5 Mistakes to Avoid with Your eCommerce Store.
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There are a million ways for you to design a website. There are different approaches, methodologies, etc. Instead of telling you a million things to consider…here are some mistakes to avoid instead:
5. eCommerce Photography
As soon as you start thinking about your website redesign or start contemplating whether you should migrate from one ecommerce platform to another, you need to start thinking about photography. Merchants, more than ever, go to agencies and request that they make their new website look like their competitor or another trendy brand. It is great to have inspirations like that but more often than not, the example merchants always provide have one thing in common – great photography! This applies to lifestyle and product photos.
Pictured below are product and lifestyle images by MVMT, one of the fastest growing watches and sunglasses companies in the world, and one of the most successful stores to launch on Shopify. Pictured is the MVMT Chrono Gunmetal Sandstone.
Experts say that content is king…but not in ecommerce. In ecommerce, the user experience fueled by amazing photography is king. Make sure to budget for amazing, high-quality product photos. Also, make sure to also do the same with lifestyle photography. As much as shoppers love great product photos, they also love to have an idea how to ear something or how something would look in the living room.
4. eCommerce Product Descriptions
Now that you have a wonderful product and lifestyle photography, you have to make sure that you also have great product descriptions. Let’s face it, the image of a product will catch the attention of the shopper, but the product description will convert them.
Make simple and accurate descriptions of your products. Make sure that users of your ecommerce store can access the descriptions at ease and understand them without scratching their heads.
Always consider having easy to access size guidelines, measurements, etc.
Let’s take a look at another successful Shopify store, Gymshark. Take a look at their product images and their product description. I will bolden the amazing callouts they have as part of their product description that allows their shoppers to make quick and easy decisions:
“Combining beautiful design with our innovative Seamless technology. The Energy Seamless Leggings feature ribbed detailing woven intoluxuriously soft fabric, enhancing your physique whilst supporting your workout.
High waist offers elite support, with a close and comfortable fit that feels secure. DRY technology wicks sweat from the skin, whilst soft fabric stretches effortlessly with your movements. Complete with eyelet detailing to the ankle and thigh.
69% Nylon, 17% Polyester, 14% Elastane.
Model is 5’8’’ and wears size S.
*The Energy Seamless Leggings run true-to-size, however, if you are in-between, we suggest going up a size. Check out our size guide and give yourself a measure to ensure the perfect fit and squat-proof leggings.”
They literally walk you through the entire product and how it would fit you and even make recommendations. Wonderfully done.
This is not very simple and it is not easy. Do not be afraid to look for professional help from someone who has great experience writing product descriptions. if you are going to do it yourself and you have 100s of products…do not do it all at once. You will burn out. Do 5-10 products per day and before you know it you will be done.
3. No Reviews or Trust Badges
Sellers on Amazon have something great going for them. They have an association with a proven, trustworthy brand like Amazon (trust badge), and they have a ton of reviews – at least the successful ones do.
Make sure to reach out to industry leaders or trustworthy influencers and find a way how they might be able to reviews your products, services, etc. The same goes for publications and media. Any bit that you can get will make potential customers commit to your brand that much easier. This is not easy to achieve, but once you achieve it, things will become that much better.
Leesa, one of the, if not the world leader in mattresses, and another wonderful Shopify Plus story, does a wonderful job with reviews and utilizing trust symbols:
The second part of this – REVIEWS! Push original, transparent reviews as much as possible. Create a program that will incentivize users to actually spend 5 minutes of their days giving you, your product, and your team kudos. Everyone wants to purchase and transact with trustworthy brands, so make sure that you display to any potential customer that you are exactly that – a trustworthy and reliable brand. Quick tip – having a bad review is not a bad thing, it can be a good thing. When someone is unhappy, respond to that review and try to resolve that issue for the buyer and do not delete the review. Leave it on the website to show other customers and prospects how deeply you are invested in making every experience with your brand as perfect as possible.
2. Complexity
More often than not, merchants request bizarre things from agencies. The more buyers have to look for something or the more decisions they have to make, the more frustrated they will become. At that point, you will lose them. Think about it this way – when a user comes to your website looking for a product similar to the one you are selling, they are basically saying: here take my money.
You have to keep that in mind at all times. So, whatever it is that you are doing, make sure that it is a simple experience for the user. An experience where they do not need to analyze or think too much. Think about your experience at a retail store – you walk in, someone offers help, you tell them what you need, they help you find the right item (possibly try to upsell you), you pay, and you walk out. No confusion, no distraction, no barrier to pay – nothing.
Replicate the same on your website.
1. Page Speed
Think of ecommerce as Starbucks drive-thru. Why do people love the Starbucks drive-thru so much? It quick, simple, easy, and most of the time – fast! If you are having a busy day and you wanted to get Starbucks, and you pull up to the drive-thru and there are 9 cars ahead of you and they are barely moving…you would probably give up. Especially if there is an alternative coffee shop down the street with no line.
Same applies to ecommerce websites. Imagine, you have the product that could solve whatever their problem might be – they try to access your website and load-time is 5…6..10 seconds! They refresh… the same thing, again. Do you think they are going wait for a website to load so they can give you their money – no.
Remember when you are designing and building your websites not to have too many bells and whistles. The more bells, the more whistles…typically, the more problems. Shoppers do not go on websites to be entertained and awed, they go shopping. To spend money. To get what they need as quickly as they can so that they can move forward with their day.
This goes hand in hand with the user experience…with complexity. Also, Google also frowns upon poor user experiences and load times, which can create issues with organic traffic.
Here is a list of the websites that you can run page speed tests on. Remember, test all different pages like homepage, collection page, product page, etc.