Running a web store can bring your products and services to customers from all corners of the world. Unlike most regular shops, your online store is always open and ready to take orders from anyone who stops by. This requires a lot of work on your end, too. It’s not enough to just list the products and wait for orders to start flooding in. You must stay on top of things at all times, ensuring that every single feature on your web store is working and that the user experience is as great as possible.

There’s no room for mistakes here, as they may turn potential customers away and result in potential financial losses. Here we’ll take a look at some of the most common mistakes people make in managing their web stores. They can be related to its technical aspects, as well as the content itself. We’ll also offer some very simple tips on how to avoid these ecommerce trappings.

1.    Not Using the Right CMS

To be able to provide a great shopping experience to your customers, it’s essential to have a web store that’s functional and feature-heavy. You can’t accomplish this by relying on a content management system (CMS) that isn’t designed for web stores. Luckily, there are several software solutions that were made specifically for ecommerce purposes. These include Magento, Shopify, and WordPress. WordPress can also be used in combination with its dedicated ecommerce app or the Drupal Commerce plugin.

Once you settle on a CMS you’re going to use, you must always keep it up to date with the latest version released. This will allow you to introduce new useful features to your web store, but also to get rid of bugs and errors that are inherent to some outdated ecommerce platforms.

2.    Lack of a Good Product Description

If you want your products to sell, you should include as much information as possible on their features and characteristics. Otherwise, you could potentially lose sales, as customers will search the web to find more information on the product they like. They are more than likely to find it on a competing web store and – if their price is comparable to yours – they’ll just complete their purchase there. The description should also include at least two or three high-resolution photos showcasing the product.

Many web store owners go with the generic description provided by the manufacturer only to find their sites blacklisted by all major search engines because of it. So, not only do you need to pay attention to product details to help your customers, but also to keep a high ranking with popular search engines.

3.    Outdated Search Function

Running a web store can bring your products and services to customers from all corners of the world.

Speaking of search engines, you should know that your web store acts like one to visitors who are looking to buy specific products and want to see what their choices are. Even if they already know what they want to get, searching for the product is a much easier way to navigate the web store than going through a bunch of pages, categories, and subcategories.

Updating to the most recent version of your ecommerce platform of choice will allow for better, more refined search results. Your search engine should also offer the option to sort or filter the results based on the set criteria, including price, release date, manufacturer, or the average user rating, to name a few.

4.    Not Showing User Reviews

Statistics show that about two-thirds of all online shoppers like to read product reviews from fellow users before making their decision on whether or not to buy the product. This is why it’s important to have a dedicated section on the page where customers can review and rate (usually on a scale of one to five stars) the products they’ve bought from you. They will cover a lot of information others may be wondering about that isn’t included – and often doesn’t even belong – in the description you provided.

If your customers aren’t too keen on writing reviews, you can give them an incentive to do so. You can introduce a reward system where a certain number of points will be given to them for each review they write. When they collect enough points, they can use them towards their next purchase and get a nice discount. You could also add more points if they provide their own photos of the product: most people like to see an actual photo instead of a touched up “beauty shot” supplied by the manufacturer.

5.    Complicated Checkout Process

The checkout process usually involves two phases. When they first click the checkout button, your customers are redirected to the shopping cart page, where they can see all the items they’ve added while browsing your web store. A good shopping cart page should ideally give them an option to see the name of the product, a small photo, its price, and the quantity for each product they will be ordering.

Once that’s done, they proceed to the actual checkout page that gives them a choice of different shipping options and a preview of the shipping costs, as well as a form that asks them to enter their shipping and billing information, and to enter any related notes they might have.

Keep in mind that many users don’t want to register and log in before shopping, so in order not to alienate them, you should give them the option to save the information they entered for the next time they shop from your website. Furthermore, make sure to include checkboxes for different payment options, as well as the choice to send the product as a gift to someone else.

6.    Poor Customer Support

There’s only so much information you can cover in the product description. Your customers will often want to know more before purchasing, so it’s essential to provide support. If you don’t have enough employees to ensure that someone is always available for a live chat 24/7, you can set up working hours for the live chat, and enable email support outside of that. This is also important if for some reason a customer wants to return the product they’ve ordered from you.

Another important thing is to provide information about how customers can contact you directly, be it a physical address or a (preferably toll-free) phone number. This adds a certain amount of credibility to your business and lets all visitors know that you’re running a reliable and trustworthy business.