People Make Dangerous eCommerce Mistakes All the Time.

There will be no guest checkout. (online business)

Orbit Media Studios’ Andy Crestodina puts it bluntly: (online business)

“(Not allowing guests to check in) is a serious problem. In eCommerce, there are lots of small mistakes you may make, but nothing is more lethal than the ‘Create Account’ button.”

For starters, requiring visitors to register before making a purchase lengthens and complicates the purchasing process. Second, it forces customers to commit to something they may not want to commit to in the first place (such as signing up for your mailing list, or being entered into certain sweepstakes). Finally, as previously said, it forces them to divulge more personal information than they are comfortable with.

Consider this: How much less shopping would you do if you had to create a store account every time you made a purchase in a physical location?

Surprising charges (online business)

We touched on this briefly before, but it’s worth repeating:

Unexpected fees are one of the most common causes of eCommerce conversion failure.

Taxes, shipping fees, and – the worst of the lot, in my opinion – the infamous “convenience fee” can all appear out of nowhere, completely blind-siding your potential buyers. These unexpected expenses will almost probably drive away a significant amount of business, as shown in the graph above.

Of course, this isn’t to mean that your business should cover the tax and shipping costs. Rather, we mean that you should disclose all of this information to your visitors well before they reach the checkout page. Customers would appreciate the straightforward honesty at the very least; hiding these expenses till the last minute, on the other hand, will come across as…well…sleazy.

Payment alternatives are limited(online business)

With the rise of eCommerce has come a plethora of payment options.

Needless to say, the days of a customer’s only alternatives being “cash or credit” are long gone. There are dozens upon dozens of options for eCommerce customers to pay for their products these days.

While you don’t have to provide all of these options, your best bet is to perform some research into your target consumers’ favourite ways and focus on meeting as many of their expectations as possible.

You don’t want to lose consumers solely because they can’t pay you logistically.

There aren’t enough delivery alternatives

Similarly, you don’t want to lose revenue due to a mismatch between your delivery method and your customer’s preferred mode of delivery.

Of course, not every customer has the same delivery and fulfilment requirements. Some people want their goods delivered as quickly as possible, regardless of cost; others don’t mind waiting a few days if shipping is free; and still others demand control over when, where, and how their products are delivered.

Again, meeting all of your consumers’ needs in this area is practically difficult. However, you should definitely offer a number of solutions that a) encourage conversions and b) don’t eat into your profit margin.

Investing nothing in content marketing

One of the most common blunders made by eCommerce businesses is assuming that content marketing is too complex, ineffective, or simply not “for them.”

While content marketing isn’t easy by any means, it can be extremely effective when approached correctly.

Sleeknote’s Emil Kristensen backs this up:

“Yes, content marketing is a difficult task. It’s considerably more difficult in the case of e-commerce. But it doesn’t rule out the possibility of it working for you. Casper, in fact, employs strategic content to respond to the most commonly requested queries in their industry. And everything works perfectly.”

There will always be some sort of instructional, informational, or otherwise important topic to write about and deliver to your consumers, no matter what field you work in. The more informed and engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to convert, as we’ve mentioned several times throughout this essay.

There’s too much stuff and not enough promotion.

While the audience-facing goal of creating content is to inform and engage them, the company-facing goal is to convert them.

However, if your content marketing efforts are attracting an increasing number of visitors but not converting them, you may as well not have generated the content in the first place.

Of course, this does not imply that you should create content that is “salesy” (more on this in a moment). Rather, you should concentrate on developing content that nurtures prospects and prepares them for conversion throughout their buyer’s journey.

In other words, a prospect should be considerably better prepared to use your products after engaging with a piece of your content than they were before reading, watching, or listening to it.

Source: online business , online business ideas