E-Commerce@Work: 5 Common Mistakes for Start-ups

Having built countless sites over the years, and now working with small businesses as well, here's what I know. Building an e-commerce site is a lot like painting your house. Half the work is the preparation, not the painting itself. If you've done some painting, you know the more you plan where you'll start and end, tape off the edges, cover the furniture, and so on -- the faster and better the job.

Here's five common areas for you to focus on, if you're going to take your retail business into e-commerce, or start an online business as a standalone.

1. Underestimating the scope of the work.

We all see ads about easy-to-build sites and fast money. Sit down with pen and a legal-size sheet of paper. Draw the customer journey from end to end -- and below it, make boxes and label them with all the little things that need to happen for each step to go smoothly. That starts with finding your site (search engines and paid ads), through to how you'll actually store product, package it and ship it efficiently, so orders arrive promptly.

Some folks call this the job of "user experience." Big companies have User Experience or UX people who are both designers and techies wrapped into one. A pretty site won't do. It has to grab the visitor, quickly convey what's for sale and make it easy to pick, choose and order. The leg-up of big players like Amazon is daunting. People may expect your new site to be just as tricked-out as an e-Bay. Not fair, but a fair is where horses and pigs are sold, as my father always said.

Chances of success are much greater if you, or a consultant, are intimately involved. Check out free resources like an ecommerce website checklist to have a framework for planning.

2. No business plan.

Keep it simple.

• What are you selling and who are you selling it to? Pick niches or specialities rather than a garage sale mentality. You can't be all things to all people.
• Know your target customer. We call it the "persona" of the customer: What are their demographics, age range, household income, alternative choices, and so on. Put a face on him or her and write down everything you know that persona will have in common across the board.
• What is their problem and know how is your site or solution making it easier, different, better? This little question may well be the most important.
• List key competitors. What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• How can you counter your competitors' weaknesses? Or, what is the weakness within their greatest strength? Amazon is huge. Etsy came along and enabled "manufacturers" of unique, niche products to easily peddle their wares in an elegant, streamlined site. That's attacking a competitor at his point of greatest strength. Amazon, while big, is not a destination for those really special, home-crafted gifts. Etsy drove right at that point of weakness within Amazon's greatest strength.
• What is your competitive differentiation? That's a fancy phrase for, will you attack on lower price, wider selection, or narrow, high quality selection, or something else?

Now, you're ready to get into the fun part of how the site looks and feels. But not any sooner than answering the questions above.

3. No marketing strategy.

Getting an e-commerce website built is, in many ways, the easiest part. Plan ahead as to how you'll attract visitors. Will you rely on search engines to rank you highest? If so, do you have an SEO expert working on the backend of the site and looking at how you write content, product descriptions, metatags, and so on?

Online marketing plans involve key points like these:

• Put in place at least a basic e-commerce analytics/tracking system, such as Google Analytics.
• Understand the lingo of SEO, SEM and PPC. Remember, through trial and error over time, you must advance towards the best ROI for your time and money, so you can know how to track the lowest cost marketing to yield the most sales.
• Have a social media strategy. Facebook might be the place where your audience can be reached, so having a good page for your business is essential -- and regularly posting interesting and non-salesy, non-cheesy news will engage them best.

Think about affiliate marketing or selling through other third-party platforms such as eBay. There's also wholesalers who supply e-commerce start-ups, so you can pick a product category and they handle supplying brand name products and fulfillment. That may reduce your margin, but it also takes a load off of your logistics shoulders, if this is a cottage business for you.

4. Choosing the right e-commerce platform.

Generally, the wrong choice is a platform that's overbuilt, if you have a narrow product selection in mind. Or, one that needs customizations and will have to be babysat every time there's a security update issued by the platform company -- meaning, you'd have to know programming or a programmer to stay on top of upgrades and patches.

Just because a family member or friend knows programming doesn't mean they should be a business partner. Because, if you let just anyone start coding without some ground rules, such as no customizations that don't auto-update when the platform issues updates, this is a recipe for frustration or even failure.

There are several solutions you can choose from, to name only a few:

• Hosted e-commerce solutions like Shopify.com or Esty.com
• Popular, proven e-commerce systems program like Magento, WooCommerce or Cs-cart

Popularity and reputation indicate a platform is proven, and likely, the company has the resources to stay on top of issuing patches for security and features enhancements. That's what you want. Pricing plan run the gambit, but generally, these companies have grown increasingly transparent, offering good-better-best choices, depending upon your forecasted needs for visitors, products, pages, and what have you.

They'll also have templates to suit various product types, like digital products vs. things shipped in boxes. Having a choice of slick templates that you actually like, just as they are, is preferred.

5. Poor product showcasing.

The issue of templates brings us to product showcasing. Remain objectively in the shoes of that persona you defined earlier. How will he or she, your buyer, perceive your products or services within seconds of landing on your page and then looking at a product page?

You're going to need high-quality photos, and you may have to buy the right camera and a lightbox to capture all the products you stock. Product descriptions must include essential information: Product dimensions, color choices, shipping weight, and anything else that helps the customer get all the answers at a glance.

Sweat equity goes into developing product pages. You'll find you need to tweak this over time, as customers email asking questions and you see a trend. Or, you look at pages in the analytics where people quit your site, and a trend emerges, telling you there's something rotten in Denmark with how that page is designed or what information is missing.

Ecommerce is a great way for bricks and mortar stores to expand. You have the advantage of local customers who know you. Leverage that to get started and build loyalty programs so they spread the word for you.

And, don't let all of this deter you. If you have been bitten by the bug, go with it. Involve the right people who are smarter than you on some of these topics. Let them do their thing with you watching, so you'll learn.