E-commerce has been growing strongly in recent years, and in particular since 2020 with the various containment phases due to the Covid-19 pandemic. E-commerce now represents 13.4% of retail sales in France. Having an e-commerce site has therefore become essential and must be integrated into your sales strategy.
You are in the middle of a project to create or redesign your online shop, or are hesitating to take the plunge? Don't panic, we can help you in this important step of your digital strategy.
And to guide you in this project, here is a list of mistakes not to make when creating an e-commerce site.
1. Not defining your target
Whether it's an online or physical business, you can't start without identifying your customer base. It is crucial to study your market and define a precise target through a persona.
A persona is a representation of your target audience through the creation of a fictional character. This character represents a typical user.
This allows you to better understand the motivations of your customers in order to better direct them to your site.
Targeting also allows you to adapt your message
2. Not defining a value proposition
Faced with a large and growing number of websites, competition on the web is increasingly fierce. It is therefore essential to find a way to differentiate yourself: what are your assets? What do you offer that your competitor does not?
It is essential to take the time to analyse your business, in particular through the Value Proposition Canvas, which allows you to identify your customers' needs and problems and to compare them with your offer and your solutions.
3. Offering a non-optimised customer journey
In order for your website to be visited and to generate conversions, the organisation and ergonomics of the website are essential. Indeed, it is very important to work on the UX in order to propose the most efficient customer journey possible, to facilitate users' actions and to encourage them to make a purchase (until the validation of their basket).
The implementation of a precise UX/UI methodology will allow you to ensure the best organisation of your e-commerce site.
4. Not using the right technology
Many solutions exist on the market to create an e-commerce site. The choice of the CMS or Framework used is strategic and depends on your project. Depending on the complexity of your project, some CMS may not be sufficient. In the same way, a simple project will not require the most developed technologies on the market to set it up.
It is therefore very important to analyse the functional and management needs of your future site in order to determine the degree of complexity of the project and to choose the appropriate technical solution.
5. Have a bad design
Your site should present the various information in an aesthetically pleasing way, while integrating the company's graphic charter into the design.
Using a premium theme is one solution but can be complex due to the many plugins on board. We prefer to develop specific themes for each of our clients for better performance.
6. Not having a responsive or mobile first site
Your site should be suitable for all screens.
Nowadays, the computer is no longer the primary channel used to consult a website. 54% of the world's web traffic is via mobile (2019 figures). A 2019 Statista study estimates that 73% of online purchases will be made on a smartphone by the end of 2021.
Mobile browsing has therefore become very important and should no longer be neglected. Your website must have a responsive design, even mobile first.
Mobile first means developing a website for a mobile format first, then adapting it for other types of screens. This is the technology that Google has been promoting for the past few years. Read more about the importance of mobile first.
7. Not doing a marketing strategy
Despite what you may think, customers will not necessarily come to your site by themselves. Faced with competition and search engine algorithms, it may not be easy to get them to your site. It is therefore necessary to plan a marketing strategy, like a "plan of attack" to make your site known and to bring your customers to visit it.
Therefore, it can be dangerous not to look at the web marketing tools to create traffic to your website:
- SEO: strategy for optimising your position on search engines
- SEA: advertising campaigns on search engines to appear among the first
- SMO: animation of your social networks and linking to the site to encourage visits.
- Analytics: monitoring the performance of your site by creating a dashboard with specific indicators.
- Marketing automation: automation of your online marketing campaigns through the creation of specific scenarios.
8. Neglecting natural referencing
Having a website is not enough, it is essential that your site can be found on search engines and in particular on Google.
SEO is a set of techniques to improve your position on search engines (technical, semantic, ...).
It is a long term work: you will not see results immediately, but this element is essential to your digital strategy.
Learn more about SEO.
9. Have poor quality product photos
Your e-commerce site is a sales channel, it must give desire. Beyond the design of the site, products must be well presented to encourage their purchase. It is very important to have good quality photos, nicely presented products to make the customer want to buy and to reassure them about the quality of the product and the company.
10. Neglecting to write content
SEO works very much through the content of the website. The writing of content should not be taken lightly. Think about the keywords corresponding to your activity, be concise. It is risky and irrelevant to have texts that are too long.
Beyond SEO, this is an important point for the user experience: writing clear and concise content improves the user experience by making the information easily accessible to the user.
Thus, it is essential to take the time to establish a methodology to prepare the development of an e-commerce site.
Our agency follows a precise methodology to establish the best possible site for each project: digital strategy consulting, UX/UI services, referencing, multimedia content, etc. We set up collaborative workshops with our clients to ensure their involvement and be as close as possible to their needs.
From the analysis of the offer and the creation of personas to the monitoring of the performance of your site, we accompany you in all stages of its creation to its optimization.
