Owning a Shopify store is super exciting. You get to create your own products and sell them! What could be better?!
But lurking around the corner, in the crevices, there are some mistakes that Shopify Store owners make and they just don’t know it.
Most eCommerce Shopify websites fail because of some common mistakes that you overlook. If it’s your first time venturing into an online eCommerce store, and not knowing the things that are the critical factors in Shopify store’s success, it can cost you failure and a lot of disappointments. Understanding these simple mistakes and taking care of them before you go live can leverage the platform’s functionality and result in a successful online store.
If you have a store and you’re not making money, here are a couple of reasons why!
1. Not having appropriate filters
Not having appropriate filters frustrates the customers way too much. If a customer lands at your store and finds that the filters are just not set right, they will leave soon! Yes, that just goes without even saying it. So, make sure that you have your filters just in place.
There is no golden rule as such when it comes to product filters. To create helpful filters for your site, you need to think deeply about the defining characteristics of your products and which ones are the most important to your customers.
Beyond ubiquitous categories like color, size, and price, it can be helpful to talk to your customers to get a sense of what they look for when shopping for your products.
Here are some factors to keep in mind while planning on your product filters;
Indicate product quantity
Beside each filter, indicating how many products fall under it. For example;
Notice how they indicate the number of products that are red, purple, size, etc.
Make applied filters obvious
Just as we display breadcrumbs to show visitors what content they’re currently viewing, we can always display applied filters to show visitors what products they’re currently viewing.
This is important because your customers may want to remove a filter to widen their selection…
If a customer doesn’t get the product options, they were hoping for then they’ll want to quickly modify the filter. Therefore, it’s important to allow people to remove filters with one click.
2. Slower loading time
For anyone looking forward to succeeding with an online store, a Shopify site is almost mandatory. However, like every other website, a Shopify site needs to be optimized for high page load speeds. A slow Shopify site will repel users and severely hamper traffic, revenue potential, and credibility.
Some tips to speed up the Shopify site
- Use compressed images
- Optimize use of Shopify apps
- Implement AMP
- Consider professional help
3. The checkout process is complicated.
Why do most people abandon your shopping cart and never get back to your Shopify store?
While there can be tons of reasons for this, one major reason is that your checkout process might be too difficult to handle, too time-consuming, and thus too nerve-wracking.
If people are abandoning your Shopify store at the checkout, then there is something about the checkout process that you should rethink, reorganize, redesign, and rebuild.
Here are some tips every Shopify designer must implement to make the checkout process easier;
Here are some tips on how you can implement making the checkout process easier;
- Build trust long before the checkout process
Have you ever thought about trust icons, live chat, free shipping, returns policy, and guarantees? Simple trust messages can reinforce the deal for you too. - Remind your customers about the perks
The repetition of trust messages can help boost sales. For example, you can always mention the free shipping, data security, and then let’s say a 10-months warranty right before checkout. - Upload your logo to the checkout page
You can upload your logo and match the colors to your brand. This will help make your checkout page look way better. - Let people know about multiple payment options
Making multiple card logos visible on the checkout page will add more credibility to your brand. - Make the progress bar more visible
Just like the logo, it’s essential to make the progress bar visible. We all fear losing money online. That’s why it’s important to know how far along in the checkout process we are. - Let your customers know what to expect
Once the customer purchases something from you, they will wonder what’s next. Make sure to let them know what to expect whether it’s providing a tracking code to follow the shipping process or giving a simple “Thank you!” note.
4. Poor user experience
Are you wondering, why is your Shopify store not giving good conversions? Well, your store might be giving a bad experience for your customers.
Remember user experience is not about the look and feel of a website rather it is about functionality and experience.
If your website is having a poor user-experience, it can contribute to high traffic but no sales, here are a few more issues that may be bothering your store,
- Your website design is complex.
- Navigating between menus is confusing.
- Slower loading time
- The checkout process is complicated
- The payment gateway looks unsecured
- Unwanted and aggressive popups
- Your content is too harsh and has mistakes
- Outdated contents or products
- Policies aren’t enticing
5. Not including size charts
If you’re selling clothing, sizing charts aren’t optional. One of the biggest drawbacks to purchasing apparel online is that customers can’t try it on before purchasing.
This means you need to make sure you’re including sizing charts on your site, so customers purchase the right size – the first time. Not all brands are the same sizes either.
Your customer may be a medium-size shirt in one brand, but a small in another. Without sizing charts, they may order the wrong size which results in a negative experience (and this is a fast way to make sure someone doesn’t purchase from your store again). I recommend adding your sizing charts to the bottom of each product’s description.
6. Oversized images
Using poor quality, blurry, or oversized images s is one of the quickest ways to dissolve customer trust. The images you use are the biggest factors as to whether or not someone is going to make a purchase.
Poor quality product photos can be mistaken for poor quality products. Over-sized logos and banners can come across as ‘spammy’ or unprofessional.
Using images that are bigger than how they load on the page can also drastically decrease your loading speeds.
7. Using an aggressive color scheme
Having an impressive Color Scheme is an important constituent of an amazing store. On the other hand, an aggressive color scheme can be the reason behind the high bounce rate experienced by your site.
Though your visitors might not be able to trace the exact reason what threw them off yet poor color combinations may displease them. Be it the overall color scheme, the company’s primary colors used, or the color of the call-to-action button or other icons, any weird blend can be the reason.
While designing the Shopify theme avoid using the aggressive color scheme
Research from QuickSprout indicates that 90% of all product assessments have to do with color. “Color,” writes Neil Patel, is “85% of the reason you purchased a specific product.” Needless to say, color has, does, and will probably always play a part in the life of humans.
An easy way out is to test which colors please your audience. Once you find the perfect fusion, your CSS site makes it easy to implement the change.
8. Not using newsletters appropriately
There is no point in having a form if you’re not collecting the data. Most of the themes come with a newsletter signup feature. Older themes will have a spot to insert your subscriber list URL that you get from Mailchimp.
But since all new themes are running on sections they got rid of that feature, so now to get your subscribers over to Mailchimp simply install the free mailchimp from the Shopify app store and sync it with your Mailchimp account and follow the steps.
Other email platforms such as Klaviyo will have their own sync apps as well. Connecting with mailchimp will also import other smart lists such as customers.
Make sure that you create separate lists ideally for each type of customer, such as opt-in, or customers so you can target them specifically in the future
9. Inappropriate product information
Your store is a digital medium, customers rely on images and product descriptions.
Remember, these two can work only in uniformity, having a quality image but a poor product description won’t get you anything. As an eCommerce store, you need a perfect product description to entice your customers. Because a product description works as a sales executive of a physical store.
When you design your product page with no descriptions, customers will leave your store at that very moment.
Describe your products, talk about the features and benefits, and tempt them by illustrating how your products can change their lifestyle
Follow these steps to create more enticing product descriptions to emotionally connect with your customer and increase your sales
- Write a description of your product with a vocabulary & tone that suits your audience.
- Do not use the description of the manufacturer; they are just obsolete.
- Mention all the product specifications.
- Talk about its features and benefits.
- List them using bullet points for easy scanning.
- Optimize your description with keywords.
10. Not setting up multiple payment methods
Several studies have shown the importance of offering multiple payment options. We know: that more than half of consumers pay by credit/debit card or bank transfer. But offering payment by cash on delivery, PayPal, Stripe, or other e-payments has a very positive impact on conversion rates.
Most Shopify sellers, however, do just the opposite, and therefore have high cart abandonment rates.
How to avoid this mistake?
Implement as many payment methods as possible. It should be noted that some payment gateways require the payment of a monthly fee, so they may not compensate until you have a high volume of sales.
