11 mistakes to avoid when building an e-commerce site

E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing sectors in 2021, but it's also one of the most competitive! Discover the top 11 mistakes not to make, in order to create an e-commerce site that will make its mark in this almost ruthless market.

1. Copying a competing e-commerce site 

Competition is getting tougher and tougher in the e-commerce market: it's hard to stand out in 2021. If there's one pitfall you mustn't fall into, it's creating a pale copy of another website.

By coming second, you'll no longer enjoy the "first mover" advantage at all levels: organic, paid and audience traffic!

2. Targeting the wrong audience

If you think everyone is part of your audience, or on the contrary if you focus on only part of it, you'll waste time and money by not targeting your whole market, or on the contrary you'll spend money on people outside it.

3. Not promoting your brand

The trend of dropshipping has led many entrepreneurs to highlight only products. Creating a brand goes much further than that. Create value through your relationship with your customers! And that includes customer service, your community and influencer marketing.

4. Don't use the e-commerce site as a lever for social networks

Social networks are an exceptional opportunity for e-tailers, since they're the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to create an audience. What's more, traffic and organic growth on social networks are, like all organic traffic sources, free.

5. Forget mailing (email marketing/marketing by e-mail)

If there's one aspect of prospecting that remains under-exploited, it's email marketing.

The data you have on your customers actually carries an enormous amount of value. In fact, an e-mail address is an easy way to contact the customer, and it's privileged and free (compared to paid advertising, for example).

In addition, the customer's e-mail address can be used to send a message to the company.

What's more, the customers whose email addresses you get will be... customers, and therefore already 100% interested in your products! Go for it!

When it comes to mailing, a large number of on-site options exist (discounts against email, for example): do it as soon as possible.

6. Not developing a responsive 

Creating a website whose design and functionality are not adapted to mobile browsing would be one of the worst mistakes.

In fact, two thirds of web traffic originates on the phone. So a site that mobile users bounce off automatically loses nearly 70% of its potential. What's more, your ads will be blocked on several media placement platforms such as Google Ads.

7. Creating a sub-optimized customer journey on the e-commerce site

Getting visits and selling your products will involve an optimized customer journey for sales. The first thing is to organize your pages in an ergonomic, UX-oriented way (user experience). Actions, loading times, icons, even the shape and color of buttons: everything needs to be optimized.

For your site to be visited and generate conversions, the organization and ergonomics of the website are essential. In fact, it's very important to work on the UX in order to offer the most efficient customer journey possible, facilitate users' actions and encourage them to move on to purchase.

The implementation of an ergonomic website is a key factor in the success of your business.

The implementation of a precise UX/UI methodology will ensure the best organization of your e-commerce platform.

8. Not using customer feedback

Your online store will mainly improve according to two criteria: your skills and your ability to listen to your customers.

Whether it's your customer service or the feedback you receive, listen and correct any mistakes. If customer feedback is positive, use it as "social proof"! After all, they're ambassadors for your company.

9. Don't analyze the data you have

Whether it's your paid advertising campaigns, your mailing performance or your web analytics tools, use them to continuously improve the way you communicate. Do A/B testing, experiment again and again. You can only improve your numbers with a " test & learn" method.

10. Don't delegate what can be delegated

You can't do everything on your own.

Whether it's customer service, blog writing, or even creating your on-site designs, all the details can be outsourced to save time, but also money (and then you can't be good at everything!). Just because you're capable of doing something doesn't mean you have to do it yourself. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day.

11. Getting down to the details

I'm not teaching you anything, Developing an e-commerce site is an awful lot of work.

One rule you can keep in mind is the Pareto principle : 80% of the results often happen with only 20% of the effort. So don't spend 3 days on a logo, site design, choice of site domain name or your copywriting. These elements will almost never be perfect the first time! As Mark Zuckerberg says, "Done is better than perfect".