Starting an ecommerce store can be an intimidating endeavor. Becoming your own boss means that you need to hold yourself accountable, or else you risk losing your own money. Fortunately for those looking to get into the ecommerce space, many people have already made a lot of mistakes. This means you can learn from these errors in order to better prepare yourself for the challenges of running an ecommerce store. Here are 4 mistakes ecommerce owners make that can be avoided by taking responsibility.
You Need Your Customers, Retain Them
Without customers, you can’t run an ecommerce store. It’s that simple. Therefore, you need to treat each customer as if they alone will determine whether or not your store is successful. For most businesses, it’s a lot harder and more expensive to attract new customers than it is to retain old ones. This is why it’s so crucial that you do everything in your power to keep customers once you have them. Do this through stellar customer service, or by offering a loyalty program.
But there’s another side to the customer satisfaction coin. Customers that have a negative experience are much more likely to leave a bad review or take action than they are to do the opposite for a positive experience. In fact, 95 percent of customers take some form of action if they have a bad experience with a company, according to Zendesk.
Don’t Neglect Your Visual Design
For many people, site design is secondary to the product. This is certainly true for many sites that offer top-of-the-line products. However, this isn’t an option for every ecommerce store. In order to differentiate your store from competitors, it’s necessary to have a well-branded design that’s consistent on all levels and channels.
A great way to start your design is by using a free logo maker. Your logo is one of the ways people will immediately engage with your site, and remember your product if they see the logo in a different setting. It’s also important to create a site design that doesn’t clash with your brand. Make sure to go with an ecommerce platform that allows for a decent amount of visual customization.
Ergonomics Are Equally Important
The usability of your e-store is even more important than its visual appeal. If your store is unintuitive or clunky, don’t expect people to stick around for long. A well-constructed site ensures products can be easily found by customers. Stores with good site designs also typically perform better in search engine results, as they are constructed for fast page loading.
Don’t Make Your Store Too General
Here’s where a lot of ecommerce store owners run into issues. They try to capture too large of an audience with their inventory and as a result end up with no customers at all. Niche targeting is paramount to finding success in today’s world of ecommerce.
Your e-store isn’t going to be able to compete with Amazon for a pure market share of entire industries, so you shouldn’t even consider trying to do that. What you can do, however, is create an ecommerce space that is highly targeted to a specific group of people by offering niche products. It’s okay to offer different types of items in your inventory, but make sure they all relate back to one overarching idea. Otherwise, your store is going to be lost in the sea of other stores that made the mistake of not being narrow enough.
These are a few of the most common mistakes that people make when starting their own ecommerce store. Of course, there are other, smaller things you will learn to do or not to do while running your business. Taking these aspects into account before starting, however, can save you a lot of time and money.
