In the next 12 months, retail ecommerce is expected to grow by more than $50 billion. This growth gives both new and experienced online business owners a huge chance to do very well in ecommerce.
To be successful at ecommerce, it’s just as important to know what not to do as it is to know what to do. Because of this, we want to talk about common mistakes that hurt all sizes of ecommerce businesses:
Underestimating Mobile
People are getting more comfortable with buying things on their phones. On Cyber Monday, sales from mobile devices topped $1.5 billion, which was a 39% increase from 2016.
Because mobile shopping is becoming more popular, things like responsive web design are essential to the success of ecommerce in 2018 and beyond. Google’s algorithm also ranks sites based on how well they work on mobile devices.
Not Putting Together Great Descriptions
A lot of e-commerce sites that use drop shipping just copy the descriptions of their products from the companies that make or sell them. This is fine as a temporary fix, but it’s not the best way to solve the problem in the long run. Generic product descriptions won’t catch shoppers’ attention, which is a problem.
A description that is on dozens of other websites won’t help Google rank your page well, either. If you want your e-commerce business to be successful for a long time, you should take the time to write great descriptions. You should focus on writing descriptions that tell a good story and tell shoppers everything they need to know.
Overlooking Different Marketing Channels
When you find a marketing method that works, it’s easy to put all your eggs in that one basket. The problem is that if that channel stops working, your business will be in a tough spot. You can avoid falling into this trap by testing and building multiple channels.
When it comes to something like content marketing, you’ll have to keep putting money into it for a few months before you see any big results. By building and sticking to multiple channels, you can make sure that something like Facebook changing its algorithm won’t completely ruin your ecommerce business.
Not being able to gain trust
Online shopping is much easier for people of all ages than it was just a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean people will put their credit card information into any website.
If someone likes a product on an ecommerce site but has problems that make them question whether or not the site is real, they are not likely to buy. That’s why building trust is so important.
Putting together a great “About” page that tells people about your business and team is a great way to start building trust. Using SSL and trust badges during checkout are also very helpful.
Not putting enough money into branding
Dollar Shave Club was able to sell their business to Unilever for $1 billion because they had a strong brand. The same thing is true about why PetSmart paid $3.35 billion to buy Chewy.
It’s easy for a new business owner to think that branding is something that only big companies need to worry about. But if you want to be successful in ecommerce for years to come, you need to build a real brand.
Customers Too Many at the Checkout
Losing a customer during the checkout process is always frustrating. Even though some carts being left empty is normal, a high number of them can really hurt an ecommerce business.
When this happens to a business, it’s often because of an unpleasant surprise at checkout. Most of the time, it’s because shipping costs were higher than expected. It’s also important to ask shoppers to fill out as few form fields as possible.
Prices Not in Line
It is both an art and a science to set the right prices for your products. How your brand is priced can have a big effect on how people feel about it. For example, a luxury brand’s long-term ecommerce success can be hurt by sudden price cuts.
To figure out the best price points, you have to know your market and where you want to be in it. Once you have a range, you can use surveys and testing to improve your pricing strategy.
Trying to sell to all of them
Trying to sell to everyone is the biggest mistake that new online stores make. With the exception of Amazon, most companies that try to please everyone fail to connect with anyone.
The best way to avoid this trap is to know your target customer profile inside and out. Once you know who you want to reach, you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing and even lower the cost of getting new customers.
Out of things to sell
It’s great when you can figure out who your ideal customer is and then target your marketing to them. But getting these basics right doesn’t mean you’ll always be successful with ecommerce.
The reason is that running out of stock can mess up even the best marketing plans. One of the things that makes drop shipping so appealing is that it lets you avoid this problem.
If you don’t have to stock your own inventory, it’s much easier to manage and make changes.
Using an Old-Fashioned Way to Market with Email
About 96% of the people who visit your website are not ready to make a purchase. That’s why it’s so important to focus on getting as many of those visitors as possible to sign up for your email list. Even though more and more ecommerce businesses understand how important email is, many still send out the wrong things. Sending a newsletter or generic promotion to all of your subscribers at once is not a good idea.
Use an email marketing automation tool to personalise when and what you send your subscribers. This is a much better way to do things. With this kind of tool, it’s easy to send different emails to new subscribers than to people who have already signed up.
Avoid all mistakes to be successful in e-commerce.
We hope that you will use the mistakes we talked about to make a list of ways to improve your ecommerce business. If you make these changes to your business, it will be on its way to big ecommerce success.
And if you’re new to ecommerce or want to change your business model, you should check out how Dropship Corporation can help you be successful in ecommerce by automating your Shopify drop shipping business.
