Seven Deadly Sins in Ecommerce

It’s likely you’ve had your fill of armchair quarterbacks shoveling out snarky missives that gaslight online sellers in general. There’s a critic around every corner.

But hey: you’re in business to sell, and if you’re in ecommerce, you’re already facing a competitive challenge brick-and-mortar stores don’t have. You are virtually invisible to the majority of potential customers. Sometimes listening to complaints, whether they’re aimed at the industry of internet retailing or your site specifically, is not only smart, it’s essential for survival.

In order to sidestep pitfalls that are known repellants among people who enjoy shopping for products and services online, pay attention to the most common complaints. Here’s a list of seven; a breakdown of ecommerce What Not to Do’s:

1. Skip the slow lane
   Patience is a virtue, but waiting forever for a page to load is a nightmare. Whatever it takes, make sure your site offers timely and responsive access, or you’ll lose valuable customers before they have a chance to see what you have to offer. And take care to monitor for temporary glitches—a short attention span means interested parties stalled at a cyber stoplight may assume your page is a perpetual construction zone.
   

2. Members Only?
   Sellers seem to be gravitating toward gated content, or a requirement for site visitors to cough up an email address before they’re allowed to even browse a home page. THIS IS A BAD IDEA. Particularly in the era of privacy concerns, the shopping experience should be less restricted rather than more. Regardless of your objective, everyday consumers may believe you intend to sell their information, so they will flee in droves.
   

3. Pop Goes the Pop-Up
   Let’s be honest: you don’t like them, either. Aside from the aggravating feeling that their specific interest is not taken seriously, customers do not enjoy the visual disruption of exploding windows that block access to their enjoyment of your site. Resist the temptation to employ this tacky secondary marketing scheme. Research methods that facilitate residual information in a more visually friendly manner, such as sliding side frames.
   

4. They Can’t Quit You
   Don’t be an internet stalker. If you’ve enjoyed the privilege of communicating with existing or potential customers through email solicitation, count yourself lucky. And if they’ve lost interest in hearing from you, by all means, don’t make it impossible for that to happen. One of the most prolific sources of aggravation among online shoppers is the inability to quickly unsubscribe from email lists. That means not forcing them to log in to complete the process (they may have forgotten their password). Let them make a clean break.
   

5. Not-so-social-media
   As an ecommerce vendor, you probably have been sold on the benefits of social media marketing. Even with its limitations, the virtually free access to clientele is irresistible. That said, if you set up a page on Facebook, follow through. Update content, and monitor the page for queries as well as comments. If a potential customer reaches out through social media and is ignored, that speaks volumes about what they reasonably expect from you as a merchant.
   

6. Too-social media
   Speaking of Facebook—and Instagram, Twitter, even LinkedIn: No one likes a fair-weather friend. Engaging with potential customers is a perfectly appropriate way to use social media. It personalizes a consumer experience and creates a comfortable inter-relationship. But parachuting into a niche group with a spam ad is a supremely horrible networking tactic. So is generating a connection request with the sole purpose of making your first communication an impersonal, blind pitch. Be genuine and interactive, or don’t be on social media at all.
   

7. Dropping the post-sale ball
   Now that you’ve energized a customer into buying, go out of your way to preserve the relationship along the way. Set up tools to offer real-time tracking of order processing, shipment, and updated delivery information. Be specific about delivery requirements, (don’t leave “signature required” language in fine print). Make return policies a visible element on your order page. Simplify every aspect of the customer experience.
   
   

Now that you know how not to sell, focus on building a user-friendly, responsive, and overall awesome platform for shoppers to peruse. Don’t become a notorious Yelp statistic, or the target of negative publicity. There’s no getting around it: In the world of ecommerce, what you don’t do can be as instrumental and growth-inducing as what you do.