5 Design Mistakes That Can Kill Your Ecommerce Business

According to Fireclick Index, the average conversion rate for an eCommerce business in 2017 is around 4.2%. That means for every 1,000 visitors that come to your store you’ll typically make 42 sales.

While a 4.2% conversion rate may seem scary (because it is), the scarier number is the 95.8% of online visitors that are escaping your store and are never brought back again.

When you look at the fact that many eCommerce businesses are spending more than $90 to acquire a visitor, but only $1 to convert them into a new customer, the numbers become even more staggering.

Your store design is one of the most important factors in converting your visitors. If your conversion rate is significantly low, there might be a major flaw in your design.

Here are five different design mistakes that are potentially killing your eCommerce business and what you can do to fix them.

#1 – Low-Quality Images

Whether you realize it or not, the product images you use are probably one of the most important assets you have for your business.

According to research performed by Jeff Bullas, 67% of all consumers say that the images they’re viewing play a very important role in the purchase of their products.

If you’re running low quality or low-resolution product images on your store, you could be driving away 67 out of every 100 potential customers. When you stop and think about it, the reasons behind this are fairly obvious.

If you want to purchase something online, and want to view the product in closer detail but can’t actually zoom in on it, are you going to stay and buy? Or are you going to find another vendor that has high-quality photos you can view?

In cases like these, the absolute best thing you can do is bring in a photographer who specializes in taking product photos.

#2 – Cluttered Pages

Just because you have multiple products that you want to sell doesn’t mean you need to clutter them all onto the same page. There’s an old conversion rate optimization rule: one page, one goal.

Giving your visitors too many options is only going to confuse them. There are times when this rule doesn’t always hold true, but those companies have huge trust and respect — think, Amazon.

As a smaller eCommerce store owner, you want to funnel visitors onto your single product page as quickly as possible and keep them from navigating away once they get there.

#3 – Clunky Navigation

The navigation on your store needs to be very clear and easy to use. Visitors need a clear path from point A to point B, and if they can’t find that path they are going to leave.

A study performed by Forrester showed that more than 50% of a store’s sales are lost because the visitors are simply unable to locate the products that they’re looking for.

They’ve also shown that more than 40% of your visitors will not come back to your store after they’ve had a poor first-time experience. Which means once you’ve made their life difficult, they’re gone for good.

You need to look at your store through the eyes of the customer and figure out how to make it easy for them to find the products they’re looking for. You can also install heatmap software to figure out where you’re losing visitors, and then address each of those areas.

#4 – Complicated Order Form

When it comes to checking out, Amazon is one retailer that has it figured out. The reason they’ve implemented 1-click checkout is because that’s what customers want.

They don’t want to enter 10 different fields of information, just to move to another page and enter 10 more fields of information to finally have their product ordered. People are busy, so you need to make their lives easy.

It’s understandable that you want to get their details. However, if your signup form is lengthy, try to reduce it. Instead of asking for all of the information up front, get an email address commitment and then move them onto the order form in the next page.

All you really need is their email address. Once you have that, you can continue following up with them.

#5 – Outdated Design

First impressions matter more than ever. If you’re using a design that’s outdated, clunky, hard to use or not responsive on different devices, you’re cutting yourself short.

A dated web design doesn’t only make you look unprofessional, but it also makes it harder for visitors to trust you.

You do not have to be a professional web designer to fix this, as many eCommerce or brochure designs platforms offer templates you can plug into your store to get a professional design. If those aren’t what you’re looking for, consider hiring a professional designer to handle it for you.

As a business broker helping people buy and sell eCommerce businesses on a regular basis, I’m constantly answering questions about how eCommerce store owners can increase the value of their business.

Read: ECommerce Trends That Will Prevail In 2018

The areas mentioned above will help you to start thinking about how a customer views your business. Your job should be to make their life as easy as possible because that’s ultimately what the customer wants.