Why is your online store not profitable?

Valdis Strautiņš

In recent years, e-commerce has made huge strides and it is obvious that it continues to ripple and develop, leaving a lasting impact on society’s shopping habits! Especially now, when in the context of the pandemic, there are so many restrictions on classic shopping, which, in turn, do not apply to e-commerce! Therefore, it could be said that we are even forced to shop in online stores. Logically, joining this huge movement and taking advantage of its opportunities is a very good idea, but you have to take into account the fact that things do not always go as intended. There are many obstacles and trifles that you may not have thought about, which can have a significant impact on your ecommerce results. In this article, we will be happy to share with you information that will expand your knowledge of the situations that you may encounter, both when starting e-commerce and if you have been working in it for some time, but feel that something is missing. So let’s go!

No matter how profitable and good your product or service is, it won’t matter if you offer it to the wrong people! Being aware of your target audience/ideal customer is one of the very first steps to plan your ads on which platforms you will put your ads, what the design of the ads will be and what the message to convey will be. Example: You are engaged in the repair of dentures. It is very doubtful that you will find a lot of potential customers advertising in the children’s section of TikTok.

Ways to better filter out your target customers are to watch their social media activities, such as facebook, instagram, twitter,.c etc., make phone calls and create different surveys. These steps will help you find similarities/relationships in potential clients, such as hobbies, age, financial situation, etc. With this information you will be able to perform an analysis and better specify what type of customer of your target is.

These are just a few steps! Targeting is a very broad topic, let’s not go into all possible steps very much in this article. On the Internet, you can find a lot of information from which to draw an in-depth understanding of this topic. Search by “Targeting.”

Low activity on the Internet and no advertising.

It’s pretty silly to wait for customers if people don’t know about your existence. There are many platforms where you can show yourself, gain followers – Faccebook, Instagram, Twitter. Be active on the Internet, make various competitions, put articles on, put ads, in other words – be loud on the Internet and use the Internet to your advantage. Do everything you need to make your brand visible and recognizable.

online store view1

Incorrectly assessed losses.

Are you familiar with the situation where, after purchases, incoming numbers and customer flow, profits seem to be formed, but at the end of the month when you make calculations, it turns out that you are in the minuses? This situation usually arises when cash flow has not been tracked or if potential losses on marketing activities such as discounts or free deliveries have not been properly and objectively assessed. This problem can be drastically reduced by paying more attention to all expenses before activities such as offering discounts are carried out. Carefully analyze and understand whether you can afford it, whether the range of goods is large enough, and whether you will be able to earn this discount on other goods/services.

Prices are not objectively planned.

It is very important to set exact prices for your product or service, because you will suffer losses both if they are too high and if they are too low. The two most popular pricing strategies:

At cost. With this method, you calculate the costs, delivery costs, wage costs, possibly rent of premises, etc…. Based on this, you create a mark-up of a product or service.

By market. When choosing this method, you must constantly keep an eye on what prices and discounts competitors charge and try to adapt or out-compete their offer. You have to be very careful, because if you are a small entrepreneur, often, it will simply not be possible for you to out-compete the big stores and earn something.

Poor quality pictures and description.

Considering that all shopping takes place remotely, it is very important that the product/service you are offering is well described and reflected in high-quality pictures. A person does not have the opportunity to immediately talk to you or see the product with his own eyes, to touch it, and the information you have provided is everything that the customer can be guided by and make his choice to shop in your online store or not.

The opportunity to contact you will give the customer a greater sense of security and trust. Always, however, it is more pleasant to place an order from the place where you will be able to get help, if something unplanned happens, such as incorrect receipt of the item, problems with payment, etc. By failing to provide contact details, you lose a large part of your customers.

SEO, or Search Optimisation, is the optimisation of websites for internet search engines. Put simply, this means how easily you can find through search engines on Google, Bing, Yandex, etc. However, SEO optimization is not the only way to raise your online store higher up in the Google search engine – you can also use Google Ads. Let me give you an example: You sell garden goods, but when a potential customer enters the key words “garden goods” on Google, your online store appears only in the 10th row. In this case, it is quite self-evident that your chances of serving this person are close to zero. There are a lot of ways to improve your SEO. For example, the correct choice of keywords, optimization of the speed of the website, internal linking of the page, etc. SEO optimization can not only help lift your online store higher up in google search engine, it’s also a good tool in marketing that can reduce the cost of Google Ads in the long run. In this article, however, let’s not blur about SEO optimization, because this topic deserves a separate article. Also on the Internet there are a lot of resources on the topic , search for “SEO optimization” and you will find all the information you need.

For a good customer experience, there is nothing more important than fast platform performance, easy navigation and tasteful design.

There are several ways in which you can perform system speed optimization, for example, reducing the size of pictures, getting rid of unnecessary plug-ins or code, choosing the right server, etc. Speed optimization tends to be a rather complicated process, and on this topic, we recommend, contact a developer like us!

It will certainly be more pleasant for customers to shop in a store with a beautiful design. Therefore, the design should not be saved. It is your store, and its design is the face of the store that represents your company. Just like a shop in life, it needs to be tidy, tasteful, comfortable and transparent so that it’s nice to be in it.

Design options are endless and different design solutions will be suitable for different stores. If you have any questions about web design, feel free to contact us.

You can have a very fast store with an excellent design, but if navigating it is difficult and illogical, you won’t get far. It is important that you make sure that a potential customer who has entered your store for the first time can easily and conveniently move around it. It is important that the search function, ordering and payment option are as simple as possible. These are points that need special attention, because if the customer, roughly speaking, has to screw up for 15 minutes to order a phone holder, in more than 90% of cases, the customer will go to another store and not return to you again.

These are just a few possible reasons why your online store didn’t do as well as you’d like. But don’t worry or throw the plinth into the bushes – everything can be repaired and improved!

Note!!!

Before you start developing your own online store , it is very important to choose technologies correctly, so that it is not a situation where you cannot be sold, because the platform may not allow it.

Also, create a specific plan for advertising and online store development. Often people are mauling on the dull and don’t really even understand where to start, it’s for web development agencies, where professionals who know how to do things work are working. Do not try to save on the development of an online store, because a properly and qualitatively created online store will quickly earn itself back.

If you have any uncertainties, questions or need help in the web development jungle, feel free to apply for a free consultation and the WD Market team will be happy to advise you and help you. Because we want, we can and we will! Good luck and see you in the next article, or in our office! 🙂