Ecommerce has revolutionized the way goods and services are being sold by creating a totally new and robust platform for retailers to sell their products day and night, regardless of their physical location. As an industry, Ecommerce has seen tremendous growth in the last decade. This has led to the mushrooming of Ecommerce portals catering to various requirements of the customers. Competition in the Ecommerce industry is also at its peak, which means making mistakes is something you can’t afford if you are a business in this industry.
Many Ecommerce sites still make mistakes that could easily lead to their downfall in this highly competitive market. It is crucial to find and eradicate such critical issues that could be holding your Ecommerce business down. Here are some of the common mistakes that you should know and stay clear from if you are running an Ecommerce website.
1. Using manufacturer product descriptions
Creating your own content for the product pages can be a resource-intensive task. But, copying the manufacturer descriptions for the products you are selling can be one of the biggest SEO mistakes you could make. Since search engines are smart enough to detect the original source of content and prioritize it over replicated content, doing this can be degrading to your company from an SEO perspective. Your product pages will be ignored by the search engines, if you merely copy the manufacturer descriptions instead of creating your own.
2. Not using sufficient images
Since customers cannot physically examine a product before buying when it comes to Ecommerce, images are one of the key things that they use to evaluate a product before clicking the ‘buy’ button. If your product pages lack high-resolution images in adequate numbers, the customers are less likely to make purchase decisions. Having good quality images also adds up to the trust factor which is extremely important when it comes to Ecommerce transactions. Not having adequate images can be the reason why certain products in your catalogue don’t perform well.
3. Complicated checkout process
If your Ecommerce platform uses a complicated checkout process, you might be losing a significant number of customers who couldn’t figure out the process or just got frustrated by it and left. Since your competitors’ Ecommerce store is just one click away, you must focus on having a simple and easy checkout process. A complicated check out process can be intimidating to many customers and could also affect the trust factor. This is something that can seriously affect your conversion rate and needs to be fixed at the earliest. A simple checkout process will make sure that the customer is won as soon as he/she is satisfied with the product and its price.
4. Inadequate search feature
The search feature is perhaps one of the first things that a user would interact with in the buying process. For the same reason, it must be perfect in every aspect. When a user enters a search query in the search box, the results that appear immediately gives him an overall idea about your catalogue and price range. The relevancy of these search results will have a very high impact on the sales you make through your Ecommerce portal. If your search system cannot provide relevant results, it can be deemed as a critical mistake on your part that needs to be fixed immediately.
5. Not caring about mobile visitors
Most Ecommerce portals do a great job at making a desktop version of their site. This care and attention is typically not given to the mobile sites now that mobile apps are available too. It is not a good idea to assume that everyone who has landed on your website using a mobile device already have/will download your app. Having a well optimised, fully functional mobile website remains a critical aspect that shouldn’t be ignored.
6. Not adding trust factors
For Ecommerce businesses, the success and growth will heavily depend on the trust. If customers don’t trust your website, they are less likely to feel comfortable with making purchase decisions. You can easily boost your Ecommerce website’s trustworthiness factor by adding a few things:
- Terms of use page
- SSL certificate
- A clear refund/exchange policy
- Privacy policy page
Having these elements on the website adds up to the trust factor, which is crucial for purchase decisions to be made. You will also have to ensure your customers that their information will be kept private and secured. Having a simple design with clear product categories and easy navigation is also important design aspects that can improve the trust factor. Product reviews is something that should be easily accessible by all visitors as this is something that customers use to decide if the product is right for them.
7. Not making support options easily accessible
Not everything goes as per the plan, sometimes things go wrong and customers need to contact the support. Customers should have different options of support like chat, email and call to choose from. The most important aspect of customer support is the accessibility. If you bury your contact page somewhere deep inside where it’s not easily accessible to the customers, you are losing on the trust factor as well as contributing to bad user experience. Customers must know that they can easily avail support before they can make buying decisions. It is recommended to clearly display your contact options on the website along with assurance on prompt support.
8. Not using competitive intelligence
As the competition is tightening in the Ecommerce market by each passing day, not making mistakes is just not enough. Failing to monitor the actions of your competitors using data can be considered a critical mistake in a highly competitive industry like Ecommerce. There are different aspects of competition that can be tracked by using web scraping solutions like the product prices, popularity of different products, social media activity, business moves etc. Ecommerce being an industry that solely relies on the web, the amount of web data that can be acquired for business intelligence is huge. Data gives you an edge in the competition as the insights derived from data are highly dependable.
Bottom line
Ecommerce has successfully made its mark in the retail space with its convenience and reliability. The market holds immense potential for new businesses if they play by the rules and follow best practices. Gaining and keeping customer trust remains the golden rule when it comes to Ecommerce. It is important not to make these critical mistakes with your Ecommerce business if you are looking for steady growth and success as an Ecommerce company.
