Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
There are over 4 million ecommerce stores built by Shopify.
But the question is how many of them are successful Shopify stores? Today, everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and start their online business. But it can get a little tricky if you’re new to Shopify and want to set up an entire e-commerce store.
Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced Shopify store owner, you need to stay aware of the pitfalls that can occur along your journey.
To create a high-converting Shopify store, it’s important to understand what not to do. In this blog, we’ll explore crucial insights into avoiding common Shopify mistakes that could cost you your e-commerce business.
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8 Common Shopify Mistakes
As said by the great Jack Ma,” For e-commerce, the most important thing is trust”.
Did you know that over 1.7 million merchants trust Shopify? Although it can be overwhelming to start a Shopify store, from customizing the store to choosing products to sell, it’s a lot.
On that note, creating a successful e-commerce venture on Shopify involves avoiding common mistakes that can hinder your e-commerce growth and success.
Here are seven errors to steer clear of:
| Mistake | Consequence | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Ignoring Mobile Optimization | Poor user experience, slower load times, navigation issues, and decreased conversions. | Implement mobile responsiveness, optimize product pages, simplify checkout, and ensure fast-loading pages. |
| Lack of Brand Cohesion | Confused customers, diluted brand identity, and credibility issues. | Maintain consistency in visual elements, messaging, and overall brand experience across all touchpoints. |
| Overcomplicating Navigation | Frustrated visitors, increased bounce rates, and poor user experience. | Simplify menu structure, implement clearer categorization, and enhance overall user experience. |
| Ignoring SEO Best Practices | Lower search engine rankings, reduced visibility, and fewer organic visitors. | Implement SEO best practices, optimize product titles, descriptions, and meta tags, and focus on localization and product listing optimization. |
| Not getting organic marketing right | Limited visibility, lower website traffic, and reduced brand awareness. | Implement effective organic marketing strategies, including Referral Marketing, Influencer Collaborations, Content Marketing, and Social Media Engagement. |
| Underestimating shipping costs | Cart abandonment, customer dissatisfaction, and trust issues. | Offer diverse payment gateways, transparent shipping costs, and communicate shipping policies clearly. |
| Neglecting Customer Support | Abandoned purchases, negative feedback, and dissatisfied customers. | Provide prompt and effective customer support, including 24-hour chat support, a comprehensive FAQ section, and various contact options. |
| Overlooking Target Audience Precision | Ineffective marketing strategies and diminished customer engagement. | Leverage programmatic advertising, integrate CRM software, and refine marketing strategies based on a clear understanding of the target audience. |
1. Ignoring Mobile Optimization:
Don’t underestimate the power of optimization.
Optimization techniques like mobile optimization play a crucial role in increasing your store’s visibility and revenue potential.
As a significant portion of online traffic comes from mobile devices, a non-optimized site leads to poor user experience, slower load times, and navigation issues.
So, make sure your site is responsive and user-friendly across various devices. Stats suggest that reducing mobile site speed by 0.1 seconds results in an 8% increase in conversions.
You must have heard about Gymshark, one Shopify brand that effectively implemented mobile optimization and saw significant results. By focusing on mobile responsiveness and user experience, Gymshark enhanced its website for mobile users.
Source: IIDE
The brand optimized its product pages, simplified the checkout process, and ensured fast-loading pages. This mobile-centric approach resulted in increased mobile traffic, improved conversion rates, and ultimately boosted overall sales on their Shopify store.
2. Lack Of Brand Cohesion:
Inconsistent branding, poor imagery, or unclear messaging can confuse customers and dilute your brand identity. Maintaining brand consistency across all elements of your Shopify store boosts credibility in the eyes of consumers,
If your Shopify store portrays a modern, sleek image, but your social media platforms and marketing materials showcase outdated or conflicting designs, this can make your customers feel disconnected from your brand’s credibility.
An example of a brand that suffered from a lack of brand cohesion in its Shopify store is Forever 21. The brand had inconsistencies in its branding across various channels. While their Shopify store showcased trendy and youthful fashion products, their social media channels often portrayed a different aesthetic and messaging.
This inconsistency led to confusion among their target audience about the brand’s identity and the type of fashion they offered. On some platforms they were talking about climate change and on other platforms there was nothing but crickets. This affected their brand perception and made it challenging to establish a recognizable brand image.
Source: strategystory
Therefore, maintaining consistency in visual elements, messaging, and overall brand experience across all touchpoints within a Shopify store is crucial for a strong and memorable brand presence. You can advance Shopify through custom build and gain trust and loyalty back.
3. Overcomplicating Navigation:
Complex navigation or cluttered menus can frustrate visitors. With poor navigation, your Shopify store can suffer huge losses.
For instance, the Amazon website slowed to a few milliseconds in 2020, costing $4 billion, or 1% of sales, in lost revenue.
Also, an e-commerce store called Abercrombie & Fitch (an American clothing brand) had a website with intricate navigation featuring numerous dropdown menus and subcategories that made it challenging for users to find products easily.
This complex navigation structure led to an unmanageable browsing experience. This resulted in increased bounce rates as users found it difficult to browse through the array of products.
Source: Salescycle
Recognizing the issue, Abercrombie & Fitch revamped its website’s navigation, simplifying the menu structure, and implementing clearer categorization. They aimed to enhance the user experience, making it easier for customers to explore and find products.
4. Ignoring SEO Best Practices:
Ignoring SEO best practices on Shopify is a common mistake. Poor optimization means lower search engine rankings, resulting in reduced visibility and fewer organic visitors.
With less traffic, fewer users engage with your site, leading to decreased opportunities for conversions. Whether it’s implementing Local SEO or international SEO, optimizing product titles, descriptions, and meta tags, these efforts can help potential customers search for products or services you offer.
For example, localization tailors your content to specific regions or markets, enhancing relevance and trust among local audiences, ultimately positively affecting overall conversion rates.
Another effective strategy is Product Listing Optimization. Ensuring that your product listings are not only well-optimized for search engines but also crafted with your target audience in mind is crucial. This includes using relevant keywords, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality images. Optimizing your product listings enhances their visibility within the Shopify ecosystem and search engine results, increasing the likelihood of attracting and converting potential customers.
Casper, a mattress and bedding company, implemented robust SEO tactics by creating valuable and informative content around sleep-related topics. They focused on optimizing their website for keywords related to sleep, mattress reviews, and sleep health. This approach improved their organic search visibility, resulting in higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Source: Kingkongdigitalmarketing
As a result, Casper experienced increased organic traffic to their site, leading to improved conversion rates and higher sales of their mattresses and sleep products. Mattress companies like Eachnight and Casper’s emphasis on SEO-driven content contributed significantly to their overall conversion rate growth.
5. Not Getting Organic Marketing Right:
Failing to analyze customer behavior and sales data means missing out on valuable insights. Regularly review Shopify analytics to understand customer preferences and make informed decisions.
Without an effective organic marketing strategy, which combines different methods like Referral Marketing, Influencer Collaborations, Content Marketing, and Social Media Engagement, you cannot enhance your brand visibility. Your store may struggle to reach potential customers organically. This leads to limited visibility, lower website traffic, and reduced brand awareness.
With fewer visitors exposed to your products or content, the chances of conversions decrease, impacting sales.
One brand that faced challenges with organic marketing initially was Glossier, a skincare and beauty brand. Initially, Glossier relied heavily on paid advertising and influencer partnerships, neglecting organic marketing. However, to improve, they revamped their content strategy.
Source: Optimonk
Glossier focused on creating valuable and engaging content on social media, blogs, and user-generated content, leveraging customer testimonials and educational content. By prioritizing organic marketing and engaging with their audience authentically, they enhanced brand visibility, and improved conversion rates, addressing the initial issue.
6. Underestimating Shipping Costs:
Another common Shopify mistake is restricting payment or shipping options can deter potential customers. Offer diverse payment gateways and shipping choices to accommodate various preferences.
Adding multiple gateways for payments can help your customers to have options at their convenience. They can choose whether they want C.O.D., want to pay through a credit card or their PayPal account.
Moreover, if shipping costs are higher than expected or undisclosed until checkout, it can lead to cart abandonment. Customers may feel misled or discouraged by unexpected charges, causing them to abandon their purchase. Transparent shipping costs are crucial for customer trust.
Back then, brands like ASOS, Clarks, and New Look made commitments to making their full supply chain information public in 2017. Customers wanted more transparency on what goes behind the scenes of these online e-commerce brands.
However, to improve transparency, ASOS reportedly revised their shipping policies by offering more explicit communication about shipping costs upfront, providing clearer information during checkout, and occasionally running free shipping promotions.
These adjustments aimed to reduce surprises for customers and improve transparency, impacting conversion rates.
7. Neglecting Customer Support:
Inadequate customer service or slow response times can lead to dissatisfaction. Prioritize prompt and effective customer support to address queries and concerns promptly.
Neglecting customer support on your Shopify store can severely impact conversion rates. Inadequate or slow customer service responses can lead to dissatisfied customers who may abandon their purchases or voice negative feedback.
Your customers seek reassurance and assistance during their shopping journey. You can have a 24-hour chat support or a good FAQ section, having answers to your customer’s queries is important.
One brand that emphasizes exceptional customer support on its Shopify store is Allbirds. Known for its sustainable footwear, Allbirds prioritizes customer satisfaction by offering prompt and helpful support services.
Source: optimonk
They provide various contact options, including live chat and email support, ensuring customers receive timely assistance with their inquiries or concerns, contributing to a positive shopping experience and potentially boosting conversions.
8. Overlooking Target Audience Precision:
Casting too wide a net in your advertising efforts may result in reaching irrelevant audiences.
Overlooking target audience precision can detrimentally impact your Shopify store by leading to ineffective marketing strategies and diminished customer engagement. Without a clear understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences, your marketing efforts may miss the mark, resulting in wasted resources and reduced conversion rates.
Leveraging programmatic advertising, an automated approach based on real-time data analysis can significantly refine your marketing strategy, ensuring that your ads are delivered to the most relevant audience segments.
Furthermore, integrating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, like HubSpot or Salesforce, can centralize customer data and streamline communication.
Common Shopify Mistakes: Key Takeaways
- Mobile Optimization Matters:
- Neglecting mobile optimization leads to poor user experience and reduced conversions.
- Ensure your site is responsive, fast-loading, and user-friendly across various devices.
- Brand Consistency Builds Credibility:
- Inconsistent branding confuses customers and dilutes brand identity.
- Maintain consistency in visual elements, messaging, and overall brand experience across all touchpoints.
- Simplify Navigation for Better User Experience:
- Complex navigation frustrates visitors and increases bounce rates.
- Simplify menu structures and implement clear categorization for an improved browsing experience.
- SEO is Crucial for Visibility:
- Ignoring SEO best practices results in lower search rankings and reduced visibility.
- Optimize product titles, descriptions, and meta tags; focus on localization and product listing optimization.
- Effective Organic Marketing is a Must:
- Without organic marketing, your store may struggle with limited visibility and lower brand awareness.
- Implement Referral Marketing, Influencer Collaborations, Content Marketing, and Social Media Engagement to enhance brand visibility.
- Transparent Shipping Builds Trust:
- Hidden or high shipping costs lead to cart abandonment and customer dissatisfaction.
- Offer diverse payment gateways, communicate shipping costs clearly, and ensure transparent shipping policies.
- Prioritize Exceptional Customer Support:
- Inadequate customer service results in abandoned purchases and negative feedback.
- Provide prompt and effective customer support through various channels, including live chat, email, and a comprehensive FAQ section.
- Precision in Target Audience Matters:
- Overlooking target audience precision on Shopify is a huge mistake that leads to ineffective marketing strategies.
- Utilize programmatic advertising, integrate CRM software, and refine marketing strategies based on a clear understanding of your target audience.
Final Thoughts
By avoiding these common Shopify mistakes, you can optimize your e-commerce venture for success, enhance user experience, and drive higher conversions on the Shopify platform.
In this fast-paced e-commerce era steering clear of common Shopify pitfalls is key to forging a successful venture. By sidestepping mobile optimization slip-ups, refining navigation simplicity, and prioritizing stellar customer support, your Shopify store can flourish. Remember, mistakes pave the road to learning.
Now, it’s time to take the helm confidently! Implement these strategies, tailor your Shopify store for success, and watch your venture soar.
Ready to revolutionize your e-commerce game? Take charge, embrace best practices, and unlock your Shopify store’s boundless potential today!
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Author’s bio: Shikha is a content marketing specialist with experience in creating compelling and effective content for SaaS businesses. With 5 years of experience, she has a proven track record of developing content strategies that resonate with target audiences, drive website traffic, and generate leads.
Gravatar ID: shikha@saasbuy.com
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