Ecommerce Mistakes That Could Be Costing Your Online Shop Thousands Every Year
Launching an ecommerce website has never been easier. Building an ecommerce website that consistently generates sales is a very different matter.
Many online shops look perfectly respectable but contain small problems that quietly cost the business sales every day.
A slow product page, confusing navigation or unnecessarily complicated checkout might only lose a small percentage of customers. Multiply that across hundreds or thousands of visitors throughout the year, however, and the lost revenue can quickly become significant.
The frustrating part is that many ecommerce problems are entirely fixable.
Here are some of the most common ecommerce mistakes we see and what online retailers should be doing instead.
1. Making Customers Work Too Hard to Find Products
Customers shouldn’t need to understand how you’ve organised your business to find what they’re looking for.
Your navigation needs to make sense to them.
Complicated menus, poorly named categories and inadequate filtering can make browsing an online shop unnecessarily difficult.
A good ecommerce website should allow customers to quickly browse by relevant options such as:
- Product category
- Brand
- Size
- Colour
- Price
- Product type
- Availability
The exact filters will depend on what you sell, but the principle remains the same: make finding the right product as effortless as possible.
2. Ignoring Mobile Customers
An ecommerce website that works brilliantly on a desktop computer but becomes frustrating on a smartphone is potentially losing a substantial number of customers.
Mobile ecommerce design isn’t simply about shrinking a desktop website to fit a smaller screen.
You need to consider:
- Button sizes
- Navigation
- Product images
- Filters
- Forms
- Payment options
- Checkout usability
Always test the complete buying process on an actual mobile device, from arriving on the website through to completing an order.
You may be surprised by the problems you discover.
3. Slow Product Pages
Ecommerce websites are particularly vulnerable to performance problems because they often contain large product images, scripts, tracking tools, plugins and third-party integrations.
Customers don’t want to wait several seconds every time they view another product.
Common causes of slow ecommerce websites include:
- Unoptimised product photography
- Poor quality hosting
- Excessive plugins
- Unnecessary scripts
- Bloated themes
- Poorly configured caching
Website speed affects more than user experience. Performance can also influence search visibility, making optimisation important for both conversions and SEO.
4. Poor Product Photography
Customers can’t pick up your products, examine them or see them in person.
Your photography therefore has to do much of the selling.
Products should ideally have multiple high-quality images showing different angles, important details and, where appropriate, the product being used.
Try to keep photography consistent throughout your shop as well. A mixture of different image sizes, backgrounds and photography styles can quickly make an otherwise professional ecommerce website feel untidy.
5. Copying Manufacturer Product Descriptions
This is particularly common with retailers selling products available from multiple suppliers.
A manufacturer provides a description and dozens of online shops simply copy and paste it.
The result is dozens of websites containing essentially the same product information.
Writing your own descriptions gives you an opportunity to explain the benefits of the product, answer customer questions and provide genuinely useful information.
It also gives search engines something unique to understand and potentially rank.
6. Treating Product Pages Like a Catalogue
A product page shouldn’t simply contain a photograph, product name and price.
Your product page is your salesperson.
Depending on the product, useful information might include:
- Key benefits
- Specifications
- Dimensions
- Materials
- Delivery information
- Stock availability
- Frequently asked questions
- Customer reviews
- Related products
The objective is to answer the questions that might otherwise prevent someone from clicking “Add to Basket”.
7. Making Checkout Too Complicated
You have successfully attracted a visitor, helped them find a product and convinced them to buy it.
Don’t lose them at the final hurdle.
Long forms, forced account creation, unexpected delivery charges and confusing payment processes can all increase checkout abandonment.
A good checkout should be simple, predictable and reassuring.
Where appropriate, consider offering:
- Guest checkout
- Multiple payment methods
- Clear delivery costs
- Simple address entry
- Visible security reassurance
Every unnecessary step creates another opportunity for the customer to leave.
8. Hiding Delivery Costs Until Checkout
Unexpected costs are one of the quickest ways to lose a potential customer.
If delivery costs aren’t revealed until the final stages of checkout, customers can feel as though the price has suddenly changed.
Where possible, explain delivery charges clearly before customers reach checkout.
If you offer free delivery above a certain order value, make that obvious too. It can even encourage customers to add another product to their basket.
9. Forgetting About Trust
Before handing over payment information, customers need to trust your business.
This is particularly important if they’ve never purchased from you before.
Trust signals can include:
- Customer reviews
- Clear contact information
- Secure payment options
- Delivery information
- Returns policies
- Company information
- Professional website design
Small details can make a surprisingly large difference to whether someone feels comfortable placing an order.
10. Neglecting Ecommerce SEO
Having hundreds or even thousands of products doesn’t automatically mean Google will send customers to them.
Ecommerce SEO requires careful consideration of product pages, categories, website structure and technical performance.
Common ecommerce SEO problems include:
- Duplicate product descriptions
- Thin category pages
- Poor page titles
- Missing product information
- Duplicate URLs
- Broken products or category links
- Poor internal linking
- Slow page speeds
Category pages can be particularly valuable because they allow you to target broader commercial searches rather than relying solely on individual product pages.
11. Forgetting About Customers After Their First Purchase
Getting someone to make their first purchase is often much harder than encouraging an existing customer to buy again.
Yet many ecommerce businesses spend almost all their effort acquiring new customers.
Depending on your business, you could encourage repeat purchases through:
- Email marketing
- Special offers
- Product recommendations
- Replenishment reminders
- Loyalty programmes
- New product announcements
Your existing customer database can become one of your most valuable marketing assets.
12. Not Measuring What’s Actually Happening
Guessing why customers aren’t buying is rarely the best strategy.
Analytics can help you understand where customers arrive, which products they view and where they leave.
Useful ecommerce metrics include:
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Cart abandonment
- Checkout abandonment
- Traffic sources
- Popular products
- Landing page performance
If lots of visitors reach a particular stage and then disappear, you’ve potentially found an area worth investigating.
Small Improvements Can Produce Big Results
One of the biggest misconceptions about ecommerce optimisation is that improving sales requires completely rebuilding the website.
Sometimes it does.
But often, several relatively small improvements can produce noticeable results.
Making product pages faster, simplifying checkout, improving photography, rewriting key product descriptions or reorganising categories can all make the buying process easier.
Even a relatively small improvement in conversion rate can become significant when applied across an entire year’s website traffic.
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Final Thoughts
A successful ecommerce website isn’t simply an online catalogue.
It needs to attract the right visitors, help them quickly find what they need, answer their questions, establish trust and make purchasing as straightforward as possible.
The best ecommerce websites are never really finished either.
They are continually tested, measured and improved based on how customers actually use them.
If your online shop is attracting visitors but isn’t generating the level of sales you expected, don’t automatically assume you need more traffic.
The first question might be much simpler:
Are you making it as easy as possible for the visitors you already have to become customers?
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