It’s online retail 101: learn to maximise eCommerce sales. Yet, in an analysis conducted by research institute, Baymard, the average rate for abandoned carts was a whopping 70% from most respondents.

This shows us that most online retailers are still letting sales pass them by with a few big no-no’s. And none bigger in my experience than a clunky-looking, DIY website.

Here’s the sad reality: you could have the most beautiful product in the market, but if people think your website sucks, they’ll bounce away faster than an NBA basketball.

To maximise eCommerce sales, a bad website is the first thing to fix.

Truthbomb: A bad website (slow to load, clunky layout, or very DIY-looking) will turn prospective customers away.
Truthbomb: No website is like not even existing at all. In 2021, your customers expect it.

When we start our businesses, it’s really normal to want to keep costs low – and a web developer is usually at the bottom of our startup expense list. 

But without the expertise behind a good website build (or the knowledge of digital behaviours), your website can come across confusing, display strangely across different devices, or break right at the pivotal moment – checkout. 

Or worse, it can look b-e-a-u-tiful, but convert to absolutely $0 sales. All glitz, no action, because it hasn’t been built to answer the questions, or naturally complement the actions of your visitors. 

Are they looking to go straight to the best sellers or prime product? Is the question commonly asked about your product intuitively answered as they would be thinking it? 

Is your 404 optimised to get them back to base if they get lost? Or even better – to take them somewhere close to what they were originally looking for?

When you get your website look (and more importantly, platform) right, the wheels start turning:

• You know how to update your webpage yourself without having to pay someone else your hard-earned money.
• Your customers will find everything they need with ease and the checkout process will be quick (maybe even enjoyable?).
• Your website converts well and people come back to buy from you time and time again.
• It passes the “idiot-proof” test: even if your branding is really sophisticated, what you actually sell is so clear, anyone could tell.
• You feel like you get great value for money, because you can tweak things yourself, and it’s optimised to sell for you while you sleep.

 

To maximise eCommerce sales, don’t be like Jan. 

It’s not just about the obvious visual issues, either. Consider Jan. Jan spent twenty grand on her website, and on the surface, it was the best website for her niche. It looked great on all devices, it was optimised beautifully to sell and it told her brand story perfectly. 

But when she launched, visitors turned to crickets. Why? Because customers could only check out if they were using Google Chrome. Something so small, so hidden, affected her bottom line massively.

A bad website hurts your efforts in every way. 

Not only do they stop traffic from arriving in the first place, because Google is less likely to rank you (even with the right keywords) if you have a high bounce rate, but they also throw your hard-earned money and time down the toilet if you’ve brought in traffic from social, email or paid ads and they leave before they’ve even really begun.

To maximise eCommerce sales, your website has to work on mobile and across all browsers. It has to have a solid branding story, well-thought out product placement and offer visitors the opportunity to check out as a guest and not just a known account.

If you do lose them, a sound retargeting strategy coupled with an abandoned cart sequence can bring them back – but only do this when your website issues have been fixed.

Want to know more? I cover how to wow with your website, as well as everything email and retargeting in my upcoming 2021 Online Store Success course. Over a few hugely valuable weeks, you’ll learn how to scale your online store in a way that helps you to maximise eCommerce sales with a few, tried-and-tested tweaks.

To learn about my online mentoring program, visit Online Store Success. Any burning eCommerce questions for me? Pop them below so everyone can maximise eCommerce sales together.