Top mistakes when ordering from an online store

An online store is the most difficult type of website for a small business. Not because of technology, but because of the number of decisions that have to be made. Let's analyze where exactly people make mistakes, and how to avoid it.

Briefly

• The store is not a "site with a buy button", but a system with a catalog, balances and payment.
• The most expensive mistake is to start without a ready catalog of products.
• Half of the functions that are ordered at the start are not used later.

1. There is no ready catalog

The most frequent and most expensive mistake. Development begins when the goods are still "somewhere in the table, it will be necessary to comb through".

What happens next: the design is drawn under the cards with a short description, but in reality the names are 15 words each, half of the products have no photos, and a third have prices. Everything is recycled.

How to correctly: collect the catalog before the start. At least 10-15 positions in the final form: name, price, description, photo, characteristics. This will show how the card should actually look.

2. Photos of different formats and quality

The product was shot from different angles, on different backgrounds, some vertical, some horizontal. The catalog looks like a flea market, and no amount of design can save it.

How to correctly: same aspect ratio, same background, same light. Even the phone gives a normal result if you shoot systematically.

3. Order "out of stock" functions

Classic list at the start: personal account, loyalty program, product comparison, wish list, reviews with photos, chat, several currencies.

Reality after six months: catalog, shopping cart and payment are working. The rest isn't used, but it's paid for and makes every subsequent shift more difficult.

How to correctly: start with the minimum - catalog, filter, cart, payment, delivery. Add what is missing when there is real demand.

4. Inadequate delivery and payment

Technically, it is easy to set the "pay" button. Complicated - rules: free delivery from a certain amount, different tariffs in cities, self-delivery, post-payment, partial prepayment.

You need to know these rules to developments, because they affect the entire design process.

How to correctly: write all the options on the sheet before the start. How many payment methods, how much shipping, what are the exceptions.

5. They ignore what will happen after the launch

The store is not a monument. Every day, someone has to add products, change prices, mark what is out of stock.

Questions to ask the contractor to payment:

• Who will add the products and what does it look like?
• What happens when the product is out of stock?
• Is it possible to change the price of 50 positions at the same time?
• What does my order look like?

If there is no clear answer to them, you will get a beautiful store that is inconvenient to manage.

6. No integration with what you're already working on

If accounting is kept in 1C, CRM or at least in a table, the store must be friends with it. Otherwise, each order will have to be carried by hand, and at 20 orders per day, it will become hell.

Integration with CRM is laid at the planning stage, not "we'll screw it up somehow".

7. Save on the directory structure

Categories, subcategories, filters, tags. It seems like a small thing, but it depends on whether a person will find the product - and whether the search will find you.

A store where everything is lumped into one category "Products" does not sell and does not rank.

How to correctly: draw the directory structure on paper before development. If it does not fit in the head - this is a sign that it is necessary to simplify now.

8. They expect the price as for the landing

The store is more expensive than a service site with the same number of pages, and this is not a markup. Catalog, filters, shopping cart, payment, "out of stock" statuses, order letters, administration - these are dozens of separate tasks with testing of each.

Our store starts at $1,200, while multi-page service site - from $700. The difference is precisely in this volume.

9. They are launched without a purchase test

It is surprising, but often a store is opened without ever having bought in it themselves.

Necessary before starting: go all the way from the phone - found the product, put it in the basket, issued, paid, received the letter. And separately check how the order looks from your side.

Where to start right

1. Collect 10-15 products in their final form.
2. Write the rules of delivery and payment.
3. Draw a category structure.
4. Define the minimum functions to start.
5. And only then go to the contractor.

These four points are almost ready technical task, and with it they will give you a fair price, not a "from and to" range.

When the store is not needed at all

Sometimes not. If you have 5-10 items and sales go through Instagram - a landing page with a catalog and an order form will solve the problem for a third of the budget.

The store makes sense when there are dozens of items, there are repeated purchases and accounting is required. In other cases, it's complexity for complexity's sake.

Summary

The store crashes not because of the code. It crashes because of a directory that doesn't exist, rules that nobody wrote down, and features that were ordered just in case.

Not sure which store you need? Write to us - we will analyze the problem and tell you honestly, even if the answer is "you will need a landing page".