10 Common eCommerce Mistakes to Avoid for Business Success

Do you know over 90% of eCommerce businesses fail within 120 days after their inception?

However, an eCommerce business can be a lucrative opportunity, especially when you don’t overlook the small mistakes.

Every year, the internet landscape becomes more competitive and cluttered, with new businesses vying for attention.

In such circumstances, If you’re about to launch an eCommerce business, don’t think about the benefits only.

First, consider what mistakes to avoid to thrive in the eCommerce market.

However, the vast majority of them would be minor and quickly fixable.

In this piece, we’ve outlined the 10 most typical mistakes entrepreneurs make in eCommerce enterprises.

If you have a solid understanding of issues, you will not be concerned when they appear, and you will be able to fix them swiftly.

Ecommerce Mistakes: Why do so many eCommerce businesses fail?

Thinking of entering the world of the eCommerce business? At this time, you might be worried and have a lot of doubts in your mind.

Doubts & unclear minds bring mistakes. And mistakes can lead to failure in the highly competitive eCommerce business!

As every lock has a key, there is a way to reduce the count of mistakes.

We’ve listed the most frequent mistakes made by eCommerce businesses, as well as what you can do to remedy or avoid them.

10 eCommerce Mistakes to Avoid for Business Growth

Kick-start without proper research

Having just a business idea is not enough to start or run an eCommerce business. 

Creating & running an eCommerce store demands a lot of research & effort. Also, You must ensure that your time and research are being invested wisely.

Most of the entrepreneurs’ research ends with competition research. You must conduct thorough research on current market demand, expenditures, profitability, and other factors to succeed in the market.

The extensive analysis will allow you to determine what will work and what will not.

This may not eliminate all mistakes, but it will surely minimize them!

Adopt an ineffective eCommerce platform

An eCommerce platform is a tool that will help you establish your position in the eCommerce sector. Also, it is responsible for user experience. 

And it’s a common mistake made by most entrepreneurs to pick the wrong eCommerce platform.

Your choice of an eCommerce platform is responsible for making or breaking your business. 

Furthermore, your platform will affect how you show your items, attract customers, sell to them, and grow your online store.

No matter if it’s an OpenCart, Magento, Shopify, or WooCommerce development, your choice must meet your business requirements.

Make sure your eCommerce platform has all of the tools and capabilities you’ll need to create a feature-rich store. 

This will provide you with the appropriate amount of control and customization to help you expand and advertise your company. 

Take the time to learn about other platforms and their features before making a decision.

Unresponsive Design

Another costly eCommerce mistake to avoid is to have a non-responsive web design. Mobile devices are increasingly being used to surf the internet and make purchases online.

As a result, having a site that isn’t mobile-friendly or employs an unresponsive design will negatively impact your site’s ranks in Google search results and lose you a lot of money.

Non-responsive and poor web design might upset visitors, causing them to abandon your site.

Employ the best eCommerce website design to provide a smooth user experience that customers may enjoy while shopping from your eShop.

So that consumers may buy with fewer clicks, your checkout procedure must be considerably simpler and easier.

Irrelevant or already Used Product Description

The only reason you’re setting up an eCommerce store is to sell your stuff. It’s good that you’ve submitted attractive photographs of your products.

However, a lack of description of the product can lose a lot of consumers.

Customers read the product description and try to get a feeling of the product because they can’t touch, experience, or interact with the items like they would in a physical store so that you can’t leave a buyer in the dark about a product. 

There’s also a reasonable probability they’ll swiftly move on to another internet store.

Additionally, relying on competitors or product suppliers for product descriptions is one of the most common eCommerce mistakes.

This is due to the fact that your suppliers are most likely providing your competitors with the same product description. It may cause your eCommerce website’s rating to drop. 

Overlooking social media proof

Another typical mistake is failing to incorporate social proof on your website, which may lose a lot of prospective clients for many eCommerce shops. 

Moreover, positive social media availability & review is an advanced technique to gain customer trust.

It is an irrefutable truth that when consumers see other people’s reviews of a product, they are more likely to purchase it.

Your customers may share their experiences with your items so that everyone can see them. 

Including customer ratings on your eCommerce site may increase sales by 18%!

Lack of contact information

If your consumers can’t interact with you, how can they trust you or your brand?

You should not only let your consumers know how to contact you; you should also make it as simple as possible for them.

Provide various support channels, and a well-designed ‘Contact Us’ page with all of your contact details clearly displayed.

Customers are increasingly using live chat as a quick and easy approach to receive rapid responses to their issues.

More than 70% of user users are satisfied with the live chat option so that when you are planning a customer service strategy, you should consider it.

Complex & difficult to use Website

Another common mistake is creating an online store that is difficult to use.

Visitors will visit your website or application as if they visit a store. It is critical that clients feel valued and can quickly navigate through your offerings. 

Customers will simply drop your eShop or website if they can’t find it user-friendly and simple to use. 

Therefore, a website must not be overly complicated for the business to succeed. 

No need to do something extraordinary just sort items into relevant categories, add filters and price ranges and provide accurate & detailed information. 

If you don’t, don’t expect your firm to thrive, as digital assets are critical to a company’s success.

Limited Payment Options

A limited payment option is a needless roadblock for your consumers. Anything that slows down us is an inconvenience in this age of rapid moves.

If you haven’t adopted a potential customer’s chosen payment method, they are going to leave your website – no one wants to create a new account just to make an order with you.

Luckily, this is not a big task to resolve. If you’re using a standard CMS, you should already have support for different payment methods. 

Just utilize them and reduce the cart abandonment rate by 7%.

Neglecting customer service

Unfortunately, it’s a common mistake made by almost all new eCommerce startups. They make numerous approaches to bring customers to their store.

But they forgot to provide them with quality customer service that generates a poor customer experience.

Customer service is defined by how you respond to your consumers’ issues, negative feedback, or queries regarding your product or service.

Long response time, inability to resolve complaints, providing the same information multiple times with an automated system, and failing to give refunds or exchanges can be frustrating for customers.

Overall these mistakes can cost existing clients, lead to negative reviews, and make it harder to attract new ones for the business.

Unclear search results

Since customers prefer to have quick access to their required products rather than surfing on your site, a search function is one of the essential navigational elements on your eCommerce website.  

Users can reach their required products using the search tool by typing some keywords.

Your search bar should work properly to show the most relevant result. 

It’s time to improve your search functionality if it’s not returning relevant results rapidly.

Ecommerce Tips & tricks to stay ahead of the curve

In this article, we’ve listed the usual eCommerce mistakes to avoid while setting up an online business. Just avoiding them is not enough to grow your business globally.

Don’t worry. We’ll give you some more pointers to maintain your marketplace & take it to the new height.

• Make use of high-quality product pictures.
• Boost the speed of your website and pages.
• Pick one-of-a-kind and trendy niche items.
• Stay ahead of the curve by anticipating trends.
• Use a variety of marketing outlets.
• Prioritize your consumers and their experience.
• Make an outstanding About Us page.
• Provide 24*7 customer support.
• Use best SEO tactics and methods for long-term outcomes.
• Don’t forget to include consumer feedback on the website.

Simple eCommerce Mistakes: The Final words

To flourish in this competitive eCommerce business with an 80% failure rate, newcomers must avoid typical mistakes. 

Making mistakes in the eCommerce industry may be quite expensive. If you want to be a wise, successful entrepreneur, you need to learn from the errors of others to avoid making your own. 

This will put you ahead of the game!

Yet, eliminating mistakes should be your foremost focus; if you make one, you must correct it as soon as possible.

Such eagerness and effort on your part might definitely impress your consumers and persuade them to give you another opportunity.

Avoiding all of these simple but dangerous mistakes can undoubtedly save your business from failure. Also, you can get a positive customer experience.

FAQs

What are the most common web design mistakes made by eCommerce businesses?

Designing an eCommerce website is not as simple as it may appear. There are several stumbling blocks that can cost business consumers and income.

When it comes to web designing for eCommerce websites, a few common mistakes should be avoided to offer a seamless user experience.

• Incompatibility with small-sized devices
• Low-quality images
• Faulty Website Navigation
• Not using enough white space
• Overusing fancy fonts
• Inconsistent Font & image size

What are the common mistakes eCommerce business should avoid during product listing?

Due to competitor boost in the eCommerce industry, your small mistake can cost you a lot of money. Even some mistakes can get you kicked off from the competition. 

Luckily always there is a way to find & fix the mistake before they become a bigger problem for your business. Here are six of the most common product listing mistakes to avoid for business growth. 

• Wrong product quantity listing
• Inaccurate price listing
• Incorrect Product details listing
• Duplicate product listing
• Restricted product listing
• Wrong or low-quality image

What mistakes should you avoid while starting your eCommerce store?

There is tremendous potential on the internet for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit to start a profitable business. Online enterprises can provide huge benefits with the worldwide reach rather than a local or specific area.

Moreover, these advantages and prospects are not without their drawbacks. The most common mistakes to avoid while building an internet business are the following.

• Taking an excessive time to launch.
• Starting a business without conducting market research is a risky proposition.
• Expecting to maximize profits in a short period of time.
• Undefined business niche
• Decided to do everything by own without proper knowledge
• Ignoring mobile device
• Unclear focus

What are the biggest SEO mistakes eCommerce businesses make?

SEO should be incorporated into the digital marketing plan of every company or website that intends to grow. 

Digital marketers have a few misunderstandings regarding SEO, which causes them to make mistakes that negate all of their SEO techniques. Here we’ve mentioned the top 8 SEO mistakes that you should avoid for excellent SEO results for your eCommerce store.

• Reusing supplier’s product description
• Ineffective title & meta description
• Not optimized site for small devices
• Overusing keywords for higher ranking
• Using Duplicate Content
• Neglecting URL optimization
• Using large-sized images
• Forgetting to add product review

About the Author

Vivek Kargathiya is a marketing enthusiast and SEO practitioner. He works as an SEO manager at TemplateMela – an eCommerce Website Design company. He helps brands and small businesses to grow their online visibility through his best practices SEO and Content marketing strategies. You can connect with him on Linkedin and Twitter.