Introduction
Starting an e-commerce website is a lot easier said than done with many people jumping headfirst into it without thinking things through. Then, they quickly lose passion and excitement for it once they realize how difficult running one can be. You could have the best products and employ the best digital marketing strategies around but still see zero profits for a long time.
This article describes the 11 most common mistakes people make when they first start their e-commerce website.
1. Letting Your Family and Friends Get Your Hopes Up
While your mom might think you’re a hotshot multimillionaire entrepreneur in the making, her opinions aren’t the only ones that’ll determine the success of your business, and neither will the opinions of your other loved ones. It’s always important to step back and look at your business from an unbiased point of view to identify flaws and room for improvement.
2. Not Welcoming Opinions from Your Team
Starting a business can be tough, which is why many often partner up or form teams. So, if you’re working with someone, you have to remember you’re not the only one holding the reigns—the opinions of your partner or team members are just as important as yours.
Additionally, your team members can give you insights you might not even realize. If you’ve been too busy dealing with SEO services in Los Angeles, for example, you might not have had the time to deal with your customer’s experience. In this case, you should let someone more knowledgeable on the matter deal with it.
3. Not Knowing Your Target Audience
One of the main things you need to establish after setting up your e-commerce website is your target audience. Every aspect of your digital marketing strategy (e.g., SEO, social media campaigns, content creation, and others) will center around your target audience as they will be your most likely customers.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you need to then spend some time analyzing their behavior. What kind of language do they prefer? What social media sites do they use? What time of day do they browse the web? All of these can have an impact on your sales.
4. Not Listing the Benefits of Your Product
One common mistake e-commerce websites do is listing all the cool and fancy features of their product but forgetting to mention the benefits of it. Sure, your product might be nice to look at, but looks alone aren’t enough to convince people to buy it.
When producing or selling products, it’s important to ask, “How will this be useful for my target audience?” If your product can’t make their lives easier or even just more entertaining, then you’re probably better off promoting a different product.
5. Breaking Your Promises
If you promise things like excellent customer service and good bang for one’s buck, then you best believe you need to back it up. Not practicing what you preach can bring down your brand’s reputation fast.
To avoid breaking too many promises, focus on setting realistic expectations. Actions speak louder than words, so you need to let your work do the talking.
Additionally, whenever you do fall short of your customers’ expectations, don’t fret too much about it. It happens to the best of us. Listen to criticism and feedback and take it to heart so you can improve your business products and practices in the future.
6. Not Having the Right Brand Image
People tend to associate certain things with certain types of people and businesses. For example, you wouldn’t expect an online tutorial service to have multiple misspellings and grammar errors, would you? And if your e-commerce website has tons of cutesy, girly products, then you’d expect the packaging to reflect that too.
Always keep in mind that your customers aren’t just buying products; they’re buying your entire brand.
7. Not Looking at the Data
Data gathering for your e-commerce website is pretty important, especially if you’re just starting. They give you valuable information about your customers’ spending habits or behaviors when browsing through your websites, for example. If you don’t look at your metrics, you lose sight of any issues you need to fix or areas of potential.
8. Looking at the Data Too Much
On the same note, however, you can easily get lost in the data too.
For example, it’s easy to be discouraged by poor rankings and low engagement, but that’s not entirely your fault. With so much competition going on these days, it’s hard to get a foothold in almost any industry.
Additionally, focusing too much on data allows for complacency. If you have a successful product, you might prioritize producing more of those products instead of being innovative and coming up with more interesting stuff, and your business isn’t going to last very long if you do that.
9. Not Having Long-Term Goals
The worst way to run a business is to run like a chicken with its head cut off. Determining your long-term goals is very important because it gives you direction, helps you stay motivated, and measures your progress.
10. Forgetting the Present
Living too far ahead also has its disadvantages. You might be so focused on what you haven’t yet achieved that you don’t appreciate what you have already achieved. You should always take a breather once in a while to admire how far you’ve come—this will help you remember why you started your e-commerce website in the first place and give you some motivation.
11. Doing Everything Yourself
As the popular saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” In the same way, it takes multiple people to run a business!
You shouldn’t feel bad about needing more hands-on deck with your e-commerce website. In fact, you can take it as a good thing—it’s a sign that your business is expanding. Having more people on board will prevent you from burning out quickly and ensure your brand is as high-quality as ever.
Additionally, as we already mentioned earlier, having a partner or a team will give you some valuable, new insights into your ventures, and that could never be a bad thing!
On a related note, if you’re seeking to improve your e-commerce website but are not sure how to do so, then please contact Drive Traffic E-Commerce here!