Why doesn’t my eCommerce sell?

It is frustrating to give it your all in your online business, apply what experts and common sense recommend, but, for whatever reason, not seeing results that satisfy the expectations we created.

In this post, we want to take you through a series of checks that could help you. It is not an audit, it does not have magic recipes, but it is a review of aspects that, sometimes, go unnoticed.

We are going to take inspiration from common mistakes, failures that we have seen many times and details that, even though they may seem very small, may be making the difference, but in a bad way.

Let’s begin.

We want to help you rule out those potential problems, so we have prepared this post that reviews different causes.

We go from technical matters to marketing errors, without forgetting what is related to usability and the shopping experience. It may be that one or several of the points that we will comment on below are weighing down your business without you realizing.

The recommendation is that you follow the post in order and check, one by one, each section, because it is structured from greatest to least impact on sales.

Sorry for insisting, but it is very important: no matter how convinced you are that a specific point does not affect you, review it objectively and, perhaps, you will discover that something you were taking for granted is one of the triggers of your lack of conversion.

Ok, in this case we are clear about the reason for not selling what we want. If no one enters the store, you can have the best eCommerce, the most reliable and the most beautiful, and the cash register will continue to grow cobwebs.

This happens, almost always, due to an issue related to investment or the optimization of digital marketing campaigns. The main reasons are:

1.- You are not running campaigns and you are relying entirely on organic positioning and word of mouth.

2.- Your advertising investment is not well optimized or distributed, so part of your budget is wasted.

3.- You are working little on your social networks, or you are doing it a lot, but you do not have a conversion strategy that generates traffic.

To solve it, or mitigate it, you should improve these points:

1.- SEO is a good medium- and long-term strategy, despite how unstable it always is and how it is changing in the times of AI. The problem is that you need immediate traffic. I am sorry to tell you, but it is very likely that you will have to invest a bit in advertising.

2.- Are you already investing and almost nothing is coming in? That is another problem, because most likely you are in the wrong channels or, at least, the money is not being put where it should be. As a general piece of advice, I remind you that Google Ads has more conversion in search and shopping than other platforms.

3.- Social networks build brand, for example, Meta by itself is great for awareness, but Meta optimizing the catalog or TikTok with TikTok Shop can be a very good way to sell and attract new audiences even if they do not bring as much referred traffic to the online store.

If this happens, we will assume that you are doing something to attract (surely advertising, SEO, PPC, content on social networks…).

The first piece of news I have share is good, because in some way it is working. The bad news is that, surely, you are attracting an audience that is not the right one for your business.

Traffic for the sake of traffic is of absolutely no use, you need to rethink the segmentation of your audience. Right now there are several scenarios:

1.- You have a value proposition and a tone in your communication that do not correspond with what they find in your store. A problem of expectations.

2.- You are attractive to an audience that is not exactly your real target audience. The users who access your website do not have a real purchase intention, while you are not reaching those who would potentially buy from you.

3.- There is a technical problem that does not allow users to purchase, for example, from certain devices or technologies.

4.- The shopping experience is bad or, simply, the website is not usable for those people who browse your eCommerce.

5.- The prices of your products are not adjusted to the reality of the market, or there is a competitor that is being very aggressive. Users tend to compare before buying.

As you can see, this situation can be multifactorial, which is why it requires several recipes. I would recommend for each case:

1.- Review your campaigns to generate a message that fits reality. For example: if you attract by price, make sure you are truly competitive or, on the contrary, if you attract by a specific exclusive product, make sure you have it in stock. Hooks do not sell and, on the contrary, they cost money.

2.- Take a look also at the segmentation of your campaigns. You may be wrong in the socio-demographic profile, in the age range, or in any other parameter. Also look carefully at the audiences and placements where your campaigns appear.

3.- Try making purchases from any mobile operating system, from desktop, from any browser, with active extensions and without them… let no one be left without buying in your store due to a technical issue.

4.- I especially recommend qualitative user tests, observe the interaction by users outside the organization and check whether products are found intuitively and whether everything flows.

5.- Monitor and spy on your competition to know the reality of your segment, and be clear that when the problem is price, and you have no margin to compete, you have to find a way to continue being competitive with additional added value (better service, fast delivery, cross-selling…)

Again good news: you have managed to overcome the fears and barriers of eCommerce… at least once. Of course, I understand that it may frustrate you to make single sales that do not repeat over time, but you are on the right track.

Why does this happen? what am I doing wrong so that customers do not repeat?

Well, here different situations also occur:

1.- It is likely that the post-sale experience is not the best. In fact, this is one of the main reasons.

2.- Simply, that user has stopped having us as an option in the range of alternatives they handle.

In these cases it is time for self-criticism, on the one hand, and to consider strategies that allow us to remain in their “top of mind”.

1.- Audit what happens after the purchase. Are you properly informing about the status of the shipment? Are your transactional emails clear? Does everything work correctly with the logistics platform? Does your customer service team respond? Is the packaging appropriate? Does the product you deliver meet the customer’s expectations?

Investing in the improvement of this is investing in user experience and, therefore, in recurrence.

2.- Design strategies to remain in the user’s mind, simple things such as a good email flow, with different email marketing actions that can range from subscribing to a newsletter with a discount on the next purchase, to other types of promotions, but without forgetting content that is not commercial, that is useful for the customer.

I hope that this small list of actions has shed some light and helps you review processes and important details.