In this post, I’m going to show you 10 sales mistakes to avoid when selling products online. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling digital products or physical products you’ll benefit from reading this post. The mistakes I’ve listed out, for the most part, are easily fixed and can increase your conversion rate by a considerable amount if avoided.
So Let’s take a look at the…
10 Sales Mistakes to avoid when selling products online In 2019 And Beyond!
Mistake #1. The website looks too amateurish
I’ve noticed that a lot of people want their website to have this professional yet minimal look but to achieve that is more difficult than you think. Take that from someone that’s studied architecture and has spent a lot of time working on graphic designs.
The look of your website heavily represents your brand. The moment your website looks amateurish, website visitors will assume that your service will be at the same level. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by being stubborn and trying to make a website from scratch yourself.
My advice would be to get a nice looking customizable WordPress theme. This will save you a lot of time that you could’ve spent on actually selling your products and making money.
Mistake #2. Low-Quality pictures of the products
Our imagination can run wild sometimes, especially with online products because there’s the chance you might get scammed. It’s easy to become paranoid and assume the worst about unknown factors.
The first time I rented a house with Airbnb I was like that. I’d see all these beautiful houses but some pictures weren’t clear enough and thoughts came up like:
“… I don’t see a picture of the third bed. Do they really have three beds in the apartment? …””
”…Do they really have two bathrooms? I don’t see the second one…”
“…Let’s look at another house. I’m not sure this house really has everything we need…”
To prevent people from thinking this I got a list of things you have to used to make great pictures.
- A good camera
With how far we’ve gotten with or mobile phones it’s possible to make quality pictures using your phone. - Tripod
If your anything like me a tripod can really be a lifesaver. I got a pretty steady hand when it comes to drawing but with filming not so much. A Tripod prevents taking blurry pictures. - White background
An contrast between the background and the product will make the product stand out. No unneccecary things in the background that’ll take your attention away from the product just a boring white background. - Lighting
Lighting can make or break a picture. I prefer to take pictures in a room with big windows so you can use natural daylight to make great pictures.
Invest just a bit more into making good photo’s and you’ll increase your chances of selling your product by a lot.
Mistake #3. Not focusing on the benefits of your products
It’s easy to become romantic when you’re selling a product you might’ve made and believe in, but not everybody sees the appeal of a product immediately. In a lot of instances, you have put extra effort into communicating what’s so great about the product. Mentioning all the features aren’t going to cut it.
For example, you might be selling camera’s and know every there is to know about the specs of each camera. Telling people about the specs isn’t going to help you in most instances. Most potential buyers don’t know anything about the specifications of a camera and aren’t interested in them. They only care about if it has the capability to film everything in the way they want it.
So focus on the benefits of your product, not the features.
Mistake #4. Lack of elements that create credibility and social proof
Ever heard about the phrase standing on the shoulder of giants? It’s a phrase that describes the process of discovering truth based on previous discoveries. It’s one of the biggest reasons we’ve advanced as a civilization this fast. We learn from second-hand experiences.
The trust we have in second had experiences can be used as a valuable tool when it comes to selling products. For a potential buyer to actually buy one of your products he needs to have some trust. This is where the use of second-hand experiences comes in handy.
Before someone buys a product they need to know if:
- It’s a quality product
- They aren’t going to get scammed out of their money
- and more.
Luckily you can take care of the things they worry about quick with the help of second-hand experience. You can do this for example by putting a list of high profile people you worked with on your website, showing testimonials from happy customers, getting endorsed by high profile people in your niche. They’ll trust you because others trust you.
As a beginner, the easiest one would probably be to go with testimonials. You could give your product for free in exchange for testimonials.
Mistake #5. Selling to Ambition
What I’m going to say now applies to the masses I realize everyone is different and there are a lot of exceptions out there but there is way more money to be made when you cater to the masses. Now having said that…
People mostly don’t want to work. The moment they can choose between attaining their goal without work or doing it with they’ll always choose for the first option. This is why in most cases it’s counterproductive to sell to ambition.
People want to know the benefits but get turned off the moment they hear there’s a lot of work that has to be done even after buying the product.
Let them know they need to work hard after buying the product but don’t tell them about every little step they need to take because they’ll envision this endless journey that’ll never end.
Mistake #6. Unnecessary Confusion
A big mistake that can scare people away is not keeping your message simple. You might have this amazing product that’s backed up by all kinds of amazing and complex scientific articles you want to tell your website visitors about but they might get confused. Confusion is a serious conversion killer.
Confusion creates doubt and doubt can be the difference between having a steady income and not earning money at all. This confusion isn’t only created when you use complex articles but can also be the result of a disconnect in your funnel.
An example can be advertising on social platforms that you’re giving a discount but you don’t mention it on your landing page. Things like this can make you miss out on a lot of sales.
I’ve even seen people miss out on sales just because their checkout page was on another website and they failed to mention it beforehand.
Mistake #7. Neglecting SEO as a marketing channel
SEO isn’t really attractive to most people because it’s a long-term thing and you can make money right away using paid advertisement but not spending any time on SEO is a huge mistake. Investing in SEO doesn’t take a lot of time and what you’ll get in return is:
- Free high targeted traffic
- 24/7 non-stop promotion
- Passive Marketing
It’s a missed opportunity that can maximize your profit since you aren’t paying for your marketing.
Create a simple blog and post quality content on it 3-4 times a week and before you know it you’ll be cashing in.
Mistake #8. The website isn’t mobile responsive
Nowadays everyone is glued to their phones. We might be somewhere and feel a little boredom come up and we immediately reach for our pockets and grab our phones. According to the website statistica, the number of mobile phone users is expected to pass the 5 billion mark by 2019.
It’s safe to say a lot of our attention is directed to the phone so having a website that isn’t mobile responsive is inexcusable.
The moment people look up your website on their phones and they see all these glitches the chance of selling a product will drop significantly. Make sure your website is mobile responsive.
Mistake #9. Spelling and grammar mistakes
This mistake pretty many ties into mistake number one. If the text is full of spelling and grammatical errors your website is going to come off amateurish and untrustworthy. If you can’t even take care of little errors like that how can you expect others to trust in the service you’re providing.
English isn’t my first language and creating spelling error free content can be quite a hassle this is why I downloaded Grammarly. I still have some errors here and there but they’re nothing compared to how my posts used to look.
Try it out!
Mistake #10. Not spending energy on customer retention
Selling products isn’t as easy as it’s made out to be on the internet. You have all these people on YouTube talking about how they made thousands of dollars in days and you might’ve tried it too but found out there’s more to it than putting some pictures of products online.
There are so many scammers out there that people are hesitant to buy products online unless you have their trust. This might seem like a bad thing but it’s actually an opportunity in disguise if you ask me.
The moment you have someone’s trust after they bought something from you they’ll be more likely to buy things from you in the future. This way 1 sale per person can turn into 3- sales per person. All that money can be invested in improving your marketing which will maximize your profit.
Ask for people their emails so you can stay in contact with them just in case you’re bringing out a new product.
That’s all for now.
Hope this post was of value to you and if you have questions feel free to leave a comment.
See you at the next post!
