Welcome to Part 2 of analyzing common ecommerce mistakes! We’re covering the remaining 13 mistakes, talking about everything from blogs to checkout processes, to customer trust, and more. Read on for common ecommerce mistakes 15-27.
15. Not having (and using) a blog
A common excuse companies give when refusing a blog is they don’t know what kind of topics they should include. Here are a few opportunities to get started:
- Talk about your newest video on YouTube
- Feature the creation of a new, robust Pinterest board
- If you’re hosting a webinar, write about it
- Recap an interesting webinar you attended
- Promote a contest you’re running on Facebook
- Talk about product updates
- Preview new products
- Launch new products
- Answer an FAQ (or two, or three!)
- Solve a problem
- Present industry news
Anytime your business does something: launches a new marketing campaign, encounters anything that would be useful to your customers, etc. – blog about it. These are the opportunities you’re leaving on the table. Not only is a blog an easy, efficient way to regularly add fresh content to your site, it’s a useful tool for moving multi-channel with cross-promotion. It’s another way to engage with customers and push your brand forward. You can establish yourself as an authority in your industry by answering your customers’ questions and providing relevant information to them.
This is part of establishing brand loyalty. Prove yourself to be an informative resource by helping customers solve their problems and providing answers to them; they’ll come to see your business as the authority and they’ll come back to you. Even if they don’t convert into a sale that day, by providing them with the information they need, your brand has made an impression and you’ve improved the chances they’ll think of you when it comes time for them to purchase.
16. Hiding contact information
With information/identity theft on the rise, it’s more important now than ever before to ensure security and assure your customers of it too. Hiding your contact information only arouses suspicion. People are handing valuable information over to you and your business; they want to know that if they have a problem, they can talk to a real person and get the help they need. If you hide your contact information, or don’t provide it all, your integrity just took a hit. Your customers are less likely to trust you, less likely to trust your site, and less likely to do business with you.
When it comes to contact information:
- Make it easy to find
- Put it on every page of your website
- Have a dedicated “Contact Us” page as well
- Provide multiple methods for contact (contact forms, e-mail address, phone number, mailing address, etc.)
All of these provide an added level of trust for your customer. It’s especially important for more expensive or technical products. If the phone really isn’t a part of your process, use a support ticketing system for service inquiries, but make sure customers know that is the best way to get in touch with you.
17. Having a long or confusing checkout process
Visitors leave a site for taking more than 3 seconds to load; do you think they’ll stick around for a lengthy checkout process? They might hang on if they really, really, really want the product they’re buying, but most of them will abandon their cart and head to a competitor who has a quicker, easier checkout process.
Think of it this way, each and every step you place between putting an item in a cart and paying for it is an added opportunity for customers to leave your site without completing the checkout process. Implement One Page Checkout if you can or reduce the process to two pages before submission:
1. A page allowing them to:
- check their order
- edit quantities & make changes
- enter their billing/shipping information
2. A confirmation page before they submit their order
18. Requiring an account to order
Unless your business operates on a closed system, save the account creation for the end of the checkout process; you might be able to reduce your cart abandonment rate that way. Requiring an account to order poses the same problem as a long or confusing checkout process; it’s another step between a customer and completing checkout.
Remember, the more complicated your process, the more likely potential customers will abandon their carts. You might be able to bring them back with engaging abandoned cart e-mails, but you’re starting that process with a blemish already on your record. After all, if they leave in the middle of the checkout process, they generally leave for a reason.
By the time they see your e-mail (if they even read it), it could be too late; they may have already found what they needed from a competitor who has an easier checkout process – one who allows them the option to create an account after they order instead of requiring it beforehand. If they like you and plan to buy from you again, many customers will opt to save their information and create an account (even more so if their experience with your business leaves them feeling warm & fuzzy).
19. Having an inadequate site search engine
If a potential customer comes to your site with a specific product or type of product in mind, make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want. Chances are they’re a little bit further along the conversion funnel. By providing a site search engine, your customers will be less frustrated and have a better experience.
Plus, you’ll have better opportunities for cross-sells and up-sells. You’ll be able to show products related to their search. If your site search has filters, that’s even better. Filters will allow customers to easily narrow down your products to find what they need, and maybe a couple more they want in addition.
20. Having a poor shopping cart design
Don’t just settle for any shopping cart. Your shopping cart is how your customers will buy from you; settling for anything less than awesome does your business, and your site visitors, a disservice. Your shopping cart needs to allow users to:
- Add multiple products
- Revise quantities and/or other options
- Remain transparent
- Add an item & return to the page they were on
You can also use a mini cart to keep customers on the same page, whichever will provide a better user experience for you. Whatever shopping cart you choose, ensure your customers can edit quantities, remove an item, and preview shipping charges before even starting the checkout process. Keep it simple, keep it secure, and make sure it will allow you to make the buying cycle one your customers will want to come back and complete again & again.
21. Lacking payment options
Don’t put limits on your bottom line! If customers want to give you money, let them – and make it as easy as possible. You need to provide as many payment solutions as is practical in order to reach as many customers as possible.
Make sure the payment service you’re using allows payment with each major credit card and with electronic check, if you can. Adding a PayPal checkout option is good too; it’s another choice available to your customers.
If you do as much as is practical to cater to your customers’ needs, you can increase the likelihood they’ll purchase from you. If a customer is willing to go through the entire buying process & make it to checkout, make it as easy as possible for them to complete it. Provide a better checkout experience for your customers and positively affect your bottom line.
22. Not including related products
There’s a reason brick-and-mortar stores group similar products together. By showing related products, online stores can utilize this method as well. Every related product shown is an opportunity for a cross-sell or an up-sell. So think of it this way, every opportunity to show a related product you don’t take is a missed potential cross-sell or up-sell.
Showing related products makes it easy for customers to find, not only the products they want, but also those that are connected in some way to the product they already want to buy. They can get what they need (the product they came to your site to get) and they can get another item or two they didn’t even know they wanted until you showed it to them. The better you can do this, the more the potential for cross-sells & up-sells grows.
If you include related products on product description pages, you increase the probability of a customer adding more items to their cart. Even better, if you have a system that allows you the option to manually choose the related products, the possibilities are endless. Want a way to increase AOV? Showing related products to encourage cross-sells & up-sells is a good method to do so.
23. Confusing navigation
There are a lot of moving parts to a site design, but don’t forget your navigation. It’s how customers get around your site. If it’s difficult to use or confusing, customers won’t get around your site; they’ll just leave. If your online store uses no categories, or uses too many categories with only one or two products, you run the risk of confusing your customers.
Planning & testing can help solve this problem. Before you even put products in your catalog, think carefully about categories and what your navigation should be like. Make sure every category has a few products in it, group categories together if necessary, and most of all, make it easy for potential customers to get around your site. Have groups of users test it out and give feedback, then you’ll know whether your navigation is on the right track or if it needs to change. Also, let visitors use the back button – disabling it is just annoying.
24. Not including shipping rates
Your checkout process should be quick, secure, and simple. If you don’t include shipping rates until the very end or not at all, you’re complicating the process and increasing the probability of abandonment. If a customer is taking the time to complete checkout, don’t make them wait to complete an order – a lot of them won’t. You might get lucky with a few loyal customers, but you’re limiting your business when you create a pause & halt the checkout process.
In the time it takes for you to e-mail a customer shipping rates for approval, for them to read it, and potentially send approval back, they may be able to go to one of your competitors who will show a preview of the shipping charges and allow them to complete the transaction all in one go. Don’t give your customers a reason to go somewhere else! Use a shipping calculator or plugins/widgets; you can show shipping rates right on site for your customers to preview during the checkout process.
25. Not including store policies
Remember, customers are handing valuable information to you; they want to know you’re a real business who will keep their information safe. Having your store policies/FAQs documented on your site for reference adds another level of trust in your company for your customers. Even if they don’t read through all of them, they’ll still want to see them; policies/FAQs let customers know your business is real and it exists outside of the digital realm too.
Make your policies clear up front by spelling out your rules for different kinds of interactions. For customers who look for your policies and read through them, this starts your relationship off on the right foot from the beginning. Plus, by spelling out policies clearly and having them documented publicly, you can save yourself from tons of potential problems in the future.
26. Not putting the focus on products
Keep in mind – ecommerce is about selling things online. If you’re not selling products, a pretty site with a lot of functionality means nothing for your business; it’s just a pretty online placeholder with no substance. Make sure you’re displaying your products first, everything else should be secondary. Have your developers and your marketing team work together throughout the process to ensure your site is marketable. Part of accomplishing that could be making it pretty and adding a lot of custom functionality, but while you’re doing that, make it marketable too.
Every design element and all functionality should contribute to one thing – helping to sell products. If it helps create a great shopping experience for your customers, having a pretty design can help you sell more products. The same goes for functionality; if it helps create a great experience for your customers while moving them along the conversion funnel, fancy functionality can help you sell products. Make sure your focus and all of its elements are helping you sell, not hindering the process.
27. Ignoring SEO
There may be some debate in the digital marketing community about whether SEO as a term is dead or not, but ignoring it is not the answer. Some industry leaders are trying to introduce a new term, OC/DC; it stands for Optimizing Content for Discovery & Conversion, in case you see it floating around. There’s no denying SEO is an important part of any successful online marketing strategy; there’s just some concern that the term has too much of a negative connotation due to some of the “spam-tastic” tactics of the past and no longer represents the broad spectrum of actions that go into a successful strategy.
Whatever you decide to call it, it needs to be a part of your marketing strategy. There are best practices in place for a reason, so make sure you follow the guidelines, stay up-to-date on changes, and continue to provide relevant information & an awesome experience for your users. Selling products online means doing everything you can (and should) to ensure your site stays online; by ignoring SEO, OC/DC, or any other term for it that pops up, you do your business a disservice and risk your site not showing up at all. It becomes quite difficult to run a successful ecommerce site if no one ever visits to use it.
Listen, we’re not providing a step-by-step guide to ecommerce success here; there really isn’t a set recipe for guaranteed success, but there are best practices. Adhere to them, avoid these mistakes, and don’t let the joke be on your bottom line.
This wraps up our 2-part analysis of 27 common ecommerce mistakes. If you missed it and want to check out 1-14, make sure to read Part 1.