13 Unlucky eCommerce Design Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Store

Getting shoppers to your eCommerce store is hard enough. But once theyre there, you also have to convince them to buy. However, if youre making some of these common eCommerce design mistakes, you might be making things a lot more difficult than they need to be.In this post, well introduce 13+ common eCommerce design mistakes, along with some tips for what to do to fix them when needed.Lets get this thing started: 2. Choosing the wrong theme or pluginsDont make the mistake of choosing a theme simply because it looks good on another site. Instead, while  selecting a theme for your online store, first list out all the features that are important to your store. After that, its totally up to you whether to go with a ready-made theme with these features built-in, opt for a basic theme to which you can add custom code, or even code your theme right from scratch.Here are some tips for how to choose a WooCommerce theme.3. Not following conventional eCommerce design standardsYes, standard mi ght sound boring. But the thing is most shoppers have become familiar with a certain format for websites of online stores. They look for the shopping cart in the top-right right corner, contact details in header or footer, and a zoom option on mousing over.Therefore, its best to stick to familiar grids and layouts so shoppers dont have to search for buttons to click. From welcome screens to product display and shopping cart to checkout, the path to sales must be clear, no guessing required. One yardstick to use is that even a person who doesnt know the language should be able to find their way about your website.4. Poor search, sort, or filter optionsTheres a whole category of shoppers given to gazing at shop windows. Many dont really know what theyre looking for. Your product display needs to be attractive enough to hold their attention. But just being attractive with a huge Buy button wont cut it here. Beyond that, you need to help shoppers find just what theyre looking for withou t too much trouble.You can do this by categorizing products, and allowing visitors to sort and filter them. A search option can help too. Other features that can help shoppers to decide quickly are comparison tables, FAQs and product reviews.5. Boring, unhelpful imagesIts images that sell, one picture = a thousand words. Not including high-quality photos is one of the biggest eCommerce design mistakes to watch out for. You can also include multiple photos per product to give visitors more details about products.6. Not displaying related productsYoure leaving money on the table with this one. You have sure customers for one product, they are very likely to buy related products.To display related products at your WooCommerce store, you can follow these instructions.7. Not letting shoppers add items to a wishlistSometimes shoppers arent ready to buy right away. Letting shoppers save items to a wishlist gives them a chance to come back and buy at a time thats right for them.If youre usi ng WooCommerce, you can add wishlist functionality with a plugin like WooCommerce Wishlist Plugin: TI WooCommerce Wishlist Author(s): TemplateInvadersCurrent Version: 1.14.6Last Updated: October 1, 2019ti-woocommerce-wishlist.1.14.6.zip 96%Ratings 688,170Downloads WP 4.7+Requires 8. Not displaying social proof in the form of reviewsWhen it comes to improving sales, nothing works like words of praise from existing customers. Therefore, make sure you display all the positive reviews  about you in social media or elsewhere.Reviews on third party sites like Yelp and other user-generated reviews can be displayed here to help shoppers to make up their mind. Dont skip the negative reviews either it lends credibility to the reviews.9. A complicated, time-consuming checkout processLong queues at the billing counter can put off many shoppers. Similarly, too many steps or screens to get through at checkout can also be counter-productive. To ensure a hassle-free and smooth checkout, its a good idea to offer multiple payment options, as suited to different customer profiles or geographies.If possible, allow buyers to make payment on your site. Not all purchasers are comfortable with being redirected to a third party site for payment.10. Not inspiring trust with your websiteWhen you want shoppers to share personal information with you and make a payment on your site, you need to make sure that they can trust you. Your website must send out all the trust signals clearly clear logo, secure website, contact details, testimonials, reliable payment options and gateways, and no spam.11. Unreliable website hostingNothing kills a shopping experience like a slow loading website. Shoppers expect eCommerce stores to load faster than ever before. And when it comes to making your store load quickly, your stores hosting plays a huge role.Unless youre just getting started, skip the cheap shared hosting and go with a quality VPS or cloud hosting option.12. Forms with poor user experienceAll those beautiful forms that you added to your stores website? Did you validate them? Forms that dont work properly are simply a waste of time and effort.One way to improve user experience is to add inline validation after users have added inputs to the different form fields. Another way you can help is by communicating errors clearly.That way, shoppers can quickly fill out forms without the annoyance of having to resubmit a form after making an error.13. Not making sure your store looks right in different web browsersNot every visitor uses Chrome. Nor do they update their browsers regularly. So, make sure to test your eCommerce store across multiple browsers and even different versions of the same browser. That way, you wont lose a bunch of visitors who are not so internet savvy.Heres an easy way to test your website in different browsers.And that wraps up our list of the biggest eCommerce design mistakes.Are you committing any of these mistakes at your store? Have any questions about how to fix them? Let us know in the comments! Have an #eCommerce store? Don't let these #design #mistakes hurt your bottom line