On the Internet, even the smallest online store can compete with giant brand names like eBay® and Amazon.com®. Unfortunately, many new web merchants often counteract the power of the web as an equalizer by making some common goofs, gaffes, and guffaws that can make them look, well…amateurish. This article lists a few of those mistakes to help online store owners avoid the typical pitfalls executed by many ecommerce sites.
Mistake #1 – Too Many Under Construction Pages
Don’t launch your website until it is ready for prime time! Under construction pages can distract the online user and detract from the overall credibility of your site. It is a good idea to develop an action plan for introducing your web storefront to the world. Make sure that all key pages are included in your website launch and live up to your standards for design and content. It is equally important to ensure that all pages are ready for prime time before you market them with the major search engines. After all, would you enter your credit card and other personal information on a web site with lots of under construction pages? Once you lose first time visitors, it is hard to get them back.
Mistake #2 - Slow Loading Web Pages
If you are trying to make a good first impression, the last thing you want is a site that takes an eternity to load. Here are a few tips to ensure a zippy web experience for your customers:
- With today’s web page coding and design standards, images can and should be used sparingly. For example, cascading style sheets can be used to implement many design elements on your site, such as colors, icons, and much more. For the images that you do use, ensure that they are optimized for fast download.
- Use Flash animation sparingly. If Flash must be used make sure you provide an HTML or low bandwidth option for those browsing at slower connection speeds.
- At a minimum, compare the load time of your web pages to the load time of your competitors’ sites. If you site takes longer to load, make adjustments as needed.
Mistake #3 - Grammatical Errors and Lack of Compelling Content
On the web, content reigns supreme and can make or break your customer’s purchase decision. If you have poor content in your site, that is not conveying the proper message to potential customers about your products, how can you expect visitors to buy? Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes only add to the displeasure of online customers. Worse still, grammatical mistakes might even change the intended meaning of your content. Some key things you can do to help establish credibility with your visitors, include:
- Provide well-written, content that is easy to understand—even for international customers.
- Be straightforward; don’t try to oversell or hoodwink your visitors.
- Have an experienced copywriter write or edit the content for your website.
- Be sure to enlist the help of spell checker software to eradicate any spelling mistakes.
Mistake #4 – Confusing Shipping Options
Confusing shipping options and expensive shipping rates are two often-cited reasons that online shoppers abandon their shopping carts during the checkout process. (See Improve Shipping Options to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment.) Web merchants should take special care to be up front about shipping costs make the entire shipping process as simple possible for customers to understand. Try these tips:
- Provide shipping options from major carriers, such as UPS® and FedEx®.
- Display shipping policies and related information prominently on the storefront, especially in key pages during the checkout process.
- Allow customers to compute shipping rates as early as possible in the check out process.
Mistake #5 – Making Users Register Before They Shop
It is highly recommended that you do not ask visitors to register or provide other personal information before they can add items to the shopping cart. Making account creation or filling out a registration form mandatory—especially before your customers are ready to make a purchase—will turn many users off. Links like “Register Now,” or “Logon” (e.g., to an existing account) should appear only when the buyer has clicked on the checkout process button. Even if you are likely to track these visitors, use cookies to get information about users.
