Are You Driving Away Your Potential Buyers With These Two Common Mistakes?

November 20, 2008 · 9 comments

There are two major Web design errors that can cost you up to 70% of your conversions.  I am dead serious and not exaggerating. I have personally seen an immediate decline of 70% in both sales quantity and dollar amount that stayed at that level. The cause was a site redesign that included these two common mistakes. Imagine having an existing business suddenly lose 70% of their sales!

So what are the two worst ecommerce Web Design mistakes you can make? Here they are:

  1. Requiring your buyers to “register” before they can shop. Big mistake. Imagine walking into a store and being asked for ID before they will let you in. Once someone decides they want to buy from you they’ll gladly give you their personal information – and not a minute before. They just “met” you and don’t know whether they trust you yet. Don’t bar the door – there are plenty of open doors waiting elsewhere.
  2. Not providing easy access to shipping costs – and the earlier in the shopping process the better. Infomercials and some eBay sellers have been sucking buyers in with cheap prices and then gouging them with high “shipping and handling” charges for decades. Shipping costs have been the number one complaint of online shoppers in every ecommerce survey I’ve ever seen. Make sure your potential buyers can determine their total price – do it for them if you can. Better that they know how much they’ll have to pay for shipping and get used to the idea while they’re still shopping than have them get sticker shock just before they checkout!

If you are making either of these two mistakes correct them quickly and then read on for many more suggestions on increasing conversion rates through improving the usability of your site.  If you are using a store solution that won’t allow you to eliminate these two issues I strongly advise you move your site to a solution that will. I highly recommend Volusion for their dependability, pricing, ease of use and more.

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

linda from Free Ads March 15, 2009 at 11:46 pm

Great informative post, your now in my bookmarked sites list.

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InternetStrategist from GrowMap April 9, 2009 at 10:55 pm

Twitter: @GrowMap

@Linda Thank you. Have you seen our post about free ads? That may be of special interest to you. I will use the CommentLuv featured post to make it easy for you to locate it.

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Aiping Wang March 4, 2010 at 5:14 am

Invest in your employees – you’ll never be sorry for being a good leader.

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Aiping Wang March 4, 2010 at 5:15 am

If you budget for this up front, then you don’t have to scramble to find money when an education opportunity comes up for your people.

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Mike from Scrap Car Surrey March 17, 2010 at 6:36 am

Some seriously good points on here, I think all business owners should read your blog very well written and informative too. Thanks for the tips and the info.

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Ryan from Driving schools Croydon April 8, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Mike I have to agree with you all business owners should take note and read these vital points.

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