Most Common eCommerce Mistakes to Avoid

By James Tredwell on October 7, 2021

Setting up an online eCommerce store is sometimes misunderstood as a straightforward activity that yields immediate results. While on the other hand, when designing a website the actual problem that comes after developing an eCommerce site is to attract the audience as this sector is highly competitive. The other obstacle to overcome is ensuring that all logistical and fulfillment concerns are foreseen and planned for.

So, if you don’t want your new eCommerce firm to struggle in a competitive market, you’ll need to know what typical eCommerce mistakes to avoid while launching or revamping your store, as well as how to avoid them.

So, let’s dive into the most common eCommerce Mistakes:

1. Selecting the Incorrect eCommerce Platform:

Between eCommerce platforms, there are substantial variances. Some provide the most basic functionality, with no possibility to improve.

Others may appear attractive initially, but you will be surprised by hidden expenses, making it more expensive than using a platform with an upfront fee. Primary eCommerce platforms are less likely to include native customization possibilities, relying on third-party solutions or lacking such features altogether.

There can be outcomes at the initial stage you may focus on B2C but further, plan out to expand into B2Bwell.

So, spend some time studying the best eCommerce platform if you’re just getting started and avoid common eCommerce mistakes. Talk to other store owners, read reviews, analyze, compare and then make a decision. If you already have an online store and you want to revamp it, you should consider shifting to a more appropriate forum.

2. Ignoring eCommerce Security:

While eCommerce development has benefited online transactions, it has also attracted the attention of hackers. This is why businesses should obtain an SSL Certificate to promote transparency and avoid difficulties.

SSL Certificates are used to encrypt sensitive data that is exchanged across the internet. It ensures that only the designated recipient receives the information. This is a critical step because all data supplied will pass through numerous computers before reaching the destination server.

Any electronic device between the sender and the server can access sensitive information if SSL certificate encryption is not present. Hackers can exploit your exposed passwords, usernames, credit card numbers, and other information to commit identity theft. As a result, the SSL certificate will help you by preventing undesired users from seeing your data.

3. Not Doing Market Research:

One of the common eCommerce mistakes is to avoid market research. Many companies forget to take into consideration the potential customer. Further, why the product is special, what needs it will fulfil and the competition all get ignored leading to product failure. Not only this, sometimes if businesses have properly identified who their customer is then they forget to understand when their customer is active or on through channels they will be able to sell more.

So, it is advisable to do proper market research including product pricing, marketing, on-going market share and much more. You can also make use of social media for identifying the market and capturing it in a strategic and economical way leading to fewer mistakes.

4. Compromise on High-quality Product Images:

The convenience of modern online shopping experiences is paramount. Customers will not be able to physically hold a product they are interested in throughout this experience. Businesses should fill this gap with high-quality product images from numerous angles. Moreover, when it’s about increasing the website speed then image optimization is the key. Saving the file type as PNG, JPEG, or GIF is the optimization hack.

5. Lack of UI/UX:

There are many businesses struggling with getting their website visitors converted successfully into customers. They often experience a high bounce rate and an increased cart abandonment rate. This can be due to low site speed or the complex menus.

To tackle these problems, one needs to work on their UI/UX. A complicated checkout procedure, large headers, light and thin fonts, text legibility issues on the majority of devices, and many more are common eCommerce mistakes that need to be avoided. So, before launching the eCommerce site a website usability test should be done. However, a mix of usability, efficiency, and aesthetics should be implemented.

6. Not Including Detailed Production Description:

Customers are far more likely to return for more when they can readily acquire the information they need. Furthermore, they lead to the highest possible return on investment. Customers desire more information about a product as they approach closer to making a buying decision, especially at higher price points. Product information that is both useful and informative encourages customers to buy and builds trust in your business.

7. Non-standard Navigation Style:

Everything crucial about your website is linked to the navigation, from content to URLs. The most typical blunder is using a non-standard navigation style. Visitors expect horizontal navigation over the top and vertical navigation along the left side.

Your site will be easier to use if your navigation is placed in conventional locations. This translates to a decreased bounce rate, more pages per visit, and increased conversions. Expect the unexpected. Yes, distinctiveness is essential in marketing, but your navigation style isn’t where to do it.

Your purpose is to assist visitors in finding your content, not to demonstrate a new way to navigate a website. Your navigation is also a great way to show search engines that you’re relevant. Because your audience isn’t looking for “items” or “services,” using popular terms to navigate won’t help you rank. As a general rule, the navigation within the site and the site’s structure should be optimized for search engines.

Reinvent the wheel!

What works for your business will be significantly influenced by your target audience’s interests and behaviors, the offers you’re pushing, the design of your website, and so much more. If you want to succeed in the competitive eCommerce sector, you must know which eCommerce mistakes need to be avoided then only you’ll be able to beat the competition and hit the break-even point.

Author Bio: Vishal Lakhani: CEO and Magento Solution Specialist at Rock Technolabs with over 10+ years of experience in eCommerce. Apart from blogging and playing with Magento, he loves to read, travel, and learn new technologies that help make the development process easier and more appealing to our clients.

16 Ecommerce Marketing Tips to Entice Holiday Shoppers

By James Tredwell on October 7, 2021

It’s less than 100 days until Christmas, and that means one thing – the holiday shopping season has begun. And as we get closer to the peak days, e-commerce businesses and their marketing teams will be rolling out their campaigns to maximize sales during this lucrative season.

It’s a festive time not just for sales but also for customers. Online shoppers start to feel merry and want to purchase items for themselves and gifts for their loved ones. This simple user behavior is why e-commerce businesses have to up their marketing game each year to capture as many holiday sales as possible.

So, let’s prepare for a jolly, happy holiday season keeping these marketing tips in mind when scheduling and planning the holiday calendar.

1. Use Holiday Related Keywords

It’s no secret that keywords are an integral part of any SEO marketing strategy, and when your website ranks high on search engines, you get more traffic. More traffic means more potential leads. Therefore, paying attention to the type of keywords that were trending last season will indicate what content and campaigns you must run to capture holiday shoppers and get more traffic to your site. Analyze your digital sales and data during the holiday period from the previous year and make notes of the seasonal keywords that drove your conversions.

2. Check for Trends and Patterns

Knowing and anticipating the next big trend for the holidays will also help your e-commerce marketing strategy. For example, if unicorn paraphernalia is the hottest gifting item for the holiday season – then creating content and offering unicorn-themed items from your e-commerce store will drive more traffic and hopefully more sales. Analyze buying patterns and forecast colors, themes, and trends, so that they can inspire your holiday campaigns. Creating engaging content before the holiday rush will help your brand get a jump on the competition, so focus your efforts on finding the big trends of the holiday season well in advance.

3. Send Holiday Emailers

Reward your existing customers by offering them a coupon code that’s exclusive to subscribers of your newsletter. Emailers are an effective way to reach paying customers who know your brand. Along with coupon codes, use this opportunity to introduce them to the new holiday collections, upcoming holiday sales, or any other marketing campaign that they can look forward to.

Catchy, keyword-dense subject lines can lead to higher open rates, so ensure your marketing and content teams work on the best copy to showcase all the new holiday products your e-commerce site has to offer.

4. Create Buzz

When running your new holiday campaigns and showcasing your products, it’s important to branch out your marketing efforts on all platforms to get maximum exposure. There are many ways you can generate buzz around your campaigns; here are a few ideas:

  • Use social media to promote exclusive online deals, such as free shipping or buy-one-get-one offers.
  • Refresh your website with festive/holiday images, fonts, headers, etc.
  • Create festive branding for the season – for example, incorporating a Christmas tree in your logo or giving your packaging a seasonal change.
  • Host holiday-specific contests for your subscribers
  • Create more emotionally moving video content for your landing pages and social media

5. Find Gifting Collections

The holiday season is a time of giving and gifting, which means offering your customers gifting solutions that center around product collections from your e-shop. Group your gifting collections by users or by themes, keeping user intent and keyword research in mind. For example, if Thanksgiving gifts for dad is a ranking keyword phrase, then it’s beneficial to have gift hampers or a whole page with curated gifts for fathers. Promote these collections, using high-quality images or videos on landing pages to bring focus to these campaigns.

6. Top Selling Items

Showcase your top-selling items by creating a special campaign around it so that it has a holiday twist – this is essential for e-commerce sites that have few or one main product. For example, if you’re a watch company, consider shooting Christmasy photographs using the watch or, alternatively, ask influencers to create videos that promote the watch as a great Christmas gift option.

Creating a specific campaign that shows your top-selling product in a new holiday light will entice customers and help you create content that can be used for SEO purposes to rank your product during the festive season.

7. Optimize for Mobile

Whether you have an app or not, your brand’s website must be optimized for mobile. Google already announced their mobile-first algorithms favor mobile content and give mobile-optimized sites a ranking boost.

According to Smimicart.com, m-commerce will make up 53.9% of all e-commerce sales. This statistic indicates that smartphones are being used to make online searches and purchases directly from mobile e-commerce sites. Therefore, optimizing your brand and holiday marketing campaigns for mobile will benefit your sales and give your campaigns the chance to reap more mobile-generated rewards.

8. Create Holiday Videos

The rise in popularity of Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram reels indicates that videos are an effective and engaging way users want to receive their content and should not be ignored. Video marketing is the biggest trend in the marketing world currently, and it’s here to stay.

According to Wyzowl.com, after watching a brand’s video, 84% of people say they are convinced to buy a product or avail of a service. This is one of the biggest benefits of video marketing, and it allows users to get a better idea of your brand and your products/services. Create holiday-centric video content such as testimonial videos, influence haul videos, product videos, etc.

9. Get Reviews

Nine out of ten consumers say they read reviews before making their purchasing decisions, and 79% of users say they trust online reviews (Oberlo), which means that getting authentic reviews for your brand is essential.

Use the holiday traffic to gain these reviews by offering them free shipping or a discount in exchange for a review. Creating more reviews for regular and seasonal products will encourage tentative buyers and help conversion rates.

10. Revise Goals

To get the most from your holiday shoppers, it’s wise to revisit your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics so that you can plan your marketing strategy and track its success. You must monitor new visitor behavior and find out what drives them to make purchases for the future. Keeping your holiday-shopper glasses on, revisit your goals, and adjust them accordingly. Here are some examples of metrics you can monitor:

  1. Traffic sources – where are your new users finding you? Is it through emailers, social media, adverts etc.?
  2. Total revenue – what are your targets for the season, and find ways to achieve them.
  3. Abandonment rates – learn what attracts or distracts your new users.

11. Create Holiday Sales and Deals

Buying gifts for friends and family can be a costly affair, which is why users love a great deal or sale. Entice your cost-conservative customers by offering them flash sales, special holiday discounts, or shopping deals such as Buy 1 Get 1 Free. These budget-friendly shopping ideas can persuade a tentative customers to buy all their gifts from your ecommerce store.

Promote your sales and deals on all channels like social media, print ads, mobile marketing, push notifications, emailers, etc. Sales and deals are great marketing elements that should be included in your holiday calendar.

12. Monitor and Save

The holiday season brings with it an inflow of revenue, web traffic, conversions, and opportunities to interact with your clients through your marketing efforts. Therefore, every action should be monitored and saved for future reference.

Replicating this system for the next holiday sales period will save you time on doing the leg work or research when you know the successful marketing strategy elements. Additionally, campaigns, videos, sales deals, prints ads, etc., that did not do well should be marked and reviewed to be improved or eliminated from your marketing calendar for the next year.

13. Prepare Holiday Budget

When allocating the yearly budget for your marketing department, it’s advisable to dedicate a part of the budget specifically for the most profitable season, in this case, the holiday months between September to December.

Additionally, identify where to spend the money – Which elements from the previous year’s marketing strategy were most fruitful?

Spend the budget on those. For example, if Christmas videos were a huge sales draw, then put more money into that this year. Allocating the budget to the key players within your marketing strategy will ensure that your money is well spent.

14. Give Peak Promotions

It’s essential to target the holidays or sales days that bring the most revenue for your particular product and company – laser focus on the one or two that resonate with your brand and are most profitable.

Once identified, create promotions around a peak day/events, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Boxing Day. Don’t regret missing out on these peak days; mark them in advance and roll out targeted promotions to let your clients and customers know that you’ve got something special planned for those days/holidays.

15. Site Maintenance

There is nothing worse than having a phenomenal marketing strategy that generates excellent traffic, and your site goes down, or the loading speed is too slow, or your users get the dreaded ‘page not found error. Technical aspects like these can sink a marketing ship and lose out on potential sales and clients.

Once your campaigns start to bring in the visitors, ensure that your e-commerce site is running at optimal. Prepare in advance for the higher numbers by doing site maintenance and upgrade or fine-tune and roadblocks that could arise. Have your developers ready for any issues so that your site is running well and can meet all the demands of the holiday shopper crowd.

16. Holiday SEO

During the holiday season, it’s easy to be caught up in marketing campaigns and forget about SEO. However, re-aligning your SEO goals to fit with the holiday shopper crowd is a good idea because you want your website to turn up as a result of any holiday searches.

SEO results don’t happen overnight, so preparing for them months in advance will give you a better chance of ending up on SERPs during the festive season. Create a holiday-specific keyword list, curate holiday content and grab link-building opportunities – these are some ways in which you can start preparing your SEO for the holiday rush.

And finally, learn as you go!

Whether you’re an established business with years of experience under your belt or a small business that’s just getting started – each holiday season is a period of learning. Client behaviors can change, trends are flaky, and world events can put a spanner in even the most well-oiled marketing strategy. That’s why it’s crucial to learn and adjust as you go.

Having a holiday marketing strategy will give you the best opportunity to capture the sales and clients you seek; however, if something isn’t working, then find ways to pivot problem solve. Hiring a dedicated team or marketing agency is also a great way to achieve all your holiday sales targets. Either way, we hope the tips in this article gave you insight into some key pointers for the holiday season. Good luck grabbing all those happy shoppers!

Author Bio:-Brice Decker Is a Growth marketer and SEO Consultant for Haitna, a leading SEO agency based in Austin, TX. He has helped companies to increase their organic SEO traffic by 10X and cut their lead acquisition rate in half.

What eCommerce Platform Should You Choose in 2021?

By James Tredwell on July 23, 2021

Online businesses start their processes with the selection of a perfect eCommerce platform. Indeed, it is an essential step in the formation of an eCommerce solution. Creating an eCommerce website is not difficult today, but if you start with the wrong eCommerce platform, sooner or later, it will harm your business. There are many platforms, and all of them come with their own merits and demerits. 

Though any of these eCommerce platforms is enough to build decent online stores, there are some top-of-the-line platforms to create excellent eCommerce stores. In 2021, there are plenty of eCommerce platforms that come with various features and benefits. You can choose any of them for eCommerce website development services

Some eCommerce platforms are available for free, and some are available at a particular premium. A few platforms come with everything that you need to build, modify, and maintain a website. Moreover, you can pick a platform that serves your purpose better. 

Benefits of eCommerce business in detail

There are innumerable benefits that an eCommerce website can bring for your business. Not only can you sell your products efficiently, but you also get a convenient way to manage your retail business. You can hire web developer to build a custom eCommerce solution that consists of all kinds of functionalities and tools that are specifically needed for your business. There is no limitation on what you can do with your online store. 

You can sell physical products or sell digital products depending on your business needs. There are many eCommerce platforms in 2021 that allow you to sell both digital and physical products. eCommerce websites also make it easy to manage varied aspects of your business, whether delivery, payments, stats, optimization, customization or anything else. So, investing in eCommerce development is a smart decision. Here are the top benefits of having an eCommerce store. 

Faster Buying

Undeniably, online shopping is faster than visiting a physical store and buying from there. Customers spend less time shopping online, and they can easily browse through several products anytime and buy the desired one. Also, with online shopping, they can find products available in a physical store located far from their places. Online shopping provides ease of buying to customers as they can simply order products and get them delivered to their doorstep.

Product listing

When customers search for an item, they see the product listing. You can personalize the product listings after creating these listings. Also, creating product listings is easier on eCommerce websites. They can add product images, product category, price, delivery date, shipping fee, and a description. With the product listing, you can tell a lot about a product. 

Cost reduction

It is one of the key advantages of eCommerce websites that motivate entrepreneurs to invest in this field. In the case of a physical store, you have to spend a lot on maintenance. You have to pay extra upfront costs such as repairs, rent, inventory, renovation, etc. However, you can save all this cost by going the eCommerce route.

Flexibility for customers

Another major advantage of eCommerce to businesses is that it can offer flexibility to customers. One important highlight of the flexibility is the 24×7 availability of products and services. Because of the conveniences they get, customers also come back for repeat purchases. Also, on eCommerce websites, buyers can leave their reviews or ratings that help in trust-building and transparency. 

Price and product comparison

Another important benefit of eCommerce websites is a quick comparison between different products and their prices. Customers can compare between products and choose the most suitable one. Similarly, they can compare prices and pick products at the best prices. 

Multiple payment options

Online shopping becomes even more convenient when multiple payment options are available. You can allow customers to make payments through different modes like cash on delivery, credit/debit cards, online banking, e-wallet, and more. 

Here are the top eCommerce platforms in 2021 for developing top-notch online stores:

Magento 

Magento is one of the most preferred eCommerce development platforms that come with excellent features and benefits. The advent of the Magento 2 has taken this platform to a whole new level. It is an ideal solution for creating top-notch eCommerce websites. There are many editions of Magento, and one of them is an open-source version, and one is an enterprise version. Based on your requirements, you can choose any of them for your project. The open-source version is free and offers excellent customization potential. 

Shopify

Shopify is an eminent eCommerce platform that allows creating online stores easily and quickly with many available website templates. You can also customize the website template according to your business needs or create your own unique look for the eCommerce store. Ease of use and all-in-one features are the reasons for the popularity of this platform. Creating an eCommerce website is relatively easy with Shopify and takes only a few clicks. It offers a complete solution including hosting, domain, website builder, website management tools, and more. So, after subscribing to Shopify, you don’t need anything else for your eCommerce store. 

PrestaShop

It is an open-source eCommerce development platform that allows entrepreneurs to create world-class online stores and grow their businesses multifold. PrestaShop is one of the best solutions for eCommerce development and comes with many unmatched features and benefits. Rich functionality, cost-friendly solutions, and low maintenance are some of the key features that make it a preferred choice for many developers to create eCommerce stores. You can develop a top-of-the-line online store using PrestaShop with a reliable eCommerce web development firm. They can help to develop a perfect website with all the right features for your business. 

Wrapping up

Whether you want to sell physical or digital products, eCommerce websites serve as an efficient bridge between you and your customers. You can sell different products and find new opportunities for the growth of your business. However, the selection of the right eCommerce platform is crucial to make your eCommerce business a success. There are lots of eCommerce development platforms in 2021 with their own benefits. You can analyze and go through the pros and cons of all these platforms to pick the best suiting platform for your online store. 

Author Bio

Emily White is a senior web developer at CSSChopper, which is a leading eCommerce Web development company. She is a veteran developer and an amateur writer who loves to compose informative blogs and articles in her spare time. She enjoys writing and wants to spread knowledge through her content. 

20+ Common Ecommerce Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2021

By James Tredwell on May 30, 2021

Mistakes are common in the eCommerce world. But, repeating the same harms the most. 

The eCommerce industry, being too lucrative, has its way of reaching customers. But, when the eCommerce store owner fails to understand the rhythm or the purchase flow, he/she has high chances of bouncing back within a short period. 

Unfortunately, even research confirms that. According to some random research cited from a magazine, it is found that almost 90 percent of the eCommerce store fails within 120 days from their launch period. Shocking, right?

Yes, of course, it will!! But, do not worry! We have covered you up with a fantastic piece of information. Probably, a long piece, though. Yes, understanding the struggle of many eCommerce store owners, we have framed this article with the set of mistakes that have been in a loop. 

But why don’t I try it on my own in the eCommerce store and learn from my mistakes?

If this is your question, then I am here to answer this. When you have no idea about your mistakes or whether it is, are you able to come up with it?

No, so learning starts from grasping and working on your mistakes. Let us get started. 

21 eCommerce Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2021

Now, you are in a phase where you might own an eCommerce store for years/months/or even days. But, that doesn’t matter!! Rectifying the mistakes and moving towards the conversion is a clever tactic that helps eCommerce businesses grow in the long run. 

Say, when you are supposed to own an eCommerce store, do you rely on copying your competitors’ strategy or work on your own track? Well, I would work on my own track and compile things/actions that they fail to do. 

Mistakes come under the same umbrella. When you rectify the mistake eventually done by your competitors, there are high chances that your store will the show-stealer on any campaigns or occasional dates. 

Alright, without any further ado, let’s break in the mistakes that probably have been done by most of the readers out there. 

Popup Usage Beyond The Limit!

Popups are the first or maybe the last thing you encounter on any website. Whether or not, popups are a great conversion-triggering agent. But, many eCommerce store owners fail to use it in the right way. For example, let us assume that you are a visitor who wishes to buy an xxx brand perfume in your abandoned cart in an XYZ online store. 

You are entering into the eCommerce store. If you get an irrelevant popup like “xx% OFF for Women Clothing”, for the first time, obviously the Cancel button speaks with the popup. But what if the irrelevant popup continues as a shadow all down to every product page you visit. 

Quite annoying, right? Now, let us get into scenario 2. Consider the same Perfume concept here. You are entering the store. At the moment you enter, assume you are getting an attractive popup with a bright CTA showing this text, “XX% OFF on XXX brand perfume, especially for you”. So, how will your reaction be? 

This is how popup can be used to trigger your audience’s expectations

Call To Action Phrases Fail To Call Your Audience To Take Action

Every eCommerce store owner knows the importance of a CTA used in the right place. Either it may be an email campaign or a website. The CTAs when used right always helps you to reap benefits out of it. But, when you fail to do so, you will never get the benefits out of it. 

For example, try to provide the CTAs wherever necessary. And, do not forget to provide the actionable CTA phrases in the email campaign you sent to your customers. If it is a referral marketing campaign, try to highlight the discounts using the CTAs. 

Added, you can also provide apt colors for it in order to give a specific differentiation to it. But, do not make it over impulsive or too flashy for the readers. Normalize your CTA phrases in the content naturally. 

Not Understanding Your Target Audience

Wait, I would also like to add another heading to it. Not understanding who your target audience is. Yes, both suit perfectly. Many eCommerce owners fail to understand their target audience and promote unnecessary stuff on multiple platforms.  The image explains to you how audience segmentation works. 

What if your target audience expects something different from your side? Yes, it may also be the scenario. Just imagine when you have a proper marketing strategy and a plan, but fail to understand the target audience. Understanding your target audience is more important and will help you to entice your store often. 

Ensure that your audience actually understands and gets benefits from your campaigns, takeaways, and discounts. Try to make sure that it has been well promoted and reaches your audience. Referral programs or any loyalty programs without promotion may not reach your audience. So, make apt promotions to deal with your target audience. 

Avoiding High-quality Images

Images speak louder than words when it comes to an eCommerce website. Every visitor tries to understand the quality of the product with the images and the reviews out there. When you fail to provide a detailing image, there are high chances of your visitor bouncing back from your store. 

Do you want it to happen? No, right? Then, why not try to improve your eCommerce store’s UX and all product images with high-quality images. When the product image seems attractive and illustrative, customers will not mind the rate. There are customers who have never purchased a product without seeing the reviews of the customers.

So, the images and the product reviews go hand in hand. Do not foreplay with it. Try to bring up your site with quality images along with a better user experience. 

Lack Of Social Proof Or Testimonials

As discussed earlier, both images and testimonials play a crucial role in your eCommerce store. When your store’s reviews are bad, no matter how old your store is, ready to face a storm in your business history. On the contrary, when you have as many good reviews as hell, you will never get disappointed in your sales curve. 

But, in order to gain social proof or testimonials, you must be sure to take things in hand. For example, there are many stores that have been known to very few of their customers. Here, they lack promotion. On the other hand, there are stores that promote their brand on the wrong platform or in the wrong way. 

Apart from these two, there are stores that will not value their customer reviews much. They are the ones who have to make a point here. No matter what, try to get reviews (probably in the form of star ratings) to showcase the brand visibility to your audience. And, do not forget to add it in your campaigns or even adding in the product page works well.  

Not Promoting Your Brand When Required

Every eCommerce store has a history or an interesting story to share with its customers. Though the eCommerce store doesn’t have one, you can introduce your brand to the audience visiting your store. But, how?

You can use the About us section wisely and promote your brand without any effort. You might have come across the success stories of eCommerce store owners who have just started from scratch. Build your brand and own your customer’s decisions. 

It is not necessary to have a strong background. Instead, it is always necessary to build your brand among the audience. Your brand must become the familiar part of the audience. Start doing it now!

No Logo No Recognition

Same as brand awareness and promotion, having a unique and separate logo for your eCommerce store is necessary. But, many eCommerce stores focus on increasing their conversion rate without a logo. Is it even possible to buy a house without a name? Impossible, right?

This is why the logo plays an important role. Make sure you are sticking towards a unique and easily rememberable logo with its structure (illustrated in the image) that attracts your audience. In order to come up with a logo, try to mix your store’s first name. At times, you can also give an image (unique) as your logo. In order to design a logo, you do not need to spend huge bucks. Instead, go with the flow and mix a little creativity in it. 

Too Many Discounts And Offers Also Turn Into A Nightmare

Who says people love too many discounts? No, I am not denying the fact that discounts are life-savior for many eCommerce stores. But, when you over inject the discount concept in your eCommerce store, either the customers feel dump or they start expecting more from your store which leads to disappointment. 

Offering discounts when necessary suits every eCommerce store. But, the misunderstood concept here is, “more the discounts, more are the customers and so are the conversions.” Do you actually think it is good to go?

No, right? Too many discounts or coupon popups may annoy the customers and make them abandon their carts without completing the purchase. Try to provide minimal offers or recurring discounts that actually boost the customers to enjoy shopping on your site. 

Resolve Broken Links And Page Not Found Issue

How annoying it would be to encounter a broken link at the time of checkout? Many customers face the same thing when the eCommerce site owner fails to rectify the broken links. Many eCommerce customers encounter a problem with the store they wish to purchase. It may also lead to bad reviews or negative social proofs.

It may lead to an increase in the cart abandonment rate which further leads to delayed or progressed carts. Moreover, it also damages the reputation and credibility of the eCommerce store. This is why it is always essential to fix the broken links and redirect them to the right landing page.

Try to go through all the links of your eCommerce store and make sure everything works fine. Importantly, check whether the checkout and the payment page works well. Make sure they receive order notifications and the status. 

Crosscheck Whether Your Coupon Works Well

Yes, it happens in many eCommerce stores! I have even encountered the scenario. Recently, I got a coupon from a popular apparel store. Like a normal buyer, I too had tons of dreams to buy with that coupon (though the coupon doesn’t cover up my dream). 

Once I got the coupon, I have cross-checked the expiry date. It is something around the end of May. But, when I proceeded with the coupon in the mid of May, I may not figure out why my Coupon code is invalid. Dropping up all the dreams, I ended with “Your Coupon Code Is Invalid”.

Do you still think I will purchase in the same store again? Who knows? There are many customers who are as crazy as me.

So, crosscheck your coupon codes. When it is automated or you are relying on any coupon or discount plugin, you can rest a while. But, pick the right one to avoid unnecessary chaos.

Lack Of Multiple Payment Modes

Do you still believe that your customers prefer COD rather than credit/debit cards? If you nod your head, you have to indulge in knowing more about your audience. Nowadays, customers are even ready to pay their bills with cryptocurrency or bitcoins. 

In that case, when you provide only one/two modes of payment, there are high chances that your customers will abandon their carts. So, it is always advisable to provide more than three modes of payment. The customers will go with the one they are flexible with. 

And, ensure that you provide a highly-secured payment gateway for your eCommerce store. It helps in increasing the trustworthiness of your store among the audience. 

Guest Checkout – Why Force Customers To Create A New Account?

Do you know what annoys the customers the most? Forcing the customers to create a new customer for a single product purchase they undertake in your store. It is not always advisable to make customers your subscribers. 

Instead, you can provide them the best alternative for creating an account or providing their personal details. As an eCommerce store owner, you must be aware that every individual cares about their privacy and hesitates to share their information at the first interaction with your store. 

In order to rectify it, you can provide a guest checkout option that literally helps customers to show with your store at a single shot. And, you do not want to leave them as such. You can engage them frequently with your store’s new launches or referral programs. It helps them to become your potential customer in the long run. 

Lack Of Communication Between Your Store And Your Customers

Communication between your customers helps you improve your engagement rate. But, some stores fail to do so. In the end, nobody knows why the customer has left the store without completing their purchase. Instead of discussing it on your own, you can indulge in building communication with your customers. 

But, how? Do I need to meet them in person? Is that even possible? No, I am suggesting you meet them virtually. Try to be in their daily routine. For example, try sending wishes on their special dates, invite them for your referral program, and provide them extra discounts if they are your potential customers. 

Not Using Your Email Subscribers Wisely

Email subscribers are considered a valuable lead for every eCommerce business. But, what if you are not using those leads progressively? Many new eCommerce stores have reached millions of subscribers as they have been using and engaging with them wisely. 

Many abandoned cart emails have never met the customers’ expectations. When you provide a really compelling discount or offer to your customers, there are high chances of them returning to the site. 

When you are out of your mind about email marketing ideas, get help from an expert. Nothing wrong with it. Try to enrich your customers with a new concept daily. Either it may be promotional or informative. Make them remember your store at least once a day. 

Failing To Come Up With Attractive Email Copy

After going through the importance of email subscribers and their impact on your store, now it’s time to grab some information about your email marketing copy. Are you sure that your email copy attracts your audience?

If yes, obviously, you would have had an impact on your sales. If you are not sure about it, cross-check the click-through rate and the open rate of your emails. An attractive email must include a catchy subject line and attractive CTAs that help the customers to navigate to the page once they are triggered enough. 

An attractive email copy doesn’t need to be colorful and full of images. Instead, you can also bring an elegant and triggering email copy that helps you in your conversion. Do not forget to personalize your email that always works well from the customers’ point of view. 

Selecting Unnecessary Software/Plugin

Coming up with the above-mentioned mistakes, here is the most prominent mistake done by many eCommerce store owners. Yes, choosing the wrong eCommerce platform or irrelevant plugin for your store. 

Choosing the right eCommerce platform has a huge impact on your sales. Do not rely on the platform that does not integrate with the existing trend or does not offer you high-level customization to your store. If left unseen, you may face many difficulties to raise sales in your store. It may lead to revenue loss, lower conversion rate, security issues, website errors, website traffic, etc. 

The same factor is applicable to the irrelevant plugin or software. When you ought to choose a plugin, say an abandoned cart recovery plugin, do not waste your time stalking your competitor’s store. Because not all plugins for you. Go for something that suits your requirements and most probably increases your sales after installing it. 

Poor Customer Service Is Not Advisable

After all your marketing efforts, a customer enters your store for purchase. Successively, they are at the urge to buy the product. But, what if they bounce back due to your poor customer service. Either it may be chat support or customer service. It may be anything. But, it is always necessary to provide top-notch customer service that makes the customers bring back to your store often. 

Having customer chat support in your store always works out well. It helps the customers to get their doubts resolved. But, be more cautious about replying to the queries. As customers expect instant replies, make sure you are doing that in order to avoid further chaos. 

At times, you can also rely upon the customer chat support software that helps you to deal with the customers instantly. Most often, customers get doubt at the time of their renewals or during your referral programs. Make sure you are more attentive during these days. 

No Optimization for Mobile Users

According to a recent survey, almost 79 percent of Smartphone users have purchased online using their mobiles in the last 6 months. Added, 40 percent of the eCommerce purchases during the holiday season were made on smartphones. 

I hope you have understood how well our online market has changed. Instead of standing in queues, people have been making instant purchases using their smartphones. But, my question for you is, whether your eCommerce store is optimized for mobile users?

If not, optimize it now. Optimizing your eCommerce store especially for mobile users helps you to increase your conversion rate considerably. As every individual owns a smartphone today, it helps in instant purchases when they encounter your social media ads or marketing campaigns. 

Avoiding Seo Strategy Is Not Good For Your Store

SEO is important for every business and every online store. When you have planned to launch an eCommerce store, consider adding SEO relevant and ranking factors in your store. If you haven’t considered it yet, optimize your store according to the SEO factor now. 

Avoiding the SEO factor is literally equal to ignoring immense traffic to your store. Leaving other inorganic or paid traffic aside, gaining organic leads from the search engines brings more benefits to your site. And, it also has chances to bring more potential customers to your store. 

Try optimizing your product pages with relevant keywords with high volume. Focus on your product descriptions. Having a detailed product description alone will not work unless you add a relevant keyword to it. Optimize your store’s speed that brings a major impact to your store’s ranking. 

Having A Dull And Unclear Website Design

There is no doubt that an individual entering your store obviously gets taken away with your design. It lays the foundation for your store’s success. So, in order to make it happen in your store too, try to come up with an innovative design that helps in your conversion rate. 

Do not overuse the CTAs and make the site too complicated. Focus on the navigation bars and the popups that tend to direct the customers to your desired page. If the popup you use is simple, you can go along with the floating bar or sidebar that brings a different look to your website. 

When it comes to website design, UX plays a huge role. Do not forget to pay special attention to your UX design that helps in smooth navigation. Your design must suit your functionality and performance of your store. It helps in high conversion rates. 

Giving Less Weightage To A/B Testing

Remember, every single thing you optimize in your store gives a major impact on the conversion rate. But, you may not be sure whether it is a good impact or not. So, whenever you optimize your store, do not forget to test it right away. 

Additionally, when you come up with an email copy different from the past ones, try to send the copies to only half of the customers. Try to see the results and conversions out of it. It helps you to personalize your emails more effectively than ever. 

You might have come across a few eCommerce stores using a plugin that really benefits them a lot. And, you also wish to have one. Nothing wrong with it. But, try to test it before you apply it. Testing the plugin or any new customization to your store helps you to make changes if necessary. 

Final Thoughts

And, the mistake list ends here!! I am not sure how many of you are making these mistakes in your eCommerce store. Probably, no more!! Take time to understand what your store actually needs and blend the strategies with your next move. 

Do not forget to accomplish your mistakes before you and try to come over with the solutions. It helps you to witness drastic changes that positively impact your conversion rates. Cheers!!

Monisha Thangavel is an ardent writer and a blogger carrying years of experience in different realms including eCommerce, Tech, and SEO. Her brevity-rich writings flash a light upon the uncovered yet important points about WordPress and eCommerce plugins including Retainful.

E-Commerce Testing – A Complete Guide to Website Testing

By James Tredwell on March 22, 2021

Browsing products in an online shop and ordering them online is just one aspect of e-trade. E-commerce is a multifaceted way of engaging in enterprise online. Both B2C and B2B businesses use and depend on e-commerce nowadays. In reality, e-commerce is driving modifications within the conventional marketplace and giving a push to new trends.

The eCommerce website testing calls for knowledge of net-based testing techniques. No longer that, the eCommerce website testers test their websites constantly. Moreover, testing is finished in exclusive browsers, unique structures, diverse combinations are tested, and also testing takes place on devices like mobiles and iPad.

Supply chain management, online fund switch, incorporated inventory management, virtual advertising, are a number of the factors in this culture that have significantly changed the way businessmen looked at their work. The boom is exponential and nonetheless smooth to understand. It is stated to be the way of the future because it proposes many advantages of the conventional method.

One of the most outstanding functions of this is that It’s greater transparency. It also allows within the business enterprise of actual-time stock management and finances in an enterprise to commercial enterprise model. And what effect does it have on the commercial enterprise-to-client scenario? You can see what a large client carrier company Amazon is nowadays!

The e-trade software testing ensures that every one of the pages of the website is thoroughly tested all of the eCommerce transactions are comfy and checked and the utility can be now given to customers to use. To test the usability of the software, how user-friendly it is, make the application issue-free are the reasons we perform testing on eCommerce applications.

Maintaining Quality Assurance is also an essential part of software development, so to see if our software complies with the first-class warranty requirements we perform testing.

Here are some important reasons for Testing eCommerce applications are

User-Friendly Designs

In a B2C environment, you want extreme customer-friendly designs and functions in e-commerce applications. But, such designs and features might also someday be at odds with the capability of the website. That is extra because e-commerce websites may also want to address large amounts of visitors for a certain period of time observed with the aid of certain durations of a lull. So it’s critical that you test the capability of a domain when the visitors are going up very high. You want to see that it keeps the capability at the extreme degree of site visitors and at the same time has purchaser pleasant designs and functions.

Different Browsers

E-commerce websites are loaded with JavaScript plug-ins, rich images, social media integration, product description, informative films, and many others. These are the functions that decorate client revel in and help traffic convert to clients. These sites are opened in a couple of browsers like net Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc. The developers need to make certain that the website offers an easy experience to the customer regardless of the browser that he or she is using. So, testing of eCommerce sites and programs should be a non-stop process as any glitch might rob the employer of a giant quantity of sales.

Distinct systems

Human beings get the right to entry to e-commerce sites from devices such as smart telephones, capsules, computer systems, laptops, etc. Consequently, a company needs to make sure that clients have a seamless enjoy across all devices. And for this, testing e-commerce websites and programs Is important.

Safety and Vulnerability

Ecommerce websites and packages are extra susceptible to security and vulnerability threats than others. Because humans are using these programs to buy products, the usage of their personal banking statistics like card number, PIN number, and many others, it’s of utmost importance that security and vulnerability of programs like price Gateway are usually checked and up to date.

Unavailability Of Online Store

This is a commonplace hassle that could originate from the provider’s aspect. Remarkable software testing can effortlessly prevent this danger, especially for high loads at peak instances, as for example, in the course of vacation sales.

Susceptible Search Capability

Most of the clients or internet site visitors opt to browse through the items on offer earlier than making the actual buy. Slow loading speed and vulnerable seek functionality can sincerely disappoint ability clients and bring about a low conversion.

Shopping Cart functionality

There are numerous times while a patron can discover the products they’re searching out, however, cannot order because of problems with the shopping cart capability. As an example, customers cannot follow a discount coupon or add/eliminate alternatives that don’t work. 

Misleading Analytics

Website analytics permits you to take advantage of significant insights about internet site traffic, sales conversion charge, common order fee, revenue by using visitors’ supply, the share of returning customers, and more. With terrible analytics and testing, an enterprise loses its risk to gain the advantage of a dependable basis for assessing its overall enterprise strategy.

Some things that need to be tested

Testing Planning

Test planning is one of the early phases of software programs trying out the existence Cycle. An excellent making plan is key to an easy execution phase, while horrific planning can result in needless time intake. subsequently, check Case writing, aid mission, etc. are some of the sports which might be accomplished as part of test-making plans.

Website’s capability

To begin with, we’ll run via the principle capability of an eCommerce website that needs to be examined. however, your website might not have a majority of these items, or some may not consist of right here. We should check major pages (i.e.home page, Featured merchandise, unique offers, statistics pages, etc.)

  • Product category pages
  • Product detail pages
  • Filtering & Product searching
  • buying cart
  • Checkout and price structures

Performance Test

E-trade Website wishes to load quickly so as for capability customers to not get frustrated and a sluggish-loading website pushes your customers away. subsequently, performance testing ensures that it is on hand and appearing nicely under better load conditions.

For better overall performance Run the check and begin analyzing live results, test response time, the variety of hits, the throughput of your website, and if what number of and what sort of errors were thrown.

UI factors

UI factors and content play a critical role in the success of any eCommerce website and therefore, you must make sure of the correctness of UI elements and content material.

Think about your own user experience when you visit a website: Are you more likely to purchase if you may without problems find what you’re looking for or if you have to click through 50 alternatives?

One of the most validated approaches to testing is referred to as A/B testing. A/B testing is comparing versions of a web web page to peers which one performs higher. You evaluate two web pages by means of displaying the two editions.

Mobile Responsiveness

The website ought to reply properly to devices on which it’s far displayed and this is why testing cellular responsiveness is a crucial part of the system.

In case you desire your website to be used by visitors viewing it on their phone or tablet you then also want to test all the functionality on each of the subsequent cell gadgets.

The various browser testing gear can help with cellular websites like Appium, AppAssist, Fast Lane, and many others.

Secure Payments & Purchaser Data

Payments are an important part of testing eCommerce websites. In the end, this is what permits customers to purchase for his or her objects without the want to name a range of to vicinity their order.

eCommerce business proprietors also must make sure that everyone’s charge and data concerning customers are absolutely secured at all times like all of the bills are processed through servers that can be SSL encrypted. 

One must examine all kinds of Payment Types, e.g. credit score Card, PayPal, Bank Transfers, Installments, and so forth.

Wrapping Up

The retail enterprise is extraordinarily unstable and ever-evolving. deciding on the proper strategies and doing the right checks is recommendable before the e-commerce website is released. With the aid of acting strictly on your e-commerce internet site/application, you can without a doubt reduce the range of errors that crop up whilst the website is made life to your customers. This depicts that the website doesn’t always live the same for too long. Therefore, it can get inordinate for the plenty.

We know that this is an ever-developing marketplace. Many new companies are starting their enterprise with the help of this and many large agencies have already made their mark primarily based on this virtual manifesto.

Each of these companies must constantly take a look at their websites and packages for the given motives. If now not, there are very fewer possibilities of them surviving in the market. While doing this, they need to ensure that they may be testing the sites by selecting the best strategies and performing the proper checks.

It’s consequently important for agencies to communicate with your QA group and make sure your eCommerce testing procedures give your website unequaled performance and robustness.

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