12 Shopify Store Mistakes You Should Avoid Like The Plague

People think that with Shopify, e-commerce has become much easier. But Shopify ecommerce is no joke, and mistakes are bound to happen. Do not worry! We’re here to prevent you from those mistakes.

For those of you who are a little unsure about the specifics, here goes. Shopify is an online platform that primarily supports e-commerce for all kinds of businesses. Whether a brick and mortat business is looking to move into online sales or start shopify dropshipping from scratch, Shopify is the hub. There are about 800,000 merchants selling their products and services through Shopify as of 2019! So if you’re one of them or intend to become one, you’ve gotta be on top of your game and avoid all of the following mistakes!

1. Set YOUR Primary Domain 

You know that this business is yours and Shopify is only a facilitator to help spread in through e-commerce. But every time your customer types a URL that has the word “Shopify” in it, they automatically forget the name of your store and you’re just another merchant on Shopify. This cannot happen!

Not only is the URL for your domain a constant reminder of your business, but it is also like branding. Your customer, through repetition (hopefully), will remember your name and associate a particular style to your business, and not to Shopify. And that is exactly what you need.

It’s actually a rather easy, but often neglected, step to set your primary domain. But it’s natural to have some questions about the procedure!

2. Here a Brand, There a Brand 

The concept of branding is tricky, no doubt. But that doesn’t mean you can let go of it. In fact, 75% of B2B buyers prefer buying products or services from well-established brands!

Many people remember brands and get attached to them out of brand loyalty. But that’s not it. If customers get a choice between, say H&M and some local store, then there is a higher chance of them buying from the former. This is only because of H&M’s already established brand name.

If you’re thinking to strengthen your brand later, then stop! Stop procrastinating and utilise Shopify to strengthen it right away. Use themes on it that match your brand’s logo or font and get set!

If yours is a drop shipping business in Shopify, then branding should be of utmost importance to you. Most people just stumble past dropshipping websites and don’t pay much attention to the name of the business or anything else and instead, just concentrate on the product. It is your responsibility to lure them away from just the product to your website!

3. Seeing is Believing

Using a website that looks professional will make your customers think that it is professional! A lot of merchants on Shopify believe that Shopify e-commerce is eligible enough to handle the presentation of the website, and all they have to do what they’re best at doing: selling their products! But Shopify only gives you a limited set of themes to choose from. There are still many factors that you have to decide.

The colour pallette on your website must complement your logo to give it a flow. If these clash, then the overall aesthetic of your website will go down. Similarly, don’t go over-the-top with fonts. You want your website to look fancy, but you still want it to look professional. While Shopify can save you from having to learn web designing and developing from scratch, these are some basics you’ll have to focus on.

4. Target Customers’ Target

Nobody likes shipping charges! It doesn’t matter how obsessed they are with your business and its products. Since they’re asking for only the product, they want to pay only for it and the “service” part of shipping is lost.

There are usually two types of customers. Some are those who just visited your website for a single product and nothing else interests them. Chances are that they won’t come venturing to your domain again. But the other type are the customers that matter, a.k.a., your target customers. So, to make your target customers a little less salty about the shipping prices, give them a target!

Your target customers should be interested in the majority of your products (especially if your research is on point!). Hence, making them buy products worth a certain amount after which shipping costs are cancelled is the perfect way of getting rid of their hatred of shipping and your products of the shelves!

5. Blood-curling “Back” Button

Every business website is most afraid of the blood-curling “Back” button a.k.a. The BBB. The BBB is what occurs when a probable customer about to venture your website has suddenly lost all interest and goes back to look for something else. And when that happens, you’ve lost your chance.

One of the biggest mistakes that you’ve probably ended up making is installing multiple applications on your Shopify website to increase functionality for your user. But instead, too many applications actually increases the loading time on Shopify.

Increase in loading time is one of the major reasons for your customers to give in to the BBB, and you’ve got to avoid it. While functionality is very important as well, a minimum of about 12 applications is a good balance on a Shopify domain.

6. Spill the Deets!

Online shopping is always a little tricky. Many products are hard to locate, but what’s worse is that when they are found, they don’t have enough description to help the customer to decide whether to buy the product or not.

Customers want details about the products they’re buying online, especially because they have no way of actually touching or feeling them. Clothes are especially challenging to shop for. Hence, a detailed summary of every possible detail of the product being sold is always optimum. If, for example, a shirt is being sold, then the measurements should be clearly mentioned.

Other details like different available sizes in the same shirt and different available colours in the same design should be mentioned. This way, there’s no harm if a customer doesn’t want to read, but if they do, and want to make a decision based on it, then they can rely on the details you’ve given. This is another great way to save yourself from The BBB as well!

7. Pop Up Smartly 

It is believed that customers hate popup advertisements. Honestly, this is true for the most part. However, there is no denying that popups can actually be quite helpful to present ongoing offers in the business and other such opportunities. But there is a time that is appropriate for popups.

A popup that appears just as the website has opened is a summoning of The BBB again. Popup timing should be proper so that it pops up when the reader is definitely into the website and won’t hit the “back” button, and might actually consider the offer on the popup.

Popups? Yes. But in less than 5 secs? NO!

8. Multiple Devices

Today, there are new gadgets and gizmos everyday! There are tablets, laptops, computers, televisions, mobiles, iPods, and a bunch more! Your Shopify website has come this far. It just needs to be seen by everyone.

And the only way that everyone gets to see and buy products through your Shopify e-commerce, is if their devices display your website perfectly.

Mobiles need to be given some special attention. 69% of the orders on Shopify stores are done through mobiles! If your Shopify store loses any of its charm on a mobile screen, then you automatically lose a lot of your customers.

Regardless of whether yours is a dropshipping business on shopify, or a regular store on shopify, it’s compatibility with mobile devices needs to be prioritised.

9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A lesser known feature that you can take great advantage of is SEO. Proper utilization of it can help you increase the visibility of your website. Usually, on shopify however, the first 15 words of your website are inserted as the keywords which inevitably makes the website harder to spot.

The way to push your website to the top is by adding in keywords that you believe your target customers would look for. If this is a little difficult, then categorise the few main things that your store sells, and enter the name of those, and you will definitely become more visible to the world.

Another strategy is to make a product easier to find. If there are too many categories and subcategories, then it makes it slightly more difficult to locate a product on a website and shortening that path actually improves SEO. Strategies like these and more are available here that can help improve your SEO on Shopify.

10. Slow and Steady Wins

Many Shopify stores begin with a big bang! We understand the excitement, but here’s why this is a major mistake!

For starters, a big bang invites a lot of customers. If these customers find flaws, then they won’t exactly come back another time. However, if yours is a soft launch, then you can interact with the customers to ask for their opinions. This way, you can tweak your Shopify store online accordingly and your few customers will believe that their opinions are valued.

Making a customer feel important is always a plus point.

So, if you’re intending to break out with a bang into the world, maybe hold your horses. Make yours a success story locally, and then branch out!

11. Multiple Payment Methods

Shopify provides almost all the possible methods available to accept payment. It is you who has to r take this up further, and make all these methods like credit cards, debit cards, net banking, PayPal etc. work. Customers will find it convenient to pay through whichever mode they want.

This is especially necessary as sometimes, many people don’t purchase an item if their preferred mode of payment is unavailable. And that is our loss, not theirs! To stop that from happening, make sure to open up as many payment portals as Shopify can provide you with, instead of just one or two!

12. Shopify Dropshippers? Beware! 

Dropshipping is a tricky business, but it is completely dependent on e-commerce. Shopify dropshipping allows you to establish a business without much investment and with all the Shopify amenities (like web design and themes). It’s super convenient and super easy to set up! Yet, it’s not just some part time job.

One of the major concerns for a dropshipper, considering that they don’t physically have the product, is to keep track of the products at all time. If a customer buys a product and it is only after that you realise that your wholesaler is all out, then you get all the blame as you were responsible for the sale.

To avoid this, always keep in touch with all your products! While this may be complicated, it’s a good way to keep in touch with the inventory that you don’t actually have to take care of!

Shopify dropshipping is not about the products that are a fad and will die out soon. People should dropship products that will be used regularly like wallets instead of trending fads like rubix cubes!

Also, dropshipping in shopify can work high on branding. However, there are many other ways to market a dropshipping shopify business than just paid advertisements through Facebook. These can be Google, Instagram, Twitter etc.

Conclusion

E-commerce, whether its a Shopify store or a Shopify dropshipping business, is always about the finesse. Ultimately, all of these are minute mistakes that need a little bit of tweaking here and there. Yet, these are the very same mistakes that block a large portion of your target customers.

Give the above mistakes a read and cross check with your website to see where you may have gone wrong. And once you’ve spotted these mistakes on your website, they’ll take less than a couple of hours to abolish! Get rid of these simple mistakes today, and give justice to your physical and virtual business!