Top 5 Common Pitfalls for Young Ecommerce Entrepreneurs
Most of us believe plans will make us successful. Not in this case. For those who love to create a plan, Stop writing your business plan right now! Most successful Ecommerce entrepreneurs know that success may come from smaller, but effective preparation, instead of putting your time and effort into creating a 50-page business plan.
By investing 10 minutes in your daily routine, you will avoid the Top 5 common pitfalls for young ecommerce entrepreneurs.
1. Complex Analysis
Find out the main differences between your product and your competitor. One of the most common pitfalls is trying to create a matrix within a business plan to determine the position of your business. Please don’t waste your effort on that...
We don’t need a competitive analysis matrix to find out whether your product is unique enough or not...
You can simply Google it! So, let’s say I am selling bamboo bicycle online... I could simply search for “bamboo bicycle Malaysia” and you could practically locate your competitor within the first 2 pages of Google search.
What do you do now? Find what’s unique about your product.
Price-wise, Quality-wise, Design-wise
2. No or Little Product Visuals
Your customer is not there to touch the product. Most of young entrepreneur do not understand this concept, thus what they only care is whether their website is visually enticing or not.
Although it’s nice to put all the information about your product, it will fail without a visual representation. The best would be adjusting the number of graphics with the amount of information presented.
Apple makes an excellent case in their website. Apple’s website demonstrate an exceptional balance between the image size and amount of information.
3. Complicated Checkout Process
Here is a list of NOs- Redirecting customers to another page
- Asking customer to register before paying
- Returning customers need to fill up their information again
I think its pretty clear why the three points are in the list of NOs... So, what can you do? You can simply find a payment gateway that can solve these 3 common problems.
4. I Do Not Want to Include the Shipping Cost
For whatever reasons you have not to include the shipping cost, please don’t... This is one of the common traits I saw with new ecommerce site.
They want to tweak their price so it looks cheap and inflate it with the shipping cost. This could damage your reputation in the long term.
Customers do not like surprises at the end of the checkout line
If you can get your shipping cost for free, please put it in your page so customers can see it. If it is not free, please let them know how much is the cost of product with the shipping included.
It is not just an opinion, but also a fact that a lot of people cancel the transaction because of the ambiguity of shipping cost, or just from the fact that the shipping cost too much.5. I Don't Have My Store Policy
One of the most common flaw in a website is the lack of a store policy. Patience is key here.
We know that we want to open our website as soon as possible. It is a very exciting stage in our life. But you would really consider having a store policy before going live..
Create one section (FAQ section) to set out the rules and regulations for the different types of customer interaction.
By creating a store policy section, you are simply being helpful while developing a strong brand of authenticity alongside it.Good luck, entrepreneurs!
