Starting an online business can be exciting but at the same time can be overwhelming. It’s the thrill of getting visitors entering your online store, all the products that you will sell, and profits that you will generate every minute. The sense of pride and accomplishment of creating something of your own is truly hard to describe. And that’s how we pursuit for happyness this chaotic times.
By now, you’re probably searching online on how to create your dream store.
Here are the few key important points you must plan out before starting an online business;
a) Finding a niche
b) Writing a copy that sells
c) Designing and building a website
d) Using SEO to drive traffic
e) Establish a reliable and informative reputation
f) Follow up with customers
g) Increase your income through upselling
At first, this might seem very easy and straightforward, but there are always repeated rookie e-commerce mistakes often occurs.
With that in mind, here we highlight the seven e-commerce beginner mistakes every entrepreneur often made.
No Idea Where Your Customers At
One of the most common mistakes that e-commerce business owner make is not knowing where to find their customers online.
For example, if you sell a product on Lazada that is now rather a cluttered marketplace, don’t be surprised that you hear nothing, but crickets coming back to your store.
This is why it’s vital to do your homework before you start selling. It’s important to sell products that have a lot of searches on a platform. This will give you a sense of the buyers and their needs, and whether you will see your potential customers there.
Lazada and Shopee is a great platform for you to shout out your products and bring your customers back to your store, and reap the long term benefits.
Not Having a Custom Design Online Store
Custom design online store provides brand awareness and helps you stand out from the marketplace.
When consumers purchase a product from your website, they aren’t just buying a product, they are buying what your brand stands for.
That is why it’s crucial to have a custom design / bespoke online store with a stellar branding strategy to convey what message you want to deliver.
A custom online store design and branding help build equity and credibility, therefore, increasing loyalty among potential customers.
In addition to that, it shows how organized and put together your business is. It also creates an excellent first impression, and can eventually make it easier for customers to recognize your business. In some cases, almost instant.
Hopping on to a marketplace channel without your own online store is a significant disadvantage because you don’t get access to your customer’s contact information for future communication.
What if you have new products and services? They will not know because you can’t contact them, so they are left looking at your competitor’s stores.
However, with your own custom design online store, you can contact them about new updates and products, so they can return to your store and probably become your A1 loyal customers.
Another common mistake that entrepreneurs make is trying to do everything themselves from designing the website, photoshopping the images, create brand awareness, and every other task that is involved in creating the online business.
Yes, it is important to dip your head into the water in the beginning, but soaking in entirely for a long period is not recommended.
And as a result, they are overwhelmed and totally burned out with all their time.
All these can be used to refine the product quality, commitment to excellent customer services and putting the best version of themselves.
The best e-commerce solution for this problem is to hire a e-commerce web design company to build a complete end-to-end e-commerce store.
After all, a website designer has the experience and expertise of how to develop your branded store and growth marketer to help build brand awareness so that you will stand out from your competitors.
All these can be found only through a web design company, that house many experts.
Not Using Social Media
If you decided to start an online business, it’s essential to utilize social media to the max.
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can pull customers into your store with sneak peeks of new offerings along with various enticing photos.
The objective of social media is to create a dialogue with customers to improve service and to guide them in the best possible online user journey.
Not knowing Your Niche
One of the biggest failures for online retailers is selling too many different products.
For example, if you are selling pet supplies for cats, it’s best not to focus on selling products for fish, but rather emphasize on categories not seen anywhere else like hygienic products or special cat toys.
Give the impression that your online store is unique!
Usually, pet enthusiasts will dive deep into certain products and are more likely to convert to sales. Plus, these products are less likely to be found on Alibaba, Shopee, or Lazada, so they will not be competitors.
This is why it’s essential to do a thorough research of your niche so you can narrow it down to a specific category.
Underpricing Your Product
Before determining a definite price, it’s essential to do a financial analysis that takes into account shipping, returns, marketing, listing fees, productions, and other overhead costs. If your products are underpriced, you will definitely lose profit. E-commerce can be very expensive, and you can easily lose money if you don’t do the math correctly.
Not Communicating With Customers
It’s essential to stay connected with your customers, so you can obtain valuable feedback about your business.
For example, like how they find you and what they think of your brand.
Some business owners would reach out to customers to hear about their experience and what they like or don’t like.
Owning an e-commerce store can be exciting, but failing to communicate with your customer can make you lose out on a lot of valuable information.
Work out a customer communication plan and exercise proper branding communication.
Getting Ahead of Yourself
One of the mistakes that e-commerce business owners often make is buying a large amount of inventory before knowing what their demand is.
This can result in a garage filled with products, but no one to buy it.
The best way to avoid this is to research the items by looking at other marketplaces to see how many of them have been sold in the last month.
This will give you an idea of how much product to order.
Conclusion
Creating an online store is a challenging and rewarding endeavour.
It’s an opportunity to be creative, which is why branding and having a custom design store can help you stand out from all the competition or some call it the Blue Ocean Strategy.
Fortunately, there are professional web designing companies that can help you build a quality e-commerce store to bring your business to life.
That way, you will avoid one of the biggest mistakes that e-commerce beginners often make so that you will start your business on the right track.
