Get to know your customers. Divide them into groups. Some criteria you can use: demographics (age, sex), geographical area (where your customers are situated), behavioral (attitude towards certain brands or products, frequency of use of certain products) and psychographic (personality, lifestyle).
2. Poor design for your website
Your website is your business card. Make sure it has an attractive design. Don’t be tempted to add as many extras as possible. Complex does not mean overly complicated. Design is considered very important by users, so if yours looks terrible, they might find it untrustworthy and leave your website.
How to fix this:
Make sure your website is user-friendly and that it has an attractive design. Invest time and money in your website because you will get it back. Create engaging content, use good quality images, make sure your “Buy” buttons are clear and stand out from the page, keep your design simple.
3. Bad SEO
SEO means “search engine optimization” and is the process of getting traffic from organic search results on search engines. There are several SEO mistakes that you can make, for example: not optimizing for local search or keywords, not using analytics to see what content converts, forgetting about content marketing, placing relevant text in images rather than on the page, not adding fresh, high-quality content.
How to fix this:
Create an SEO strategy. SEO is not something that you set one time and forget about it. You have to work on it consistently. Here are some suggestions to fix your SEO:
- Use a keyword research tool (for example, Semrush) to indicate what queries people type in the Google search box.
- Have page titles and descriptions as unique as possible;
- Be active on social media to promote your website and the new content that you post.
- Follow a consistent publishing schedule and create high-quality content that is relevant for the people visiting your website;
- Do not target only high traffic keywords only, as they are also highly competitive. You can easily get a lot of traffic by targeting long-tail keywords.
4. Complicated check-out process
This is a step where many people abandon their shopping carts. Some people are just doing some research, without being sure if they want to buy or not, and a complicated check-out process can make them abandon the shopping cart completely.
How to fix this:
Simplify the process, make it as user-friendly as possible. Also, make sure the customers do not encounter unexpected costs at check-out, for example, extra shipping or extra taxes.
Source: Neil Patel
5. Poor customer service
Getting new customers is essential, but retaining them is crucial. It is a lot less expensive to keep a current customer than to get a new one and, on long-term, it adds more value than a single-deal customer. Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those who buy or use its products and services. You have to take care of your customers, or they will leave your business, which leads to reputation damage and sales decrease. “Good customer service” is subjective because every customer is different. Some things are universally considered unacceptable; for example, waiting a long time before getting an answer, customer service representatives that lack experience and unprofessional interactions.
How to fix this:
First, you can try to prevent poor customer service from happening by setting standards for your employees, such as mandatory response time and specific formulas to address the customers. Then make sure everybody respects the rules. Also, keep in touch with your customers using any mean of communication possible (social media, through your website, on the phone, via e-mail). Keep in mind that customers want to have their problems solved as quickly as possible, in a single call if possible, without being passed around. Sending just automated or very short answers will lead to unhappy customers.
Avoid these common mistakes, and be aware that you might be making others. This is why it is important to regularly audit your website to see how is everything performing, what needs to be upgraded, what needs to be changed or removed, and what is going right. Use these tips to achieve your goal this year.