Five Common Mistakes That Can Kill Your Ecommerce Business

There are millions of websites out there offering ecommerce services, but have you ever stopped to wonder why some succeed while others fail? We have years of experience with business marketing in south Florida and over those years, we have discovered many ways to minimize the risk of your business failing. Of course there are as many reasons behind the failures as there are failures themselves, but a few small tweaks can go a long way toward putting you on the path to success rather than failure.

1. Your site loads too slow – this is probably the most common problem. If you’re site loads too slowly, people are going to get bored and frustrated and leave before completing their purchase. If your site is having this issue, contact your site developer immediately and get it fixed.
2. Your website is too complicated – another common issue with new startups, which can lead to the same issues as a slow loading site. You need to remember that your customers are shopping online because they enjoy the simplicity and convenience it offers when compared to a brick and mortar store. Whenever we take on new south Florida business marketing clients with ecommerce offerings, one of the first things we do is see how many steps it takes to purchase an item through their site. As a general rule; the more steps it takes, the fewer sales you’re going to make.
3. Your credit card system is awkward or unfamiliar – there is no reason to reinvent the wheel when setting up the payment options on your site. Large businesses have spent many years and countless dollars in research and development to find the most efficient way for customers to pay, so follow their lead.
4. You’re charging too much for shipping – as a general rule, shipping should be no more than about 10% of the purchase price. The more you charge for shipping the more likely it is that customers will abort the sale when the see the high charges instead of completing the transaction.
5. Your site doesn’t perform well on all browsers – this is another common problem which is completely unacceptable if you’re looking for success in the ecommerce game. Any decent programmer should be testing your site on a variety of browsers throughout the development process to make sure all of your clients will be equally able to take advantage of your offers.

Do any of these problems strike you as familiar? We hope you answered no, but unfortunately at least a few of you must have said yes. Don’t despair. All of the issues we mentioned above are very common, and therefore we have a lot of experience in fixing them. Just give us a call for any of your south Florida business marketing needs, and we’ll get you on your feet in no time.