Businesses that experience success in e-commerce are the ones that continuously learn and grow their platforms. When it isn’t working, they don’t leave it there to idle. Running a business is difficult enough, so don’t set yourself back by making these common, but fatal, e-commerce mistakes.
Mistake 1: Choosing the wrong platform
Pay attention when I say that your e-commerce store can make or break you. Your e-commerce platform plays a big role in how you attract potential customers. If something does not feel right to them, they are (most definitely) going to leave and take their business elsewhere.
What does it need to look like?
Ideally the same as your website. What I mean by that is the same look and feel as your website. The design needs to be on point. Get the same agency that built your website to build your e-commerce store. Don’t invest in a free one, especially if your website is custom-designed, unlike your e-commerce store. What does this communicate to a visitor? This looks off. Visitors will think: I do not trust this page with my hard-earned money.
Mistake 2: Not investing in content marketing
Your platform’s up and running. Great, now you can sit back and relax, right? Wrong. Potential prospects are not going to just arrive on your e-commerce site out of thin air. Businesses often make the mistake of assuming content marketing is too difficult to run or will not be useful for them. No matter the industry you find yourself in, there will always be educational information you can share with prospects. The more informed and engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to convert into actual customers.
Mistake 3: Thinking everyone can write
Now, don’t get me wrong, we might all have a Stephen King hidden inside us. The problem is that you’re precious about it when it comes to your business. So it affects the way you describe your products or services.
You focus on the wrong words. Businesses that write their own copy, for instance, might place too many words online because they feel very passionate about what they have to offer the world. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. Online visitors do not have the time to read through an endless stream of words.
It is for this reason that UX writing is important. When it comes to online purchases, you have to make it as smooth as possible for users to complete it. A UX writer will know exactly which words to use to ensure the user is guided instead of them feeling as if they’re being ordered around.
Other businesses use generic content. A reseller of cellphones, for instance, uses the main brand’s copy on their own site. The biggest problem with this is that Google is smart enough to pick up that this copy has already been used and so doesn’t rank it.
Invest in excellent copy for your e-commerce site. Once it’s on there, your job is done and you can let it do its thing.
Mistake 4: Adding too much or too little
I’ve already established that you need to keep things simple on an e-commerce site. If you’re too vague with your product descriptions or if you make the buying process too complicated i.e. “watch this video before you make a purchase, then put the item in a cart, you will then receive an email, click on that email to verify” … you’re probably bored just reading this. Point is that there’s a sweet spot to the amount of content, design elements and development work you use and a UX expert knows how to find it.
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