Ecommerce: The 6 most common mistakes

The 6 most common mistakes in ecommerce: We all make mistakes.

But mistakes in e-commerce usually cost a little more than others.

Let's see what these mistakes are to avoid and stop them right now!

Mistake #1: Spending your time on things you shouldn't

Our number 1 for the list of the most common mistakes is this one. There is a “bad habit” that proves to be a trend. When we talk to our clients, many of them find that they are using their time incorrectly. They spent too much time on trivial – or less important – tasks, such as setting up their website, when they should be focusing on its content.

As an agency, we have promoted many clients digitally. What we have learned is that the distribution of time is quite important, and it should be like this:

10% technical

• Setting up your online store (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.)
• Define the aesthetics of the brand

90% business.

• Brand concept
• AB testing (creation of different versions of your page to improve conversion)
• Creation of valuable content

Mistake #2: Overestimating the number of visitors who will become customers

In physical stores, the owners know very well that not everyone who enters their store is going to buy something.

For example, the owner of a store that sells clothing does not expect 10 out of 10 customers to make a purchase.

But he knows half will. Maybe a third of them on bad days.

In e-commerce, things are a little different. The conversion rate is much lower.

According to the chart, an average ecommerce store should not expect to convert more than 3 out of every 100 visitors become clients.

Many new e-store owners find it difficult to understand this new reality. But in the end, they adopt her. It is important to have realistic expectations and work to improve the conversion rate through marketing strategies, user experience and website optimization.

Mistake #3: Doing everything yourself

You want things your way and you don't share your responsibilities easily. OK, this is 100% respectable, but respect shouldn't be your top priority right now.

A successful eCommerce usually does more than one thing well: Branding, SEM campaigns in search engines and advertising on social networks, SEO, customer service, email marketing, and the list goes on.

These days, each of these activities is a different profession. And if you run a small business you may have to fill many of these positions. Hiring people costs money and money is not infinite, so you end up doing everything yourself to save money. And this is where Many owners make this common eCommerce mistake: they treat time as infinite..

If you want to implement a Google Search campaign, the normal thing is that you don't sign up for a webinar, spend 30 hours learning the basics and then proceed to create your own campaign. You can do it, but it's not very effective.

We recommend thinking in terms of value. Your time is limited, so ask yourself how you can make the most of it.

We suggest doing the things you like the most. If you like to design but you have trouble with SEM, dedicate yourself to design and leave SEM for someone else. In addition to the benefit of doing what you like, it also allows you to focus on what you do intensely, thus being more productive in the long term.

Mistake #4: Sending fewer emails than you should

I feel you asking: "But won't my clients block me if I spam their inbox every day?" Let's talk about numbers.

A published study examining the frequency of email campaigns for small and medium-sized businesses shows that this is how often their customers send emails per month:

And this is how often the public opens these emails:

If we look at this graph, we see that open and click rates are inverse to the number of emails companies send. So we all agree that there is no need to send too many emails and we can happily move on to the next topic.

Not so fast. Remember:

Your true purpose is not to have the highest CTR and CTOR. Your goal is to get the greatest number of orders.

Take a look at the next slide:

As email frequency increases, CTR and CTOR decrease, but orders increase. There is a rational explanation for this.

The 80/20 “Pareto Principle” states that, for many events, approximately 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Later, this principle entered the business world and became an axiom in business management, suggesting that "80% of sales come from 20% of customers.

And now our email results make a little more sense.

But how can you turn this principle to your advantage?

With one word: segmentation. By segmenting your audience, you can send the right number of emails to the right people. You should consider creating two different groups: one with your 20% of customers who buy from you most often and another with the rest of the 80% of customers. 

Not segmenting your audience and not taking advantage of the different qualities is one of those common mistakes in eCommerce.

Mistake No. 5: Presenting products poorly

Buying in a virtual store is usually a less satisfying experience than buying in a physical store. Images and words are your only weapons here. So make the most of them!

1. Words

There is a product. «How many things can be written on a bracelet?»

This description does not tell you about the product, but rather sells you the product. He has never mentioned "excellent product quality" which is something you would see in the standard description.

Therefore, you have to make the most of the space on your website and make it as interesting as a physical store counter.

Although writing successfully is not an easy task, it does not require any technical knowledge, unlike images.

1. Images

Product images should be clean and load quickly. Therefore, its purpose is to have large, attractive images with small file sizes.

Here are some best practices for having good images:

• Composition:: Focus on the product. Make it center stage. Whatever the product, there does not need to be many walls and floors
• Background: The subject of the image must contrast and stand out against the background. You want the visitor to focus on the product, not the background. 
• Focus: Clear images are often necessary to sell products, unless you're selling a foggy vacation spot.
• Format: JPG and GIF are the normal formats for images on web pages. Not all browsers display PNG and BMP. Use GIF when colors are flat and JPG for most photos. Every time you save a JPG the image quality degrades. Open the original JPGs and save them in TIF format. Edit in TIF and make the final save as JPG.
• add borders: This may be necessary to make images the same shape so they display neatly on a product page.
• Quality: The original image must be good, or you will waste hours editing.
• Size: Resize the final image to the size you want on the web. On 800x600 screens, the browser margins only leave about 762 pixels of display width, and the display height is reduced by the size of each visitor's toolbar. Your 2400x1800 pixel image may end up being 400x300, so cropping is important to show the product as a large part of the image.
• Compression: To allow fast loading on the web, JPGs can be compressed. A compression of 25% to 35% can show good images, depending on the original.

Mistake #6: Not following your customer journey on your website

For years, ecommerce owners didn't know what their customers were doing on their site. But his prayers were heard.

The marketing gods sent Hotjar and Mouseflow, among other tools. And then a new era in digital marketing began.

These tools allow you to understand your website and mobile visitors. If we agree that Analytics is about quantity, Hotjar and the rest of the tools mentioned are about quality.

One of the Features by Hotjar is Heatmaps. Heatmaps will give you the ability to see which part(s) of your eCommerce store customers interact with the most, as well as revealing the type of device through which the user connects (desktop, mobile or tablet).

Recordings can give you a real-time view of how your visitors are navigating your site. You can even record a session and use it for future reference.

Features like these will likely give you a good response to why your customers don't complete the purchase in your ecommerce. Is your purchasing process so complicated that your customers abandon the purchase? Does a particular page take forever to load and your customers abandon it? Now you may have all the answers.

Information is vital to selling, and eCommerce owners now have more information at their fingertips than ever.

Avoid these common e-commerce mistakes and increase the chances that your e-commerce store will prosper.