Ecommerce website mistakes that are holding your business back.

As an ecommerce web design company, we get lots of calls from people who feel their ecommerce website isn’t working as well as it should. It’s not getting as many visitors as they’d like. They’re not making many sales.

When we take a closer look at the site, we often see the same familiar ecommerce website mistakes. Issues that are holding their business back.

Some are design and development problems. Others are the result of poor optimisation or of failing to follow ecommerce website best practices.

Here, we share some of the most common ecommerce mistakes we come across to help you build an online store that really pulls its weight.

11 ecommerce website mistakes

1. Poor product photography

Customers can’t pick up your products. They can’t feel the weight of them, check the finish or try them on. Your product photography has to do all that work.

And yet poor product images are one of the most common ecommerce pitfalls we see. Blurry or low-resolution shots. Not enough angles. Manufacturer images rather than shots you’ve taken yourself.

You need professional photographs if you’re going to show your products and your brand in the best possible light.

2. Vague product pages

The rest of your product page has a lot of work to do, too.

It needs to give customers all the information they need to make a purchasing decision. Sizing. Dimensions. Returns and delivery info. Customer reviews. A clear call to action so they can add a product to cart.

It should incorporate keywords naturally so you give search visibility a boost without compromising the user experience. It should include user-generated content to build trust. And links to related products to keep customers browsing and improve average order value.

But we see far too many product pages where content is thin, where users have to navigate away from the product page to view vital information, where the user experience isn’t optimised to its fullest potential.

That means fewer products in baskets and fewer sales.

3. A clunky checkout

Over 77% of shoppers abandon their cart before completing a purchase. Most of the time, that’s because the checkout process is confusing and frustrating, to the point that potential customers give up partway through.

The usual suspects? Too many form fields. No guest checkout option. Too few payment options. Unexpected costs at the final step. No clear progress indicator. A payment page that looks suddenly different to the rest of the site.

Every extra step and every moment of friction is another opportunity to lose the customer. So if you’re not following checkout best practices, your website is unlikely to perform at its best.

4. The wrong platform

Different ecommerce platforms are suited to different types of online stores. And choosing the wrong one is another common ecommerce pitfall.

Platforms that seem quick and easy to set up often have their limitations. You hit a wall when you need custom features or product configurations. Or when you need to scale up because you’re getting more website visitors.

At that point, you either end up paying for workaround apps or facing a disruptive migration.

We build most of our ecommerce stores on WooCommerce because it gives us (and our clients) the flexibility to design a store around how a business actually works.

5. Slow site speeds

Users expect ecommerce websites to load in an incredibly speedy two seconds. And website speed has a huge impact on your business. It affects user experience, conversion rates and search rankings.

Why are some sites slower than others? It can be down to uncompressed images or videos. Too many plugins. Poorly written code. Or hosting that isn’t up to the task.

Whatever the reason, slow site speeds create a bad ecommerce website experience.

6. Poor navigation

A customer who can’t find the product they’re looking for will leave and look for it elsewhere. That’s why poor navigation is another ecommerce website mistake you should try your best to avoid.

Poor navigation can mean various things.

A search function that doesn’t understand spelling mistakes or synonyms. Menu and filter options that make sense to your internal team — but not to the customers using them. Too few internal links. Zero breadcrumbs.

Ultimately, users should be able to find a product in just a couple of clicks. If it’s taking them longer, you need to make changes to your website.

7. Lack of trust signals

First-time visitors who’ve stumbled across your brand don’t know you. Which means they have no reason to trust you. And when they don’t trust you, they’re very unlikely to hand over their payment details.

Trust signals are the elements of your website that tell visitors this is a legitimate, credible business that it’s safe to buy from. They include customer reviews, a clear returns policy, security badges, contact details and professional web design and photography.

Trust signals should be scattered across your website and always included at points where site visitors make a decision — near your calls to action, on product pages and at checkout.

If this is something that’s missing on your ecommerce website, you’re not giving potential customers the reassurance they need to convert.

8. Neglecting mobile

Around 74% of ecommerce traffic now comes from mobile devices. So another of the biggest ecommerce website mistakes you can make is neglecting the mobile experience.

We’ve been drafted in to rescue non-responsive websites. Those with text that users have to zoom in or scroll horizontally to see. With buttons that are too small or close together to tap accurately. With product images that don’t resize properly. With popups that are impossible to close.

As we’ve already mentioned, online shoppers want fast, convenient experiences on whatever device they happen to be using. So you need a responsive website that adapts to all devices, screens and browsers.

9. Failing to back up your website regularly

Your ecommerce store contains product data, customer records, order history and transaction data. And yet many store owners have no reliable backup strategy in place.

They presume their ecommerce platform has it covered. Or make backup mistakes — like not backing up regularly enough or storing backups on the same server as their website.

All it takes is a single bad plugin update, a hacking attempt or a hosting failure to wipe out your store and cause serious damage to your business.

Regular, automated backups — stored separately from your main hosting environment — are insurance against this. If you’re on a web maintenance plan with Radical, this is handled automatically. If you’re not, it’s worth making sure that everything is set up correctly.

10. A weak SEO strategy

There are lots of ecommerce SEO mistakes to watch out for. Beyond issues with user experience (like site speed and responsiveness), here are the biggest issues we tend to come across.

• Duplicate content. Copy-pasted product descriptions from the manufacturer. Or identical copy across product variants.
• Poor technical SEO. Slow loading times, broken links, missing canonical tags, poor crawlability. These issues all impact search rankings.
• Poor on-page optimisation. Not optimising category pages, product pages and images for relevant keyword phrases.
• Failing to adapt to different audiences. International businesses should create unique content in each new language. Local businesses should adopt a local SEO strategy.
• Not implementing schema markup. Schema markup gives search engines specific information about your products. Without it, you’re missing out on the rich search engine results that attract clicks.
• Prioritising the search engine over customers. Stuffing keywords into your product descriptions creates a poor user experience, which has a negative impact on search rankings.

Take a look at our guide to improving ecommerce SEO for more info.

11. Forgetting about analytics

If you’re not measuring it, you’ll struggle to improve it.

You should be regularly checking in with your analytics software to see where customers are dropping off in the buyer journey, which products are generating the most revenue, which traffic sources are converting best and how many of your website visitors become customers.

This helps you make targeted improvements to your ecommerce website, eliminating friction, boosting conversion rates and optimising the user experience on every page.

How to find out which ecommerce website mistakes are causing problems for you

Want to know which of these ecommerce mistakes you’re making? And how they’re impacting your business? Start by looking at your website data.

Your analytics will tell you where your website visitors are coming from and where they land first (this helps you hone your marketing and SEO strategies).

Your dashboard will also tell you where people are leaving your website. High bounce rates on product pages may point to weak photography or vague descriptions. High exit rates at checkout point to friction in the purchasing process.

You can also use other tools. Software like Hotjar and Crazy Egg can give you even greater insight into how a customer experiences your online store while letting you test and verify new strategies, too.

At the very least, travel through your store as a customer would (or ask friends and family to be your guinea pigs). Add something to basket. Go through checkout. Perform tasks on both desktop and smartphone screens. You may come across issues you didn’t realise you had.

And if you want an in-depth look at what might be holding your ecommerce website back, book a professional website audit. This identifies technical issues, SEO problems and UX weaknesses that ecommerce website pros can spot in an instant.

Fix the mistakes on your ecommerce website with Radical

Many of the problems in this guide are fixable. But if your ecommerce website is making multiple mistakes, sometimes the most effective approach is an ecommerce website redesign.

A full site overhaul will eliminate website issues and set you firmly on the path to online store success.

At Radical, we build high-performing ecommerce websites. Our stores are designed around ecommerce best practices, built on solid technical foundations and optimised to convert traffic into sales.

If your store isn’t performing as well as you’d like, get in touch with the Radical team. We can take a look at your website and identify the improvements that need to be made.

FAQs

What are the most common ecommerce website mistakes?

The problems with ecommerce websites that we see most regularly are poor product photography, weak product descriptions, a complicated checkout process and poor navigation. Technical issues like slow site speeds and poor mobile experience are also an issue on many ecommerce sites.

How do I know if my ecommerce website has problems?

Start with your analytics. Establish how many people are visiting your site, how many convert, and how these figures have changed over time. You (or a few willing participants) can also test your store, looking for anything that feels slow, confusing or untrustworthy.

If visitor numbers or conversion rates are falling or stagnating, and if there are obvious points of friction, your website has problems that need to be fixed.

Can I fix ecommerce website mistakes without rebuilding?

Often, yes. You can make improvements like better product copy, improved photography and stronger trust signals without touching the underlying design or platform.

However, a rebuild may make sense if the platform you’re using is too limited, the technical foundations are poor or the changes you need to make are too significant to retrofit.

What should I focus on if I’m new to ecommerce?

If you’re just getting started in ecommerce and want to build an online store that works well, start with the fundamentals.

Choose the right ecommerce platform and hosting solution, work to develop a structure that suits your ideal customers, invest in professional web design and development and ensure your product pages and checkout follow best practices.

Put these foundations in place and you’re much more likely to make a success of your online store.