Selling anything online brings in the possibility to make a lot of money when compared to the regular brick and mortar approach. There are so many small and even big businesses that open an e-commerce website with the expectation of sales increases.

The problem is that it is really easy to make e-commerce design mistakes. Many appear due to a lack of knowledge but there are even some mistakes that are not even recognized as mistakes. We will basically focus on both categories by simply highlighting the most common e-commerce design errors that are made by the majority of such site owners. That will definitely help you to increase sales and profits.

1. No Detailed Product Information

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a site that was selling office supplies. Every single product offered did not have a detailed product information section. All that was written was something like “Notebook – Brand – X Pages”. That is never enough. When you shop in a regular brick and mortar store, you can see and feel the item. Information on packaging is also accessible. With an online experience, you lack that opportunity. As a store owner, you need to make sure that you offer as much information about the product as possible. When customers do not actually know product specifics, there is a pretty strong possibility that they will not purchase. According to WSI Digital Web design company in Glasgow and Edinburgh, this is the most common mistake that appears at the moment.

2. No Contact Information

Would you buy anything from someone you know nothing about? The consumer needs to see that a real company is behind the online store. Always make sure that contact information is accessible, preferably visible on every single page.

3. Checkout Processes That Are Too Long

This is extremely damaging for every single e-commerce website out there. It is very important that customers find it really easy to use their credit card in order to pay for what they want to buy. If there are too many steps that have to be taken, the customer will most likely look somewhere else. In the event that you can put all the necessary forms on one page, do so! Your conversion rate will increase dramatically when compared to a 2 or 3 steps process.

It should also be mentioned that you should try to allow the customer to buy without having to register for an account. If you do have an account based system, try to implement an automatic account creation when an order is made. Keep in mind that orders are always more important than customer information.

4. Improper Site Search

There are many customers that use search, especially when they know exactly what they look for. Try to create a suitable site search that has as many filters as possible. If you have a lot of products, this becomes a huge necessity. It is a certainty that you searched on large sites like Amazon till now and the search offered hundreds of results. You do not want that to happen with your e-commerce website.

5. Small Product Images

The consumer only sees the product in the picture you provide. If it is too small, he/she might not be tempted to make a purchase. This is sometimes connected to the e-commerce platform that is used. Remember that images are really important for any website. This includes an e-commerce store. If you cannot add a large image, at least make sure that you have some clickable images with a large enough resolution. Also, never add just one product image. This is especially true for those products that need to be seen from different angles.

6. No Related Products

In regular stores the products that are similar are grouped together. That is done for a reason. With an e-commerce website it is a mistake not to include the related products. You never know when you can generate an extra sale or when you can generate just one sale as the initial product is not one that is liked by the potential customer.

Besides the facts mentioned above, we should also mention that it is really important who your web hosting provider is. While you will most likely not need advanced packages like hybrid cloud solutions, you need to be sure that the package you choose can handle traffic while offering suitable security. At the very list, make sure that your hosting is scalable. This is especially true in the event that you want to plan some time sensitive discounts like those for Cyber Monday or Black Friday.