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5 Mistakes to Avoid when Selling Online

By: Yogin Vora on April 13, 2010 1 Comment

Not Displaying Contact Information - Physical or online, stores that customers want to shop at are those which they trust. When running an online Store, it is very easy to bypass not providing your contact details. And by contact details, I do not mean just your email address. Be professional and provide your customer with your company address and phone numbers. This builds Trusts. If you work out of home or are mobile, set up a post box address with your good old local post office. Make the change and you will invariably see your order numbers spike considerably.
Hiding Vital Links – Review where and how all the vital links on your website will be displayed. Are you sure that links like the shopping cart, product search and customer care are accessible from every page? The aforementioned three are important to the shopping experience. Make them difficult or time consuming to find and you customer will probably fade away. For example, customer always want to know how much they are about to shop for… if the cart is visible to them, then they may shop or move on as they wish. But if not, they might end up shopping too much and trash the cart later.
Selling Random Stuff – Unfortunately, the Chaos Theory and the online store do not go well together. When you decided to get into this business, you must have thought of a central theme for the store. Stick to it and do not go selling random items because they become hot. Provided you did your research right, you would know your customer base and the market you are creating. Stay with them and they will stay with you. Just think, would you buy aquariums from a site which also sells bridal wear? Selling random items is akin to a backyard sale. It’s like the “All Must Go” cheap experience.
Not Tracking Order Conversion – First know what a conversion rate is. It is, at the base level, the number of visitors to your website that are converted to buyers. It is vital that you track the order conversion to your products. If the product you are promoting is not going off the shelves, you are wasting inventory space. Dump it and move on. Research and see why it did not sell and whether it is just with your store or in general.
Failing to Refresh – You must noticed how quickly the world moved away from your neighborhood kirana store once the fancy marts and super marts came in. Why? Because they got bored and wanted somewhere new to shop. Your online store might meet the same fate if you do not review and refresh your site periodically. Are there any out-of-stock items on display? When was the last you offered discounts? Are you missing on festive opportunity? Do you need any more product categories? Ask yourself this question and reinvent your store from time to time.