Avoid these ecommerce mistakes

Complicated Checkout Process

Studies suggest that around 70% of shopping carts are abandoned by their user. Some of these instances can be explained by the customer having “second thoughts” about parting with their money. However, they are just as likely to be deterred by having to jump through several annoying hoops before the purchase goes through.

For example, the user may balk at having to create an account or learning of extra shipping costs. Put simply, a successful ecommerce website will always make the path from adding to basket to final payment as seamless and stress-free as possible, with clear signposts funnelling the customer towards buying your item. Take plenty of time to get the checkout process absolutely perfect.

Poor Returns Policy

As an ecommerce website, you must prepare for the unwelcome eventuality of customers wanting to return items purchased from your online shop. Returns are just a sad fact of life in the world of retail, but you can turn them into a positive experience for the customer. Making the returns process super easy for customers, giving them control over the steps, is a key area that many businesses place low on their life of priorities.

Recent reports have claimed that 95% of customers would shop at a retailer again if they had a positive returns experience. Ninety-five percent! On the other hand, imagine if your returns process was slow and dysfunctional. The customer will not only completely avoid your store thereafter; they may well moan to others, as we British like to do, about how cumbersome it was to get their money back from your website. Failing at this aspect of ecommerce, then, can have dire consequences.

No Personalisation

First rule for any business just starting out? Know your customer. Without market research, how can you know how to sell your products, and where to find customers? That is why ecommerce websites often place very strong emphasis on not just collecting user data but using that data to create a more integrated and personalised experience for the user. After all, you don’t want your customer to view your shop as a robotic repository of commodities.

There are many ways to add a personal touch to every user experience. For instance, you can write custom emails based on the product that someone has purchased; make product recommendations based on user data; write a comprehensively researched FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) page. Keep thinking about how you can generate a more intimate experience for the user. Without personalisation, your ecommerce website immediately falls behind its competition.

Information Overload

Along with no personalisation, one sure method for scaring customers away is by inserting big heaps of text all over your website. You have great products that you are excited about, so it is natural to want to write as much as you can, but this is the opposite of what customers like to see on an online shop. Most people who are scrolling on their phones simply do not have the time to stop and read a swathe of text.

Instead, remember that people are pulled in by short, snappy, emotive pieces of content that rouse people to action and give a clear message. Condensing down writing can be difficult, but if you are well informed on the subject at hand (as you are), it becomes much easier to write small but powerful pieces of content that perfectly capture the tone of your business.  

Poor Product Images

Compared to images, the length or quality of your content matters little. Images – high-quality images – serve as the most important part of your website layout, more than your actual products. People are used to seeing professionally taken, high-resolution pictures on a daily basis. In 2020, we take 4K pictures and videos for granted. If your product images fall behind this standard, your online shop immediately falls behind the competition.

So, when I mention ‘poor product images’, this does not mean a singular grainy image of your product, taken from a bad angle. That is terminal. A poor product image is, essentially, anything that falls short of how top ecommerce websites take product pictures. This means that every product must be accompanied by multiple stunning, high-resolution images, taken from many different angles that are, without fail, perfectly consistent with every product image on your website. Failing at images is the equivalent of breaking your leg at the first hurdle of a race, so take extra care here.

Not Optimising for Mobile

The days of using big PC screens to casually scroll through online shops and social feeds are slowly ending. More and more people are using their mobile devices for almost all communication, shopping and, in some cases, business. Recent studies have claimed that mobile users account for 63% of traffic on ecommerce websites, and that number is only going to grow in the coming years.

So, it may be work asking yourself: is my ecommerce website design perfectly optimised for mobile users? If you have failed to do this, accessing your website on a smaller screen will culminate in a distortion of images and text, loading speed suffering, bugs appearing, and parts of your website will be simply cropped away from view. Think about it: this means that six out of 10 visitors to your website are highly likely to immediately click away and find another ecommerce website that is optimised for mobile. Don’t let yourself fall behind the pack.