4 Revenue-Killing Mistakes eCommerce Retailers Make

By Laura Taylor • Last updated: Monday Jan 30th, 2023

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The road to eCommerce success isn’t always smooth.

Pitfalls can occur at any point in the online shopping experience. With competition in the eCommerce sector growing at a rapid rate, making avoidable errors can severely impact your conversion rate.

From failing to optimise the customer journey to writing lacklustre copy, we have compiled a list of four revenue-killing mistakes online retailers must avoid to achieve eCommerce success.

4 Revenue-Killing eCommerce Mistakes to Avoid

1. Inadequate product descriptions 

If you have not given much thought to your product descriptions, now is the time to revisit them.

Simply regurgitating generic copy from a supplier or writing the bare minimum not only deters potential customers, it can also have detrimental effects on your standings in organic search results.

Original copy that includes key phrases your customers are searching for will improve your website’s SEO ranking, helping search engines to match your website with customer searches.

Keeping descriptions informative without being too lengthy and offering a variety of product shots provides customers the information they need to make informed purchase decisions and helps to convert visitors into customers.

2. Poor customer journeys

For every £80 spent driving traffic to a site, only £1 is spent on optimising conversion rates.

The user’s experience on your website is crucial to influencing their purchasing decisions. If a website lacks investment in the customer journey, potential customers can be lost from the sales funnel.

A key focus of your customer experience optimisation efforts should be to help visitors find what they’re looking for. Recommending pages and products based on a customer’s individual interests and alerting users to relevant offers will persuade them to continue to checkout.

If you are looking to implement software that will improve the customer journey, our suite of software solutions can help to transform new visitors into loyal customers through carefully placed Behavioural Overlays, personalised Product Recommendations and intuitive Site Search.

3. Complicated checkout process

No matter how keen a customer may be, an overly complicated checkout process can put off even the most stalwart of online shoppers.

If customers are required to create an account to make a purchase, or fill out lengthy forms, they may abandon their basket to find the same product on a different website. 

One solution is to simplify the process with a guest checkout option – saving customers time and ensuring you secure the all-important conversion. You can then always offer the chance to create an account once they have completed their order.

But even with a streamlined guest checkout, shoppers can still be easily distracted and abandon their baskets. This is where retargeting emails can help. Personalised emails re-inject customers back into your sales funnel and persuade them to complete their purchase.

4. Non-responsive website design

As the percentage of customers shopping on mobile phones is expected to soar in the coming years, optimising websites for mobile users is extremely crucial.

A complicated navigation and design that does not adjust to mobile screens makes for an infuriating user experience, resulting in lost customers and a low conversion rate.

Non-responsive websites also receive a lower position in organic mobile search results, making it harder for customers to find you.

Ensuring your design is sleek and easy to use will encourage customers to continue browsing and, accompanied with the aforementioned simplified checkout, help to increase conversions.

To find out how Salesfire can help you optimise your eCommerce site, email one of our experts at [email protected] or book a free demo of our personalisation tools.