The fourth wave continues to ensure that many people’s shopping behavior is shifting to the Internet. This is an important reason for retailers to set up their own online shop in the new year. Create a shop, set it up and get started – but it’s not that easy. Because when creating an online shop, there are some pitfalls.

For example, as Torben Baumdick knows, many people underestimate the hurdles to successful user guidance that a shop has to meet. “In addition to unconvincing product descriptions, poor-quality images or blunders in marketing, numerous mistakes happen,” explains the online shop expert. In the following, he tells you the nine mistakes that retailers make most often when setting up their own shop.

Offering free shipping is one of the easiest ways for online retailers to increase their conversion rate. The conversion rate shows the ratio of visitors to a website who actually buy something. To increase this number, one can include the cost of shipping in the product price instead of adding shipping costs.

Many retailers underestimate how important it is to offer their customers a premium shipping option when starting their first online shop. Because there are always consumers who want their product as quickly as possible – for example because of an upcoming birthday or just before Christmas. By adding one to three euros to the costs for premium shipping, online retailers even make additional sales.

The shipping time is one of the most important information for customers. It should therefore be placed at the top of the product page, for example above the add to cart button – and not in the FAQ area. The notice should be easy to understand and short. For example “In stock – with you in 2-3 days.”

A mistake that is often seen in shops is that products are only displayed individually. A section with products that are often bought together is therefore missing. That’s a pity, because not only can such a section be easily integrated with the help of common online shop software – it is also a very effective way of generating more sales.

A guarantee of at least 30 days should not be missing in any good shop. After all, an online shop is online – for consumers, this means that they cannot hold the product in their hands before they buy it. With a guarantee, dealers take away the fear of disappointment from their customers.

Most online retailers already know that a newsletter makes sense. What is less common is the importance of incentivizing consumers to actually subscribe to the newsletter. The best incentive is a discount voucher for new customers who enter their email address in the distribution list – a ten percent discount is the most common.

Very few consumers want to create a customer account when shopping on the Internet. Merchants who do not give them a choice in this regard are taking a great risk: Such an obligation can actually have a very negative effect on the conversion rate, since potential customers cancel the purchase in the last step.

Superfluous fields that are not necessary to complete the checkout process also frustrate customers. This includes, for example, the company, the floor or the telephone number.

Depending on where online retailers sell, they should also adapt to the country-specific payment methods. However, payment by credit card, Sofortüberweisung, Google, Apple and Shop Pay, PayPal and Klarna should be the absolute standard. You should also find out about payment methods in other countries if you also deliver to them: In Austria, for example, eps transfers are used.

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