Many of your competitors are already doing business through the Internet. The yearly growth rate of e-commerce is over 25 percent. E-commerce segments for businesses that sell to other businesses or B2B, as it is called, is escalating at an even faster pace. Naturally, at some point, you too decide that you need to have a piece of this action!
Many software and platforms available today can help you build an E-commerce store quickly. Once this is done, you want as many people to visit your store and buy products. It’s easier if you have an existing audience or recognizable brand. However, many people in the E-Commerce space are starting from scratch and find getting sales initially tricky. With good marketing, you can begin to bring people to your website. However, to avoid losing them before they can make a purchase, it is vital to keep the ‘7 deadly sins of E-Commerce’ in mind.
If you own an online shopping store or an app and find it hard to increase sales, you might have fallen prey to one (or more) of them.
These are the 7 deadly sins of a bad e-commerce site are:
- Poor design and content
- Insecure checkout page
- No Guarantees, refund and customer support
- Bad Registration
- Hidden Tax and Shipping cost
- Bad On-page SEO
- No/fake reviews
Poor Design and Content
Poor design is one of the biggest reasons most visitors who come to an E-Commerce store leave without purchasing. Most people want their user experience in E-commerce to be fast and familiar. There shouldn’t be any clutter or pop-ups obstructing the product, and product information should be readily available.
As content is a time-consuming process, most E-Commerce owners have the urge to rush through it. Never do this.
The information and media regarding your product must be unique and exciting. Customers always go through the product details religiously and having a well-thought-out one could be what separates you from the rest.
Another thing that new E-Commerce owners fail to do is to plan website categorization well ahead. You want people to move through portions that are relevant to them without difficulty and repetition. Deciding the categories and tags from the get-go will help reduce the need for creating new categorizations each time a product is added.
Insecure checkout page
The checkout page is where people realize that they have to pay for the product and that they have to provide potentially sensitive information. If you have a good website or products, visitors might actively start the checkout process for an online order, but they will drop out before completing the purchase unless you make them feel assured on the checkout page. This is called cart abandonment.
One of the reasons for cart abandonment is an insecure cheek-out page. Always provide HTTPS (secure protocol) on the checkout page and subtly hint that the transaction is 100% secure. This will make your customer feel safe.
No Warranty, Refund and Customer Support
As you are selling something that customers cannot check out physically, factors such as guarantee, refund, and customer support become much more important than brick-and-mortar stores. You can provide a basic 5-7 day refund policy if the product is not what the customer expected. This will hugely reduce cart abandonment. Additionally, people also expect some kind of warranty or guarantee on the products they buy.
Customer support is another thing that people value highly, whether in the form of FAQ sections, live/email chats or phone calls.
Bad Registration Experience
Many E-Commerce websites make the mistake of providing mandatory registration buttons just after or during the checkout page. This could be enough to deter some potential customers who were already apprehensive about buying from a new website. You can walk around this by allowing ‘guest shopping’ or providing additional benefits like discount coupons if they register for the first time.
Another thing to keep in mind is to make the registration process as seamless as possible. Avoid many tabs and questions, and if possible, provide a social registration/login feature.
Hidden Tax and Shipping costs
Similar to registration, many E-Commerce platforms place tax and shipping cost details towards the end of the checkout process. This can easily deter many buyers as the product might become over their perceived budget. Most customers are highly averse to paying extra costs for their products. So having tax as part of the final price or providing free shipping after a specific purchase cost is met is an excellent way to stop cart abandonment.
Bad On-page SEO
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a collection of techniques and methods used to help improve your rankings ins search engines such as Google or Bing. On-page SEO is the part of it that deals with optimizing everything internal to the website, like webpages and links.
Some of the elements of On-page SEO that you can optimize on your E-Commerce website include:
- Title tags, URL and description
- Internal links
- Page content and media
- User experience (UX)
An E-Commerce store with good On-page SEO will rank highly in Google searches, bring more traffic and provide more authority to the brand. A good on-page SEO will also get you in additional Google features such as structure snippets.
No or Fake Reviews
Last but not least, always provide a review and rating section for your product. User rating is the No.1 way to improve credibility and if your product and service are good, always add an area where customers can voice their opinion and provide feedback. This has an adverse effect too, especially when a customer is not satisfied. However, as long as you provide proper and timely resolutions (and the problem is not too rampant), even this would go on to improve your trust with customers.
Providing fake reviews might feel like an easier solution, but consumers today are knowledgeable enough to understand when they are being tricked. Avoid this at all costs!
In case you are looking for an E-Commerce software
iScripts Multi-Vendor Shopping Cart is a unique shopping cart software program that can help you create an e-commerce marketplace with multiple sellers in the backend.
iScripts MultiCart encompasses all the components required for a good e-commerce site. This unique concept allows you to create very unique e-commerce sites similar to Amazon marketplace or Etsy.com. Customize your site using a template system that allows for complete customization into your existing site.
Check out iScripts MultiCart
