Five mistakes in a retail store

In fact, it could be not five, but several hundred – from the fact that the buyer connects to your competitor’s store despite the high prices, to the fact that the competitor has 20,000 followers on Instagram and you do not have such an account. all. Therefore, we select the five most important, and these conclusions are based on the working practice of at least a hundred online stores that made two or three of the mistakes discussed below. The information provided will be especially valuable for stores in their first years of operation, let alone newly opened stores.

So, let’s summarize these five critical factors where mistakes are most often made.

1. Traffic

Most likely, you do not have enough traffic. But you are not a well-known network with a long history and hundreds of product categories. You only need to advertise a few thousand units of your assortment.

The first way logic suggests us is, of course, to increase the budget for these expenses (the gold average is $80-100 per day).

The second is to develop an ad display program. Pay attention to the statistics in Google Analytics for the last hour. Here you can note when the most purchases are made (most likely around 8:00-9:00 and 20:00-22:00). Indicate your hours in the ad plan so that the rest of the advertising budget is not wasted.

Third. Is your traffic high enough and your target audience? If there were 1000 visits from one or another source (for example, a Facebook group) and there was not a single conversion, turn off the ego! Change the traffic channel. Ineffective, let’s say give up on Instagram and try the opportunities offered by Google for shopping, contextual advertising, and brand requests. Untargeted traffic may even come from Google – for example, if you misconfigured gender-age or never configured these parameters.

The fourth reason for insufficient traffic is that your ad hasn’t changed for a long time. Don’t be afraid to fix and update. If shopping campaigns on Google Shopping are going to be effective in a month or two, weekly adjustments are required for contextual advertising.

2. Site adaptability

Even if you have successfully selected the target audience, but the site is not adapted for a mobile device – do not expect conversions. Many solid companies these days don’t have computer versions of their sites, just for mobile devices.

Additionally, ordering in many young stores takes a lot of work or a lot of inconvenience. Ask your friends to check if this route is the shortest for the customer. Remove extra fields to fill – last name, email.

Simplify navigation and product search. Set or remove extra filters in search.

Speed ​​up page loading. This is the problem of all online stores built on different CMS systems, especially “customized” ones – various teaser networks, Google Tag Manager, Facebook analytics, etc. Combined with video presentations, product cards and more, this creates a cumbersome structure that requires an impatient buyer to load up valuable time.

3. SEO

A big problem is the lack of content: pages, products, brands, etc. descriptions. The biggest mistake is ignoring the company’s explanation, this is a common problem among vendors on the PROM platform. While it won’t take much time or effort, the need for content is critical.

A failing site likely has no metadata: HTML headers and descriptions. Even if you don’t have a big budget for SEO promotion, you can independently write texts and articles for your site regardless of the CMS system. https://sovamarketing.com.ua/

Is your site appearing in search results according to the brand query? Maybe you bought a well-known domain with the prefix com.ua, but the search engine offers Internet surfers American or European sites with the same name. This is a problem because the user will want to know more about you, but will not be able to and will leave. Fix it – this task is simpler than promoting a product page or card.

4. Reviews and mentions

In general, your brand should be mentioned in the network forums, “reviews”. But this is very simple – for example, create a company profile on Google or ask the buyer to leave a review about a successful transaction on the appropriate platform. Don’t ignore free SEO.

A review on your own site is no less important. On the PROM site, you can set an automatic reminder to the buyer and others will know the percentage of satisfaction with your job that caused their initial trust. But if your site is on its own CMS and there is no “public voice” about it, this can scare away the buyer.

Your company must be present in social networks. Signing up for YouTube, Facebook, Instagramm will take you no more than ten minutes, but this additional mention, this SEO, will cause the buyer to trust you.

5. Price, product, payment and delivery

This is a question about your service rather than Internet marketing, but ignoring the following tips can make all your efforts outlined above futile.

Often times, dropshippers are priced higher because otherwise you won’t be able to make any money. They can afford it, as they have a “packaged” customer base and a developed reputation. But if you are a new company, there is no point in increasing the price of goods even by 25% – in this way bulk purchases cannot be made.

If you sell, say, garlands or sunglasses – in the corresponding season the competition will be incredible. In order to survive on its terms, you must use your prices, rating, site compatibility, advertising budget, etc. Get ready to line up.

Pay attention to which product appears in your ad. This should not be a new, unpopular, unknown product. If you have a new arrival but the bulk buyer doesn’t know what it is, run a PR campaign about the product first (buy a few articles or blogger reviews).

Online payment cannot be available in our decade. Of course, transfer to card is still a tool, but making it easy for the customer to pay with their bank details on their phone increases your chances of success. Courier delivery is another important ego factor. An office worker today spends most of his time away from home and doesn’t want to increase his fatigue by going to the post office after work. Will definitely look for a courier in your delivery options. Moreover, the presence of a single point in them causes an opinion about you as a lazy and disloyal seller.

We hope your managers do not require an advance to ship the goods in cash on delivery. Ten years ago, this was still within the norm, but today it’s anti-service. It is better to pay the carrier for the returned parcel and put the customer on the “black list” than to scare ten potential buyers with such warnings.

Follow these tips and they will bring you maximum conversions!

Vasily Solonetski Marketer, creator of YouTube channel SoVa Marketing