Are you Making These 5 Ecommerce Mistakes?

Let's be honest, there is more to Ecommerce than building an online store and expecting sales. It takes time, effort and a whole bunch of tools to ensure that those visitors turn into customers.

Problem is, with the online global conversion rate coming in at a measly 4.2%, it's critical to the success of your store that you don't make a single mistake.

But are you making any of these 5 common Ecommerce mistakes?

Mistake 1: Your site isn’t mobile responsive

Did you know that over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices?

Now that's a lot of people – and a lot of conversion potential.

But if you are one of the 45% of marketers who doesn’t have a mobile-optimized site, then you're gonna miss out - big time!

How to fix it:

You don't need to be an expert coder to create a responsive site. You just need to find an Ecommerce platform that supports mobile. The good news is that with our Ecommerce solution , you can easily create a mobile responsive site – and we offer plenty of themes to suit your brand!

Because mobile is a lot smaller than desktop, we'd also suggest getting rid of any features that are not necessary. For example, bakery store, King Arthur Flour , doesn’t show the navigation bar on their mobile site, but if you click on the menu, the user can still navigate to the same places.

As you can see below, they've included the main features with the focus on product images, the CTA and a contact number:

Mistake 2: You aren’t addressing objections

As frustrating as it is to know that so many people will jump onto your site and not buy, it's important to know the reasons why.

What are their objections? Once you start listening to your visitors, you'll be well on your way to making more sales.

How to fix it:

One of the biggest objections will be how much your product costs. If it's too high people may think the product is too advanced, if it's too low, they may think it's low quality. The key to overcoming these problems is to focus on the value of your product.

Show the customer why it is worth buying and feature all of the benefits below your product images.

Another great way to overcoming objections is to offer a way for your customers to give you reviews. There is nothing more convincing than reviews that show other people bought your products – and they were pretty darn happy with them.

Check out our video to find out more about why you should supercharge your store with product reviews... 

Mistake 3: Your product descriptions aren’t compelling

When it comes to writing product descriptions, there is a lot to get across. Most Ecommerce sites will simply bullet point the features of the product – size, weight, color etc, and display the price.

The problem with this is that no thought has gone into creating compelling copy that will persuade that visitor to buy.

How to fix it:

It all comes down to features vs benefits. In order to convince people that your product is worth buying, you need to show the customer what it can do for them.

We understand that you know your products better than anyone, which is possibly why it's harder to get across the benefits because you're too focused on what the product is.

Write down on a sheet of paper your product features, then next to each feature, describe how that will benefit the customer. This will really help you get in the right headspace so you can apply those benefits to your product descriptions.

We'd also recommend focusing on emotional benefits – as it's true what they say - people buy with their hearts.

Think about what drives people to want that product. How does your product make people feel? Many successful Ecommerce owners will use the awesome method of storytelling to help capture the emotions of the reader.

For example, Man Crates below does a fantastic job of including features, benefits, while telling a compelling story:

Mistake 4: You haven’t defined your target audience

Alright we get it, you want to make tons of money. But that doesn’t mean that the way to do that is to target everyone.

In fact, this can have the opposite effect. The more undefined your target audience is, the more your promotions, brand voice and all over message will suffer.

How to fix it:

What you need to do is create a buyer persona as this will help you identify your single, target market. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your customers that is based on market research.

When it comes to creating a buyer persona you'll want to be as detailed as possible. It's important to learn the basics such as name, age, gender etc, but it's equally important to understand their buying motivations, so you can build a full picture of your customers.

See for example this buyer person from Munro's as the perfect example: 

Remember, you'll probably have more than one buyer persona, so it's a smart idea to segregate your audience for better results.

Mistake 5: Your product images don't stand out

When it comes to your online store, 67% of consumers say that the quality of a product image is very important, in purchasing a product.

Naturally we're drawn to an image on a page ahead of the text, so it's important that you get it right as this can really make or break your conversions.

How to fix it:

First we'd suggest taking awesome photos that will really highlight the best bits about your products. And making them look great on a budget isn't that difficult. Go check out our photography cheat sheet for plenty of tips and then come right back.

Next, it's time to get creative. Think about the different angles that your visitors will want to see to help them make an informative purchase decision.

Take SteelCase below for the perfect example. They let you change the color of the chair, you can zoom in to see it up close, and view eight more high quality images that show the chair in different angles and settings:

Make sure your images look great, stand out, and give your visitors plenty of angles so that they can get a full picture.

Grab a copy of our free eBook – 13 conversion mistakes!

See those 5 mistakes above? Well they are just a few of the ones that can be made when running an Ecommerce store!

But fear not, we've created an eBook that has 13 conversion mistakes that smart Ecommerce owners make – and it's completely free to download! You're welcome.