PraveenRajaE-commerce business is ruling the internet in the current trends. Many E-commerce startups are present in the market in the present situation. Among them, only few companies have managed to stay successful and the rest of the companies couldn’t survive in the field.
This is because those companies couldn’t fulfill some of the factors of E-commerce business. So, here I’m listing some of the mistakes that need to be avoided while you build an E-commerce website.
Here are some of the factors
Poor Customer Service
Customer service is the very first thing that you have to concentrate on E-commerce business. Though the customers will be purchasing only online without speaking to the customer support face to face, customer service is still necessary. The customers should find it easy to get their questions answered, speak to a person or file a complaint without any inconvenience. You also need to be prepared to take returns and process a variety of payments, including refunds if necessary.
Inadequate Product Images
Customers can get a lot of information about the product through the product images. It is the only way for a customer to clearly understand what they are buying. Since the consumer cannot touch or feel the product to test it out, images can help them to know what they are looking for exactly. So, be sure that you are offering more number of images for the product in different angles. If the product comes in many different colors, make sure to include pictures of those options as well, or at least switch the color of your existing images.
Insufficient Product Descriptions
Similar to product image, the product description is also an important one. Give a detailed description of the product to cover all the selling points, at the same time also answer questions about how the product is made, what it does or how it works and many more. Meanwhile, including a listing of the materials used to make the product, any manufacturing processes or techniques and tell whether the product comes with an automatic warranty and more.
Read more: Complete Guide to Creating A E-Commerce Mobile App
Complex Check-Out Process
The customer should be able to make their purchase quickly once after making the decision. And the check-out should be done within a few clicks without a complex process. If a purchaser thinks it difficult to check-out, they will just abandon the purchase. So, make sure that you are offering the “check-out as guest” option so that people can avoid creating an account and some other annoying steps. If possible, you can even keep the check-out process to one screen.
Lack of Shipping Options
Most of the time, the customers would expect to have an option for shipping. Give your best to provide a variety of shipping options in terms of price as well as delivery time. It is really hard to convenience a customer to make a purchase from your store if there is only one shipping option and that too costs as much the amount of the product they are buying.
To provide more shipping options, because it will surely improve your business. Diversifying your shipping options also helps in the event of a natural disaster or another work stoppage; even if one carrier is effective, you might still be able to fulfill orders by switching to a different vendor.
Inadequate Search Capability
If you have a large number of products, it’s important that customers can search using a few keywords and find the information they need. A study says that customers who use online searches to find products are 3 times more likely to make a purchase. With this type of conversion rate, you don’t want to miss out on these customers because of a faulty search engine. At the same time, make sure you have optimized your product descriptions with keywords and tags as well for better Search Engine Optimization.
Lack of Social Media Presence
Social Media is one of the powerful platforms nowadays. It is really impossible to run a business without using a social media presence. That too in the case of E-commerce, is 100% true. Social Media like Facebook and Twitter are the best option to promote channels that allows the people to spread some words about your products and site. Make sure that you have social sharing buttons available on all of your product pages.
Desktop-Only Site Design
People are using more gadgets and they can access anything with the help of the internet. Since technology has evolved a lot, we no longer live in a world of desktop computer users. Today, most of the transactions are taking part mostly through mobile phones or tablets. This is because of website compatibility. So make sure that you create a mobile-optimized or device-agnostic website.
Most of the website these days includes this feature automatically. If your e-commerce site is older, however, then you might want to look into having it designed in HTML5 so that people can view your products seamlessly on whatever device they choose.
No Search Engine Optimization Strategy
If a customer is in a need to buy some products online, they will simply Google it. There’s a good chance they’ll search for your company or product using one of the major search engines like Google if you use a better SEO strategy. You must have a strong SEO plan for your site in order to be listed in the first few pages of the search results. SEO optimization is not about just focusing on the keywords, it is something more than that. It also focuses on how your site is built, how images are tagged and what data is parsed by search bots that conduct those ridiculously quick searches.
Poor Site Navigation
Nothing can discourage your customers more like poor navigation. Hard-to-find information, a lack of buttons and too many font types and colors all make the customer get frustrated and often results in no sale. Your e-commerce website should be easy to navigate. People should be able to click on images to the product page, see more information about a product and click on the header at the top to take them back to the homepage. Don’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to your site’s navigation; use navigation best practices to get the most out of your site.
These are some of the mistakes, which are done by most of the E-commerce startups. Concentrating on these terms will help you to build a reputed Ecommerce website at the same time it will bring lots of potential customers to your website.
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