If you’re the kind of person that knows just how to rock a keyboard and draw in readers and customers with your professionalism and your awesome business knowledge, selling things online should be a walk in the park, right? Well, you’d like to think so.
The world of e-commerce is a wild and ever-changing realm that can really affect your business if you don’t know what you’re doing. You want to make sure you have the basic requirements, like having a website or other platforms for you business before going ahead with anything. If you are someone who isn’t creative, maybe creating a website might be a bit more difficult than you may have thought. But it is important to know that with a situation like this, you can can implement solutions such as Imenso Software in India to assist with web development. Be sure to do your research into starting an e-commerce business before committing to anything. Luckily, as long as you don’t make these 4 common e-commerce mistakes you should be able to take over this world in no time…
Failing to do your market research
At the end of the day, no business will ever be successful without its customers. It’s the same for those businesses in e-commerce because if people aren’t buying your products, you’re not earning money to produce more, pay your employees, or even pay the rent on your office. Because of this, knowing what your customers want and enticing them to spend more money should be of paramount importance.
How do I do this, I hear you cry? You do your market research! Scope out your target market, understand what kind of products they want, and go from there. After all, there’s no point ordering 500 units of the same product if nobody even wants to buy it.
Failing to price your products correctly
With so much competition out there in the e-commerce world, it can be easy to mark down your products to be the cheapest on the market. You gotta outdo the competition, right?! Don’t get me wrong; I always want to prove to my customers and readers that I have more to offer than other companies, but at the same time you need to realize that you’re running a business.
If you are selling a product for 50% less than the average online retailer, you need to realize that this might not be in your best interest. You need to work out how much your production will cost, your marketing expenses, your platform costs, and even your listing fees, to see how you can realistically price your products.
Failing to find the right platform
Nowadays, e-commerce businesses have so many selling platforms to choose from; it can often seem pretty overwhelming.
- Which one do you choose?
- Which platform will benefit your company the most?
- Should you choose Etsy or Amazon?
- How about WordPress or Shopify?
It’s important that you really think about which platform you’re going to use for your e-commerce business because this can dramatically impact your sales.
One of the best ways to decide which platform is right for you is to take a long, hard look at what you sell and where your customers would look to find your products.
If it’s handmade jewelry, Etsy would be your best bet. If it’s fancy dress feather wings, Amazon would be your winner. If you want to own your own contacts, build your own brand and have control over your marketing efforts, Shopify is the best.
Failing to be honest with your customers
Many businesses rely on their customers coming back time and time again to ensure that their business is a success – so you have to give them a little love back! Being open and honest with your customers is the first rule of successful e-commerce because these people need to know what you’re about and how you’re going to deal with their money.
One of the best ways to be as upfront as possible with your customers is to generate e-commerce terms and conditions policy that lays out all of your T&Cs, and how you plan to serve your customers. This is also a great way to protect yourself as a business if things were ever to go wrong. Hopefully, that won’t ever happen though, because you’re awesome.
If you want to survive and thrive in the world of e-commerce, it would be a good idea to know what you might be doing wrong so that you can know what you need to be right.
Next stop: World domination!
Do you have any other tips to add? Let me know in the comments.