These Are the 6 Common eCommerce Mistakes You Want to Avoid

Every so often you drop something. Every so often you spill water or milk. This is normal and these mistakes happen. And, it’s no big a deal, right? You can mop the floor or clean the table in a matter of minutes.

Marketplace mistakes also happen occasionally and, when they do, people often make them without realizing it. However, these mistakes cannot be dealt with as easily. If you leave these mistakes unattended or even worse, unidentified, your business could suffer grave consequences.

Mistakes you make with your eCommerce business or a certain marketplace can cost you your dream, money, time, and all the effort to correct them.

If you want to learn more about top marketplace mistakes and what you should (not) do to keep your business safe and prosperous, keep reading. In the article, you will find some common ecommerce mistakes to avoid.

Do not forget your brand’s identity

Just because you have expanded or decided to sell your products on a certain marketplace doesn’t mean that you should neglect your brand’s identity. On the contrary, even then you need to invest efforts into making your presence known and your brand recognizable.

This isn’t something too difficult to comprehend and it should be included among all best eCommerce marketing strategies and growth strategies.

So, ask yourself a few questions and reexamine your brand for a moment:

• Why is your brand better than the rest?
• What makes it different?
• Why should someone choose you over another seller?
• How are your products helping people?

Do not forget the base idea of your brand. Everything you sell or do has to be representative and the idea needs to be reflected in that.

Standing out sometimes comes as a difficult task when you are competing in large marketplaces. Therefore, you should never neglect the brand identity. 

Ultimately, that will separate you from the crowd and allow you to rake in the much-needed revenue by becoming a notable entity everywhere you sell.

Lacking a clear customer proposition

No matter if you are only selling from your store or on various marketplaces, you need to have a clearly defined customer proposition.

In order to devise one, consider your range and pricing per marketplace. In addition, you need to take a holistic view and figure out how a certain marketplace will fit into your overall strategy.

A good start would be to check how your range per marketplace compares with your own site, along with the range offered by any retail partners. You should also think about whether you intend to offer any exclusive products or services, such as customization, through a selected marketplace.

When talking about pricing, there are a few different strategies you can adopt. For instance, you could always try price matching on marketplaces to keep selling at RRP. You could also define your product listing prices according to related costs (delivery, returns, etc.)

Neglecting analytics

Neglecting analytics happens too often considering how long this tip has been around. One could imagine how this can happen to a new business person still figuring out the ropes. However, it is really difficult to understand how an experienced business owner can neglect analytics.

Think about it. No marketer would neglect important email statistics following an email marketing campaign, right? So, why should a seller neglect email marketing statistics? After all, these figures serve the purpose of informing people about what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

Therefore, never ignore email statistics as there is no doubt that they bring significant business results. For instance, Google Analytics works like a charm when integrated with your website.

With this kind of software, you will get a lot of smart insights such as the busiest time of the day (the time of the day when you are having maximum/minimum sales), or the demographic information that can be used for better marketing targeting.

As an entrepreneur, you need to utilize these valuable pieces of information analytics can provide. Once you are able to draw conclusions from analytics, you will know how you should design and drive your promotional efforts based on the results analytics provide.

You will have no difficulty devising your ecommerce marketing strategies, planning your resource allocation, and so on. And, you will be able to track and monitor everything your business is going through.

Apart from an eCommerce marketplace script and other essential eCommerce tools, analytics software is definitely a must for every ambitious eCommerce owner.

No effective communication

Make sure you remember that bad communication with the vendors and marketplace management can wreak havoc. The same applies when it’s the other way around. It can lead to internal chaos and disorder in the marketplace.

If you don’t want to face this issue, you should have open and clear lines of communication between you and your product vendors. There are a few ways that you can ensure a smooth flow of communication.

For example, an FAQ forum can be made solely for this purpose. It should be a kind of a support page where the vendors can get their queries answered and suggestions noted.

Also, broadcasting a mass message to your vendor groups from within marketplace solution can be really helpful when it comes to notifying about significant changes, new features, information, and procedures.

You can also organize meet-ups with the aim of planning and determining the future strategies of your marketplace.

If you are a vendor, however, avoid marketplaces where you can’t reach anyone in the case of a problem. No communication channels are a red flag, and that could mean that you have selected the wrong marketplace.

Not using available marketplace features

Every good marketplace offers a platter of features and functionalities that you can use. Therefore, when you actually come to a point where you need to start implementing your marketplace strategy, make sure to utilize every single available marketplace feature.

For instance, if you go for Amazon-like thousands of other vendors do, you will have over 20 elements on a product page that you can modify.

That is why you should ensure consistency by utilizing all features to fully support the purchase for each product you have. Think about the quality, variety, and layout of information such as titles, imagery, and product descriptions.

If you want to be better than the rest and stand out, think of ways to incorporate additional content that will further add value. This content can come in the form of product videos, or customer testimonials and reviews. The choice is yours, so try to be creative and never publish fake reviews or ratings.

Flawed payment methods

It doesn’t matter whether you are just selling on a certain marketplace or you are the owner, there should be no room for defective payment methods!

The seller survives on transactions just like the owner. If there are payment methods that are not secure, trustworthy, and efficient, things will end badly for everyone.

Sellers will face abandoned carts, decreased sales, and they will have to seek another marketplace. On the other hand, the marketplace itself will lose vendors and customers and ultimately it will go out of business.

In order to prevent this, good research has to be done. It is worth knowing where the user-base is located, what payment options are available and convenient for them, and so on.

Make sure that the marketplace is equipped with safe and secure payment gateways. That is one of the most important segments that need to be considered seriously.

There is no worse thing for a vendor to see than an increase in abandoned carts. On the other hand, it would also be really silly for a marketplace to go out of business due to flawed payment methods.

Dave Schneider is the founder of LessChurn, churn reduction app. In 2012 he quit his job to travel the world, and has visited over 65 countries. In his spare time, he writes about SaaS and business at DaveSchneider.me