10 E-Commerce Website Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make
As an entrepreneur, what is one mistake you made while building one of your first e-commerce sites? How can others avoid making the same mistake?
To help new entrepreneurs build their e-commerce sites successfully, we asked experienced entrepreneurs and SEO experts this question for their best advice. From building a site that was too niche to focusing on flashy designs, here are lessons learned that can help guide you as you build an effective e-commerce website for your business.
E-commerce website mistakes to avoid
1. Not accounting for SEO in the URL structure
"My first e-commerce website was a skincare shop with various brands and products. I did not use the proper categorization and my URLs were auto-generated by my CMS—(yikes, what a mess). For the first six months, we saw little to no results.
"I realized that optimized URLs are very important for SEO, but also help improve the click-through rates in the search results. It took me countless hours to rename and redirect over 500 URLs to the optimized URLs, but it was well worth it. We saw an increase of over 600% in organic traffic over the following 12 months.
"To give you a better idea, here is an example of my URL structure before and after the change:
Before: domain.com/app/search/catID=0927093930/product001
After: domain.com/category/subcat/product/name-or-brand
"Customers finding your products online is everything. Make sure to have the right structure and use your product keywords in the URLs. It can be a game changer."
—Jon Kelly, 1st on the List
2. Overdependence on ads and influencer marketing
"Spending on ads to get growth can be lucrative as it gives you immediate revenue and you are able to keep running operations. But ads are expensive and not sustainable for building a long-term business that can run even when you don't have lots of cash to spend. One tip I have for other e-commerce businesses is to invest in sustainable, long-term strategies, like content marketing or email marketing."
—Trevor Hatfield, SendX
3. Not building my own team
"When I initially started in e-commerce, it was overwhelming—especially on the development and digital marketing side of the business. I originally signed on with companies with expensive monthly retainers to manage this side of the business for me, with poor results and huge costs. Once I stopped the retainers, I had to understand how to build my digital marketing team, such as link builders, content writers, developers, technical SEO, and graphic designers. I originally built this team through websites such as Upwork and Freelancer, which kept my costs low and gave me access to highly skilled people to help grow our sites when we needed them.
"My main advice is to learn the function of every role on a digital marketing team. This knowledge will help you understand your team's challenges and how you can support them and lead meetings knowledgeably."
—Steven MacDonald, Scotlight Direct
4. Building a site for a business that was too niche
"For my first e-commerce store, I was selling products that were related to elephants and elephant lovers. Although there is a target audience for this, it isn't as big as I thought it would be.
"Before getting into business, I recommend looking at the main shopping categories on a site like Amazon and choosing one you want to go with. From there, start researching sub-niches through Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner and determine whether the audience is big enough.
"I advise people to start a business in a broader category and then niche down as you get your footing. This helps you to avoid pigeonholing yourself and thus having to start over."
—Cody Arsenault, Serial entrepreneur
5. Not understanding online inventory management
"In our first full year of business selling cricket gear, we did not understand online inventory management, supplier lead times, etc. and this really hurt our growth. We ran out of stock of our core product just before the cricket season started—which is when we got 90% of our business. It took over six weeks before we could replenish. As a result, we lost out on hundreds of sales.
"I can't stress enough the importance of fully understanding the lead times of your suppliers as well as the shipping time to get products to you. If we had been more on top of our numbers, we could have ensured we had the stock in place and not lost out on sales."
—Freddie Chatt, E-commerce SEO and content expert
6. Not outsourcing early enough
"Most entrepreneurs tend to have a massive self-sufficient mentality. We want to save money, and we know we'll probably do a job quicker and better than a freelancer. So why waste money (and time) hiring someone?
"Relying on myself to do everything for too long was the biggest mistake I made in setting up my first e-commerce site. It took some excess profits and a lot of encouragement from friends to bring on our first content writer and virtual assistant. Spending just $500 a month on that was so scary at the time.
"It didn't take long before we started to scale, thanks to the extra help. This started a cyclical process of outsourcing, getting more profits, outsourcing more, and repeat. At one stage we were spending around $20,000 a month to operate at a much bigger scale.
"So if there's one piece of advice I have for first-time e-commerce entrepreneurs, it's HIRE! If you're making a profit and you're busy all day, then there are definitely tasks you can delegate. It's worth it."
—Craig Galloway, Tech Detective
7. Not measuring lifetime value
"While I was building my first e-commerce site, I was so focused on getting people to buy that I didn't even think about lifetime value. I didn't have any analytics or metrics in place to track whether people were returning or what they were buying. As a result, I had no way of knowing how much each customer was worth to my business.
"If I had known then what I know now, I would have made sure to track lifetime value from the very beginning. Not only would it have helped me make better decisions about where to invest my time and money, but it would also have given me a much clearer picture of my business's performance."
—Jason Vishnefske, Santa Barbara Chocolate Company
8. Focusing too heavily on one channel
"When I built my first ever e-commerce website project, we focused heavily on SEO, and used it as the main channel to drive all sales to the business. While this was successful, it led to us neglecting other platforms, which meant we didn't take advantage of the synergy between marketing channels and we were starting three steps behind competitors on those other channels. An integrated digital marketing strategy across all potential channels is the most effective, particularly for a long-term project."
—Matt Jackson, Matt Jackson SEO Expert
9. Fulfilling orders using suppliers abroad
"One big mistake I made when building my first e-commerce venture was trying to fulfill orders using suppliers in China, who then shipped directly to my U.S. customers. This can be done, but generally the shipping delays and lack of transparency around delivery timing provides a very poor customer experience. Repeat purchase rates suffer a lot.
"Many new drop shippers make this mistake because it is a cheap and easy way to get started selling online. However, I've since learned that forming relationships with reputable manufacturers and drop-ship suppliers in the country you're selling in is a much more sensible idea if you want a low-cost entry point into e-commerce without buying lots of inventory. It takes a little longer, but you'll have happier customers who spend more with you and come back to buy again and again in the future."
—Ryan Turner, EcommerceIntelligence.com
10. Focusing on flashy design over user experience
"One of the most common mistakes when building e-commerce sites is creating 'flashy' sites that look highly user-friendly but actually are impossible to navigate and confuse users. The structure and logical organization of your e-commerce site is paramount, not just for search engines, but also your users. The statistics don't lie here—it's vital to give your visitors the best possible user experience or they will simply go to a competitor. Don't prioritize looks over a solid structure!"
—Ian Wright, Business Financing
