Many startups are now eCommerce-based platforms. The entire business runs online, with the website being the first point that prospective customers see. Many tech entrepreneurs have been using eCommerce platforms in the past few years to launch their businesses. In the UK, there are many opportunities for overseas migrants who wish to start their own businesses. Moreover, you can bypass the challenging tenure by learning and avoiding the common eCommerce store mistakes discussed in this post.
These immigrants are usually awarded a work permit via a sponsorship licence from a UK company, post which many of their dependents prefer starting an eCommerce-based business.
While there is quite a bit of paperwork to sort through and legalities to take care of, it’s best to consult a reputable London immigration lawyer who can help sort the visa formalities and help with the eCommerce store setup.
While there is plenty of information about what you should do to set up the eCommerce store, we are here to tell you what to avoid. Let us look at how you can avoid these four most common eCommerce store mistakes to rise above your competitors.
Table of Contents
1. Avoid Non-Responsive Web Pages and Designs
When running an eCommerce store, the aim is to have customers look at your products and services optimally. For this reason, the webpages must load quickly and switch between tabs instantly. If the page becomes unresponsive, customers rapidly lose interest and close the website or move to another one that helps solve their concerns.
Today, most people also use multiple types of devices to access websites and online stores.
Everything from apps, tablets, and laptop screens is used for browsing eCommerce sites. Your web pages should quickly and efficiently load on multiple interfaces, so users have the best experience. Highly responsive web page designs are essential for optimization and ensuring users can browse through all the information correctly. Unresponsive pages also tend to rank lower on search engines like Google – think of it as a penalty for not optimizing the webpage to load efficiently.
2. Avoid Complicated Check-Outs
All eCommerce sites have a check-out process or customer carts where visitors add the products or services intended for purchase. This process of addition and eventual payment must be seamless to avoid buyer fatigue. When setting up the eCommerce store, offer customers a chance to set up their accounts in advance.
Many customers get annoyed or irritated at check-out simply because they need to set up an account to process their payments and get the delivery addresses on record.
Eliminating this step from the final check-out process will help with quicker check-out from the shopping cart without any visitors leaving. You should also ensure no hidden fees pop up at the end, dissuading customers from their purchase. In fact, keeping the ‘buy’ button big and the text small helps give customers a tiny nudge to process the payment and check out faster.
3. Don’t Forget to Populate the About Page
You would be surprised at how many visitors and customers want to know a thing or two about the brand they invest money in. Many people feel their website’s About Us page needs less attention because it has no SEO (Search Engine Optimization) significance and doesn’t help the website rank higher in search engines.
While this is true from an SEO perspective, you should ensure the About page is populated with titbits and information about the company, its owners, and a few key members.
Customers and visitors to the eCommerce site like to understand the company, the vision behind the products, the sourcing, and so on. It makes a difference to the overall market standing of the brand, helps people associate with the brand, and allows them to feel a sense of community.
4. Avoid Inferior Product Pages
While having low-resolution product images on the website may be cost-effective, avoid them! It is best to ensure you have highly well-clicked, professional product photos on the website since most customers will judge the product based on the images. Since eCommerce stores differ from retail ones in that everything is on a screen, having good quality, high-res, stunning photos will help you get the interest you want.
Another product page issue is that many eCommerce sites tend to use generic product descriptions. Having detailed, content-rich descriptions will work wonders for the SEO and help customers understand more about the product.
Conclusion
There are many more common mistakes to avoid, but these four are the most critical. Remember, if you’re shifting to another country, like the UK, you must tailor your content to fit the audience. The same applies if you’re moving to the US and want to start an eCommerce store.
