Oh, Crop! Killer E-commerce Mistakes You Need to Conquer

Published on: 10 August 2017 Last Updated on: 11 September 2024
image001

One of the most lucrative and fast-growing industries is the e-commerce industry. It has risen in popularity over the years due to the convenience and accessibility it provides for the consumers, and even for the sellers themselves.

A lot of people have been trying to start their businesses from home, yet they don’t know where to start, and they have no idea about the wide variety of industries they can invest in or the right tools they should use.

Aside from knowing what to do with your new venture, you also need to know the common mistakes and blunders you can commit. Lapses, no matter how small, can be highly detrimental to your business. But as worrying as it all sounds, don’t worry.

You can learn how to spot, avoid, and remedy these mistakes with this simple guide. Without further ado, here are five mistakes you need to avoid to keep your e-commerce business bug-free and in full swing.

Mistake #1: Forgetting Your Market

image003

One of the biggest and most common mistakes online entrepreneurs make is forgetting what their market looks like or who their target audience is. Aside from spending most of your time and effort in honing the perfect product, without actually creating a need for your customers, you also have to know your customer demographic.

Wouldn’t it be ideal to have customers before creating a product, rather than having a product beforehand and then looking for clients? All of your efforts will be rendered fruitless. Know how to target your audience or your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a representation of your customer’s demographics, such as age, gender, profession, and social status.

To paint you a clearer picture, if you’re a designer in the print industry, you need to know your target audience before you begin selling. You won’t sell cheap business cards to upper-class professionals looking to spruce up their portfolios just as you wouldn’t sell overly-priced prints for low-quality products.

Mistake #2: Lack of Social Media Presence

image005

The regular person owns at least five social media accounts. And on average, we spend about an hour and 40 minutes browsing these sites. Can you believe that the number of online shoppers in the United States alone will reach 224 million in 2019! Numbers aside, the stats are telling us to leverage social media in getting our brand out there.

Say hi to social media. Brands are using social media marketing for some highly useful and practical reasons. Some even devise different loyalty program for their avid followers on social media channels. Some of these are because it provides:

  • Low-cost solution. Social media platforms are an excellent way to get bang for your buck advertising and brand exposure.
  • Customization. From Facebook Insights to Google Analytics, you can customize your pages to your heart’s content and receive detailed reports on your customers’ demographics and browsing behaviors.
  • Excellent customer service platform. According to a recent study by Venturebeat, 51 percent of the respondents say businesses need to be available around the clock. If e-commerce brands are now adopting customer service chatbots with 24/7 messaging services, so should you.

If you’re still not convinced, you can think of your social media accounts as your company’s very own affordable business cards, showcasing your brand and the services you offer virtually.

Mistake #3: Neglecting Mobile Optimization

image007

Mobile is everywhere, and the world is accessing the internet through their smartphones. With 80 percent of internet users owning a smartphone, failing to recognize the need for mobile optimization, could mean losing half of your potential e-commerce market. Poor user experience can negatively impact your conversion rates.

If you shift your focus on creating the ideal mobile user experience for your customers, you can increase your brand reputation and customer retention, and avoid losing 61 percent of your clients due to the poor website experience.

As an internet-based entrepreneur, use whatever tools you have at your disposal to provide an optimized user browsing and shopping experience. Bank on your best assets and give yourself an advantage over your industry rivals.

Mistake #4: Faulty Shipping Flexibility

image009

When you first decided to run an e-commerce business, I’m guessing you did for the flexibility it gave you in doing your daily tasks. You didn’t have to meet people face to face, and you could make your timetable to suit your needs. You can now do all of your work at home, and nobody would have to see you in sweatpants.

The same principle goes for your consumers. All customers like to have options, especially when it comes to shipping. According to research, only 1 in 4 online shoppers complete a purchase? 44 percent of cart abandonment cases are due to high shipping costs, and a whopping 93 percent of online shoppers say they’ll buy more if they got free shipping.

Free shipping can increase sales and improve customer loyalty. According to a study from E-tailing, 73 percent of purchasers consider unconditional free shipping as a decisive factor in shopping online. But like all other business aspects, weigh the pros and cons of your business before making a decision.

Mistake #5: Failing to Measure Performance

image011

If you want to succeed in the competitive world of e-commerce, you need to know how to gauge and evaluate your performance. Take note of your business habits, particularly regarding expenses and marketing. Use your business plan as a roadmap to help you steer your way throughout your business venture.

Check your statistics regularly. Update your ledger and see if your business is thriving or failing. Look at your consumer insights and keep up with the masses’ latest trends. Be as specific as you can with your data. Don’t inflate your figures and understand the areas you lack to improve them further.

By monitoring your performance, you are helping your business achieve greater heights compared to passive management. And the good news is, there’s always room for improvement, be it for you or your business.

Takeaway

As John Sagel said, “What we do know now is that the ‘E’ in e-commerce doesn’t stand for ‘easy.’ Opening an e-commerce business can be overwhelming and nerve-wracking, but it can also be a highly worthwhile and profitable venture.

There is no guarantee of overnight success. However, you can set yourself up for the best chance at succeeding. To do so, grasp the basics, learn from seasoned entrepreneurs, and watch out for their mistakes to avoid committing them yourself.

Abdul Aziz Mondol is a professional blogger who is having a colossal interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, he loves to share content related to business, finance, technology, and the gaming niche.

View all posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

Injury

Shouldn’t On-Demand Workers Get Workers’ Compensation?

Things have changed significantly for American workers in recent years. More and more Americans are working not as employees, but as independent contractors. Some people call it contracting or freelancing, but the implications are always the same - a worker is hired for a particular service and is paid a rate (hourly or per job) for that service. While working as an independent contractor might be the preferred choice of some workers, it is more often than not an arrangement born out of necessity, facilitated by a growing sea change in the relationship between labor and business. Contractors might have a bit more freedom in the way they do their jobs but, as many freelancers have discovered, there are plenty of drawbacks to working as an independent contractor. They pay their own taxes, lack many of the benefits associated with full-time employment and - perhaps most concerning - they aren’t protected when it comes to injuries suffered on-the-job. It’s this lack of compensation for workplace injuries that brings us to a growing discontentment for a large subset of independent contractors - on-demand workers. What is an On-Demand Worker? On-demand workers are the people who pick us up when we hail a ride with Uber. They are the workers who come clean our house or fix a leaky pipe when we book someone on our Handy app. In short, on-demand workers are those that spring into action when we request a service from a company that relies on freelance labor. The “Ride-Share” Economy’s Impact on Workers Every few weeks or so, you’ll find a news story or press release about another company that wants to become the Uber of something. Handy wanted to become the Uber of household cleaning. Cargo wanted to become the Uber of shipping. The list goes on and on. The financial success and the immense popularity of ride-share services have prompted companies to look for ways to incorporate the ride-share business model into other services, and many of them have been successful in doing so. These “on-demand” services are not just popular in the business community, they are popular with consumers, too. In many cases, the services offered by the new breed of businesses are more affordable and, in some cases, more responsive to a customer’s needs. It might be tempting for consumers to think of these services as a much more direct way to communicate with someone who is providing the service they need. The truth, however, is a little more complicated than that. The driver who picks us up, or the handyman who comes to fix our sink, is working on contract through the business who runs the app we use to summon them. The money that we pay that worker is divided between the worker and the business they work for. Many of these businesses have requirements that their workers must meet before they can do their job. Workers don’t have the level of control over their jobs that one would typically associate with an independent contractor, yet they are provided at the same level of benefits. In other words, they are provided with no benefits. Read also: Making Your Office Safer for Workers No Security for On-Demand Workers On-demand workers can suffer injuries just like any other subset of workers. A high percentage of workplace injuries are transportation-related. Many workers suffer injuries while moving goods or traveling for work. When you consider the fact that on-demand workers spend a good deal of their time in transit from one job to another (or, as is the case with drivers for ride-share services, all of their time in transit), it’s no surprise that these workers face just as many, if not more, hazards while on the job as those who are considered to be employees. To zero in even more on just how dangerous some of these jobs can be, let’s look at taxi drivers and chauffeurs, whose jobs are virtually identical to Uber and Lyft drivers. Taxi drivers and chauffeurs have fatality rates five times those of the average worker. On-demand drivers face the same risks - vehicle accidents, violent attacks - yet they aren’t given the financial security that other workers receive. If an on-demand worker is injured on the job, the company that they work for will not be held accountable for the injuries of their workers. That worker will be left without the security that so many of us enjoy as a fundamental right. They work just as hard. They observe the requirements set out by the company that employs their services, yet they are guaranteed nothing when something goes wrong. Contractors “In-Name Only” Understandably, many on-demand workers are growing increasingly dissatisfied with their classification as independent contractors. This is evidenced in a number of lawsuits in which workers are seeking to be treated with the same rights and benefits as other types of workers. This has been happening in the trucking industry for some time, an industry that has shifted from one heavily reliant on employed drivers (who used to be more likely to be union members) to one of the independent workers, and this industry suffered major labor shortage as a result. In one high-profile lawsuit, an appeals court found that FedEx incorrectly classified their drivers as contractors, despite the fact that FedEx required workers to wear FedEx uniforms, drive FedEx vehicles, and groom themselves according to the standards of FedEx. While on-demand workers face slightly different requirements from their companies, the principle is very much the same. The question is: How much can a company ask of you before they should give you the same rights as their “employees” are afforded? The answer is that you can ask only so much from a worker before they are essentially a contractor "in-name-only.” It’s becoming clear that companies are taking all of the advantages they can out of the “contract” relationship they have with workers while providing none of the benefits that they would give their employees. Unfortunately, this means a lack of workers’ compensation benefits for on-demand workers. The Implications for Consumers On-demand services might seem like a great thing for consumers, for now, but there are many ways in which the relationship between workers and their companies will begin to seep into the quality of the services consumers are currently enjoying. If companies providing on-demand services fail to provide workers with adequate benefits, they will face the same challenges as the transportation industry, which is struggling to keep high-quality workers who will find more benefits and security in other labor markets. In other words, on-demand suppliers will eventually get what they pay for and, by extension, so will consumers. In that respect, the lack of protection for on-demand workers is bad for business, not just for the workers themselves, but for consumers as well.

READ MOREDetails
Call To Action

Creating A Successful Call To Action In Your Business Emails: Here Are 5 Tips To Consider

Email marketing is an amazing digital marketing strategy to drive more sales and retain customers for a longer time. And every SEO reseller uses it in their strategy. It’s among the most ROI-driven marketing practices that bring significant results when performed right. However, as we are moving towards a highly digitized era where customers’ inboxes are generally flooded with promotions, standing out becomes difficult. To entice your prospects to open your email and click on the CTA to take any action, you need to rethink how you have been performing it. Hence, you need to pay closer attention to details and improve it as your customers want to see them. In this article, we will have a look at the top five tips for creating a successful call to action in your email to drive maximum revenue. If you are just starting out, these tips will help you take the lead and grow your business. Importance of Creating a Successful Call to Action in Your Business Emails Email is still one of the most effective tools when it comes to business communication. It does not matter whether you are communicating with your colleagues or customers. Ensuring the right implementation of emails is crucial. Despite the rise of a plethora of messaging apps and other communication platforms, most businesses prefer emails. Moreover, when it comes to email, you need only fewer resources for optimum results. The following are some of the reasons why creating a successful call to action in your business emails is important: Email is effective because it has universal access. Moreover, they are also interoperable across a variety of platforms. Thereby, you can ensure seamless communication between stakeholders. Email is one of the fastest and most efficient ways of sending messages. Whether you want to send an email internally or externally, you will get real-time results. Moreover, with the help of emails, you can respond to customer inquiries better and faster. Hence, with this instant access to information, email has become a valuable tool for businesses. When you compare emails to other communication methods and platforms, you will find that the former is more cost-effective. Furthermore, you also do not need excessive business resources to succeed with effective communication. Email comes with high-profile security options. These include transport-layer security (TLS) and others. Hence, when you send confidential information, it remains safe and secure. Tips for Creating a Successful Call to Action in Your Business Emails The following are some of the major tips you need for creating a successful call to action in your business emails: 1. Keep It Real: To generate trust and improve the overall click-through rate, you need to keep everything real. Also, you must ensure there are not any gimmicks or excessive terms and conditions. Be very clear about what you are offering and what benefits the readers will get if they click on the button. For example, you can highlight text like there are no hidden charges, you pay what you see, and more like them. These types of text not only help you improve the call to action but also help you gain trust faster among your customers. This thing applies to every section of the email — be it the subject line, body text, or the main CTA. Also, you must ensure there is no misleading clickbait that will increase the bounce rate or unsubscribe rate. 2. Short And active: Ask your copywriter to draft every email in an active voice with very short and crisp sentences. It makes no sense to write long lines or paragraphs, and it is the main reason behind it. Many people check their emails on the go from their smartphones, and if the email is lengthy, they might skip it and save it to read later. However, as an average user receives a lot of emails a day, the probability of opening the email is very low. That’s why you should keep the email text as simple and short as possible. However, make sure it’s conveying the entire message that you want to present to the readers. You can keep the email body text within 100 – 150 words as it’s easier to read and incite users to take the desired action. 3. FOMO Works Creating a sense of urgency using the fear of missing out technique works if you implement it correctly. No one wants to miss out on great deals, especially when they need that product or service.  You need to make your audience feel they will miss out on something really great if they don’t take action right now. You can specify in bold text that it’s a time-sensitive offer only, or you can run a counter on the landing page. This technique will bring a higher CTR and will make your call to action more prompt and active participation. You will find a lot of free FOMO templates to make your copy more exciting and click-worthy. 4. Use The Right Colors: This trick sounds ordinary, but it brings extraordinary returns and improves your business email's overall call to action. Pick the colors that reflect your brand, and don’t change the color theme frequently. Your readers should register a common theme so that when they open your email, it will remind them of your brand. Apart from colors, don’t overdo animations as they might load slower on some devices due to any reason. Keep the color scheme simple, attractive, and clutter-free. You can use email marketing tools and pick any premade campaigns if you are not into designing them. 5. Creativity: Smart creativity is the key when it comes to a successful call to action in your business emails. Be creative because you need to stand apart from the rest and attract your busy readers’ attraction in a limited time span. You need to understand that people’s attention span is very limited, and you need to make every aspect click-worthy without getting spammy. Instead of using a free stock image, ask your graphics team to create bespoke images that can match your custom offer and improve the CTA. Create A Successful Call To Action Now Hence, you can see that creating a successful call to action in your business emails is not very difficult. Follow these simple steps to create a successful call to action and drive more sales to your business. Email marketing is not hard, and it can drive substantial results for your business strategies. However, if you are not into emails, it’s the right time to get started and drive additional traffic and revenue to your business. Keep experimenting with different formats to check which works best for you. Read Also: Online Marketing: Selling Your Product And Services How to Integrate Email Marketing With SEO 3 Easy Ways to Grow Your Email List Best Way To Earn Passive Income In 2020: Email Marketing

READ MOREDetails
Email Marketing

Snov.io Review: The Missing Piece of the Marketing Outreach Strategy Puzzle

If you have not been living under a rock, you are probably aware that the importance attached to any marketing or sales strategy through the productive use of an email finder is a quintessential step towards guaranteeing success. Whether it be for Link Building, Building a Blogger Data Base, Influencer Marketing, Lead Generation, or Generating Reviews and Ratings, we cannot stress enough on the fact that a viable email outreach strategy is necessary for you. However, if we are to do all the things listed above singularly or collectively even, the same is going to take a lot of time, effort, resources, both financial as well as in terms of workers, among other things. This is the challenge that not only affects many marketing experts but also is incremental in terms of determining their growth and the growth of the campaign or marketing strategy that they are presently working on. An Easy, Powerful and Efficient Email Marketing Tool for Outreach:   When we have identified the problem, it makes sense to come up with a solution as well. Enter Snovio, a strategically robust and defined marketing tool that is designed to help you not only as an email finder guide but also more importantly as an email validator. Snovio is not a tool that is useful only for marketers; it is also very useful for Sales Representatives, Start-ups, Entrepreneurs, Recruiters, HR Professionals, and anyone who wants to find emails and relies on email outreach or outbound research. It helps you drastically cut down the time it takes to find and collect leads and candidates. Snovio offers a set of useful and productive services that are aimed to help individuals looking for an expert outreach strategy. Some of the tools that Snovio provides are: Domain Email Search Email Verifier Email Drip Campaigns Email Tracker for Gmail Professional Email Search Technology Checker The Importance of an Email Finder as a Dynamic Part of Prospecting: For most professionals who belong to the sales, marketing, or recruiting teams, locating an official email id is often the final part of completing a strategy circle. They know who they want to reach out to, what is their TG, but most often than not, they lack a coherent database of concrete and verified contact information. Most of these professionals find emails through manual searching or by using email toolsets, which are cumbersome, complicated, and quite expensive. Snovio aims to solve all those problems by its ease of working. Snovio is a verified Google Extension that works seamlessly not only in terms of standardized Google searches of people and professionals in a given region, but also carefully disseminates official emails from the professional social network. One of the most important features that Snovio provides is the function of not only searching and locating emails but also verification. Some of the emails that are collected may be invalidemails; with Snovio everyone has the opportunity of collecting and verifying leads, prospects, and human resources. An Email Finder that Works Seamlessly on LinkedIn: Most of the times, as a recruiter or a marketing professional, we turn to LinkedIn to browse hundreds or professional profiles, in order to look for prospects, investors, entrepreneurs, and a host of other search related activities. Snovio works flawlessly creating verified email lists from LinkedIn’s extensive database of individuals and companies. If you see the image above, we had searched for professionals in the field of SEO, and as you can see from the Snovio extension on the right, the software crawls and collects, all official email addresses of the professionals.   Following the search and categorization, Snovio prepares a user-friendly and uncluttered ‘People List’ giving you credible and verified email addresses of targeted individuals and professionals. You can also directly verify from the list whether an email is a valid one or not. A Powerful Sales and Marketing Outreach Tool that is Budget Friendly: We are sure that you have never heard about an outreach tool or an email finder that is cheap to use and fits well your quarterly budget allocations. We are also sure that you have never heard about an email finder tool NOT asking for your credit card details, once the free trial period is over. Well, Snovio is not only inexpensive to use, but it also offers a forever free, renewable plan with 100 monthly credits and 30 drip campaign recipients for you to try out all the tools and features. If you need to go over this limit, you can purchase a plan that suits your needs best. By the way, the pricing is pretty affordable - the cheapest plan of 1,000 credits is $29. All the features of Snovio are open to usage even in the free plan. Unlike most competitors, who restrict usage in the free plans to one or two services, Snovio’s entire repertoire of services is open for consumers, even when it is free. You can distribute your credits however, you like. Snovio notifies you about the credits to be used beforehand. The export feature is also available in all paid plans. The Final Verdict: Snovio is not just any other tool for lead generation and email outreach. After a very long time, we finally have a tool and an email finder that is not only user-friendly, uncluttered, professional, and dynamic but also inexpensive, trustworthy, credible and offers great post-sales customer service. With Snovio, you can rest assured that all your outreach strategies will be streamlined and you will definitely be able to see a spike in your conversions. If you are not yet ready to go for paid plans, we would strongly suggest you trying out their free plan, as they are good in terms of offering the complete arsenal of services. With all the above advantages, we would find it very difficult to understand if someone still does not want to give Snovio a chance. Read Also: 10 Top-Notch Tools To Improve Your Business Writing Skills A Guide To Running Your Instagram Marketing Campaign

READ MOREDetails