4 Common eCommerce Errors
If you’ve ever gotten stuck with an eCommerce error you couldn’t figure out how to fix, you know how frustrating it can be. These errors can set your business back becoming a major headache. Here we will troubleshoot four of the most common eCommerce errors so you can make sure your business can keep moving forward.
1. Choosing the Wrong Shopping Cart
If you are not a very technical person, just thinking about choosing a shopping cart could be confusing. Not being able to understand the jargon might get frustrating, but making sure to do your research is important. Here are some things to consider when you are researching which shopping cart is the best for your needs.
What Are Your Goals for the Store?
Before doing anything, you need to think about your business’ needs. Before you can begin with eCommerce optimization, you need to know what your goals are. Starting an eCommerce store without goals is like building a house without a foundation. If you plan on building a large eCommerce store, your needs are going to be very different than if you were going to keep the store small and only sell a few things.
What Features are A Must Have?
The features you can’t live without should be at the top of your list when you are making a decision on your shopping cart. If the product you are looking at is missing even one, you should move on. There are many high-quality solutions out there so there is no reason to settle for one that isn’t the right fit for you.
2. Having an Unsecured Site
If your site is not properly secured, you may find yourself losing customers. Many people will check if the site is secure before putting their credit card information into the browser. Making sure that your site clearly shows it is operating on https with a security certificate is an important part to operating your site.
Getting an SSL certificate is affordable and can be installed with minimal effort. If you are not sure how to install it, you can always outsource the work to a reputable company that understand technology. Don’t let the excuse of not being technical hold back your eCommerce website.
People are wary of their information being stolen. Even big companies like Target have had problems with data breaches so it isn’t not a surprise that people will hold onto their credit cards when a site is showing it doesn’t care about the user’s security.
With the ever changing landscape of laws regarding cyber crimes and hacking, it could be a legal issue at a later date if you fail to properly secure your site and a user’s sensitive information is taken because of it. Making sure you are ready for this before it happens will make sure you are ahead of the game
3. Difficult Navigation
When was the last time you went into a store and were excited when you saw you would have a terrible time navigating the aisles or finding a sales associate?
Never.
Your online customers are the same. Shoppers want a smooth experience will allow them to find products they want without having to search for hours. You want to make the sale so you need to make your website searchable.
When putting navigation together, remember to use keywords. You want to use terms that are searchable and easy to understand so people can tell where they are, where they came from and where they can go. The easier you make navigating, the more pages people will visit and the more likely you will be to make the sale.
To get an idea of what people find confusing on your site, you can look at your analytics and check the page that is exited the most. This could be a good indicator of your problem or it could simply be your most popular page and that is what is giving it higher exit numbers. Pay close attention to the data as a whole to be able to diagnose the issue.
4. Poor Images
When you are selling products online, you have to invest time and money into having the best photos possible. While you don’t have to break the bank, you should know that you aren’t going to make the money you want to make if you have poor lighting and people are not able to see the product.
Make sure to invest in a good tripod so you aren’t caught with shaky photos and blurry images. While you may think that your arm and hand are steady, that is not always the case. Tripods will be a major help when you are shooting for a long time since your arms, neck and shoulders are likely to get tired without a little bit of help.
Learning how to take great photos or paying for great photo is a must for a successful eCommerce store so make sure you don’t try to skip this part of the job or you are going to find your analytics at zero for a much longer time than you’d like.
