While the virtual marketplace continues to grow, many online stores continue to make mistakes that limit their success. I created this short blog for the purpose of shining light on these common errors.

1) Confusing Customers

Have you ever closed an e-commerce site because you were frustrated with the endless navigating you had to do just to arrive at the product that interests you?

User Experience (UX) involves a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions that a user has after landing on your site. There are many factors that make up a killer UX, including colors, images, merchandising, navigation, find-ability, consistent site architecture, secure and quick checkout process, and so on. 

It's not a hard concept to grasp. When creating your e-commerce site, make it easy for the customer to purchase the product that you're trying to sell.

• Avoid overwhelming the user on the home page. Too much content will drive the user away from your site.
• Avoid distractions like flashing banners and pop ups.
• Avoid complex navigation. When creating the checkout process, place yourself in the consumer's shoes.

2) Not Being Mobile Ready

In 2013, the average internet user spent about 1.8 hours per day consuming media just on their mobile phone. 

Four out of five US smartphone users use their mobile devices to shop. Without a mobile optimized site, businesses lose potential customers. So, it's essential that e-commerce sites are to be mobile ready. 

However, it's not just that websites need to be mobile ready. E-commerce businesses need to take a mobile-first approach. In developing counties including China and India, mobile is the first screen that consumers use to access the internet. 

3) Building Barriers Around Site

The obvious goal of an e-commerce website is to drive as many possible shoppers to your website and hopefully convert them customers. There are many marketing gurus whom believe that building an email list is the best practice for converting potential shoppers into lifetime customers. While protecting personal information has become a growing concern across the web in 2014, creating signup forms to act as walls that shoppers must climb over isn't a great way to convert customers. day a

In this day and age time is becoming more of a commodity than ever before, so creating barriers that withhold content won't get you very far in the online marketplace. Unless a visitor has some very specific interest in something that you offer on such a site, you’ve lost them forever.