6 Key Errors When Launching an Online Store

If you have an online business today, it’s not a fact you’ll have one tomorrow. While you’re drinking coffee and watching a new series of your favorite TV show, your competitor, while remaining behind you by, is inventing a way to increase its conversion rate by half a percent – and soon will destroy your happiness, which you called your business.

Unless, of course, you come up with something in return. Below we will consider typical mistakes of entrepreneurs in e-commerce.

1. Entering the market is not worth anything

Many still live in the illusion that it is easy to enter this market. Especially those serious guys who already have a big offline business sin.

Sitting for a couple of hours on the Internet, they will learn that you can develop an online store for five thousand – or a maximum of twenty. Isn’t that money?

The given range of prices may be not so far from the truth, only serious guys usually do not take into account that the development – is only the first door, behind which several more, and tightly locked.

To make a store – one thing, to attract traffic there – another, to establish the conversion of traffic into sales – the third. And also it is necessary to make all this construction profitable (Mageworx solutions may help you).

The threshold to enter the business – yes, small. The threshold to enter a profitable business – sometimes insurmountable.

2. We don’t need any specialists, we’ll figure it out ourselves

Entrepreneurs are people who are used to solving problems with limited resources. And this skill is undoubtedly extremely useful. But sometimes it can play a bad joke on you.

Many neophytes, in order not to waste too much, entrust the development of online stores to existing employees who have already proven their effectiveness in offline business. Business is business.

There are, of course, specifics, but a smart man will always understand it. And that’s why there’s no need to bring in specialists. That’s what a lot of people think.

Everything would be fine, but only E-Commerce – is a fundamentally different business, which has long been so complex that it is no longer possible to master on the run.

3. To succeed, you have to do something different

And for some reason, people really want to do things differently. They come to the Internet with the demand for innovation, which is stronger the more it seems that there is nothing complicated on the Internet.

Beginners believe that they are looking at everything with a fresh, unwashed look, and therefore able to reinvent the online store.

A fresh look is, of course, great. But there’s simply common sense. In the industry, there are already many standards that make life much easier for customers.

Therefore, they do not need to think where to click to get, for example, to order (unless, of course, the site is not made by innovators and “nerdy” guys like us). Breaking these typical scenarios and thoughtlessly experimenting only leads to collapse.

E-commerce – the most interesting field for experiments. But these are experiments of a completely different kind.

4. The internet shop is the same shop, only on the internet

Let’s say you’re the lucky owner of some popular brand. It’s so popular that a lot of people are looking for it on the Internet – and not found.

You only need to open the official online store – in fact, to create a virtual showcase of your offline store – to meet the demand and to row money with a shovel.

Is that it? Not like this. Because you can succeed on the Internet only if you consider an online store a completely new business. You will have new customers, other consumption scenarios, new assortment, new everything.

5. If there’s traffic and conversion, that’s fine

No argument, traffic and its conversion are the most important parameters of online business. But focusing only on them is fraught with trouble. Because it’s even more important for e-commerce to rebuy and “life cycles” of customers.

When you have to spend all your money on attracting visitors, it’s suspicious.
As you know, if someone bought something from you once, it’s not business. Business is if you have to buy from them all the time.

This expression is also true offline, but still, even in the presence of loyalty programs and SMS-links usually repeated purchases are not there a key element of the business model. Many stores earn by standing in the stream of passers-by.