Creating, managing and maintaining an eCommerce website demands lots of efforts. Before you start selling online, you will need a proper market research and know-how about the business domain. While you search the internet for fact-finding regarding your business area, you might come across some common misconceptions about eCommerce. These misconceptions are nothing but facts that are partially right but not complete. So here are 7 myths of eCommerce with the truth behind them.
Traffic will come automatically
As the quote goes “Nothing worth having comes easy” and so, no useful traffic will come to your website automatically. But don’t let this statement unnerve you. Today, there are a number of ways you can promote your eCommerce website and inspire people to visit your website. Remember that when you start an eCommerce website, you are stepping into a domain of intense competition.
If you ask me, the hardest part of setting up eCommerce website is not designing or developing. It is to bring about traffic. The eCommerce platforms and the website building tools made it easy to create and develop a website, but the real struggle begins when your website is online and you are ready to sell. This is when you will need to find out ways through which you can bring in traffic. There are various ways to do that.
To attract traffic
- Launch targeted advertisements, use cross-links and other marketing
- Use social media for promotions
- Optimize your product pages to rank well for the targeted keywords.
The bottom line is, the traffic won’t come automatically, but working in the right direction with a planned marketing strategy, promotions and other things like product page SEO, website ranking, directly helps you bring traffic to your website.
Setting up eCommerce is inexpensive and easy
Setting up eCommerce website is not easy at all. However, doing it right will help you sell online and make substantial profits.
Not to dishearten you, but creating and managing eCommerce websites is not a piece of pie. It will need your time, efforts, and constant contemplation before you start making substantial profits.
For a smooth running eCommerce website, you need to make some correct decisions first. Choose an appropriate eCommerce platform on which you can build your website. Next is to choose the relevant design/theme. And then maintaining and managing your eCommerce website. Keeping it updated with the products, and the latest trends. All of this needs patience and efforts.
SEO is a one time task
No it’s not! It’ s not like you will hire an SEO expert and get your website optimized, Once and for all. But it doesn’t work that way. SEO demands constant attention and modifications. You will need to stay in touch with the market progressions and keep your website updated according to the latest trends.
SEO requirements for your website will change according to the competition, market trends, etc. Also, at different period of time, you will have to focus on different aspect of your website. So, be prepared for this! SEO of your website will need constant follow ups and updations.
Click here to know what you can do to aid the SEO of your eCommerce website.
Good products are enough
Good products obviously help you to sell more. But there are other things related to the product that matter as much as the quality of the product. The most important thing you would want to make right is “Product presentation“. How you display your products on an eCommerce website really makes the difference.
There are some product presentation techniques that you must learn. The products should be well described and clearly displayed. The product pages should be easy to access and should answer all the questions that a prospective customer would have.
You won’t need any online experience if you are well informed about the physical or spot market
Not saying that your experience of market won’t help your eCommerce website, but you need to realize that selling online is a totally different thing. Consider this, you are in a shop and a customer arrives asking for a mobile phone. He will tell you the features and you will find out a phone that does exactly what the customer wants. Now, consider the same customer comes to your eCommerce website. Here, not you but your website will interact with the customer. So you need to make sure that your website has the features to let the visitors find what they want, easily.
Ecommerce platform doesn’t matter
Why wouldn’t it? The platform you choose to create your eCommerce website is like the foundation on which a building is constructed.
The eCommerce platform you choose for creating your online shop DOES matter! Even the subscription plan matters. This is because different subscription level comes with different SEO options, Security essentials and features. Therefore, the plan that you choose should include all, it should be flexible enough to let you manage the SEO of the content and the pages. Even a theme that you choose, somehow influences the success of your website.
Myths about Security of your website
Never, never take the security of your website for granted, especially when it’s an eCommerce website. An eCommerce website will have a lots of financial transactions involved. So the security of such website needs to be taken seriously.
Installing one or more eCommerce security plugins compatible with your eCommerce platform will surely help you securing your website. But the hackers always find new ways to attack and damage. Therefore, use preventive measures against potential threats. Keep checking for vulnerabilities and work to block them.
Network security is one of the main part of IT industry and it undergoes constant development and updation. Make sure you keep up with it and are not left behind.
Conclusion
These were some common misconceptions about eCommerce that are completely false. You may hear these things at first when you are new to the online business and it’s very important that you don’t believe them. However, the businesses, specially online businesses are completely unpredictable and dynamic. So, you need a careful start after intense studies, and market analysis. And nothing equals experience. After a while of surviving the market and the competition you will be able to derive better decisions for yourself.