Having an online store is a growing necessity in the business world and it’s a surprise that its popularity has only grown this quickly within the last few years. Selling your products and services through an eCommerce solution opens your business up to a broader scope of customers, and increasing your marketing ability immediately, something a physical store just can’t compete with.
ECommerce solutions are so popular that any business can put together a website with an online store, and be up and ready to accept payments before they know it. However, before a business starts jumping into the online world of eCommerce, there are a number of very important mistakes that business owners make which will essentially drive customers away from your website. Take a look at the 5 most common mistakes that eCommerce that most online business have made, or are currently making that will kill your sales.
1. STALE DESIGN
A stale or poorly designed website is a definite way to drive customers away from your eCommerce website. When a customer comes to your website and it doesn’t look polished or engaging, it instantly will cause that potential customer to question the authenticity and professionalism of your business. If your customers don’t trust you, they won’t make a purchase. Include below are some quick ways to create a fresh and user friendly design for your eCommerce website. This will help catch visitor’s attention:
• Simple search box
• Quality product images HD
• Detailed and unique product descriptions
• Easy to find contact and support information
• Clear information about return, refund, cancellation policies
2. HOSTED PAY PAGE
One of the worst things you can have on your eCommerce store is an off-site checkout. Now try not to get this confused with a hosted pay page, as they are difference. An off site check out is going to be taking your customer to an entirely different URL, most likely not branded with your customers information or logo, and will have no way to get that customer back to your eCommerce website.
A hosted pay page, will be hosted, most likely by your payment processor, and will be branded with your business logo and colours. Within the hosted pay page, you will be able to add a Call to Action, or even a footer which will bring the customer back to your website when they are completed processing the transactions. Off site checkouts will confuse the customer, and will most likely cause them to rethink the purchase, leaving money on the table. To avoid this costly mistake, don’t take your customers away from your site to complete a sale.
Check with your eCommerce payments provider for options you can take to keep your website and checkout process in the same place.
3. SLOW NAVIGATION
Nobody likes to wait, especially online. Customers shop online because it’s quick and convenient. Once it becomes a pain to shop online, they’ll go to a competitor with faster page load times to get the job done. If you’ve got a website developer you’re working with, have them do a code clean up on your site. Complicated code can come from custom design, navigation flow and web plug-ins.
Speak to your developer, and try and increase page load time of not only your navigation, but processing the payment as well. Your eCommerce website should be quick in order to keep your customers coming back.
4. COMPLICATED CHECKOUT
Having a complicated, or even confusing check out process for your eCommerce website is a massive deterrent for customers looking to complete their sale. Try and keep the important information, security questions, and address verification all to the same page. Completing 3 or 4 different steps to complete the transactions will promote frustration and increase the chances of that customer leaving.
Be simple and only ask your customers for essential information to complete their purchase.
5. ADDITIONAL CHARGES
There is nothing that will alienate a customer more, and perhaps even chargeback their purchase, than additional or surprise charges at checkout. Forward facing costs and fees to the customer such as taxes, shipping charges etc. must be clearly outlined before you get to the final step of check out. It is also a great benefit to your merchants to have a cost calculating shopping cart.
This means that while the customer is shopping and adding products to their shopping cart, the total amount, including taxes, and shipping is stated before they go to check out. This will let the customer know exactly how much they are spending, and more often than not, increase their spending.
