Online trading mistakes made by beginners

Of course, everyone wants their shop to have a good, unique name. But it is important not to overdo it. The name should be memorable not only to you, but more importantly, to your customers.

The specialists at Oise Trade Limited have analysed the most common mistakes made by novice online entrepreneurs and shared tips on how to avoid them. These mistakes cause newcomers to e-commerce to lose time, money and even the desire to continue developing their own business. Find out where to start, how to avoid failure right from the start and how to build a profitable business.

When creating a product catalogue structure, Oise Trade dropshipping specialists recommend considering two key points:

• the catalogue should be intuitive and convenient for customers;
• category names should match search queries.

A product catalogue with the right structure makes it easy to find the necessary products using categories and filters. This will reduce your bounce rate and increase your sales conversion.

You may think that you don't need a business plan because you only plan to include 5-10 items in your product range. But that's not true. A business plan is a roadmap for your shop that will help you understand where you are going and how you are getting there. You don't have to write a serious business plan with lots of pages of calculations, diagrams, etc.

It is enough to answer a few questions:

• Who are your competitors?
• How do you plan to win the direct competition?
• What expenses do you plan to incur in the near future?
• What income do you expect?
• What are your goals for the month, quarter or year?
• Is there a demand for the goods you intend to sell?

Design is the first thing a user notices when they visit your website. If it has an irritating colour scheme and is overloaded with banners and animations, it may put customers off. In addition to its aesthetic significance, poor design also affects conversion rates. For example, a website may simply not be adapted for mobile devices, which is very important because most purchases are made on mobile phones.

Newbies often know nothing about promotion tools. What's more, they believe that they can save money on this for now and come back to it later. In their opinion, it is enough to start by creating a page on social media and updating it regularly. their friends will tell their friends about your shop, and it will become well-known. Those who are more knowledgeable about advertising may choose SEO for free promotion, but website optimisation is not only difficult (and not entirely free), but you will also have to wait quite a long time to see the first results. Remember: to sell, you need to invest. Even successful and well-known shops with a large customer base regularly use paid promotion tools.

CRM is a system that helps entrepreneurs control all channels of communication with customers. It is quite difficult to do without it. Of course, you can keep your customer database in Excel or in your own notebook, but this will be time-consuming and inconvenient. It also significantly increases the likelihood of errors: when processing an order, you can simply mix up the recipients or miss a payment. The best option is to get used to entering tasks correctly right away.

Do not ignore your own mistakes, no matter how minor they may seem, advise the experts at Oise Trade. Analyse all your mistakes and take immediate action to prevent them from happening again. And remember: it is normal to make mistakes; that is how you learn.