4 Common Mistakes That Will Spell Doom Your Ecommerce Business

These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t at least considered the idea of ​​starting an e-commerce business.The United States is the estimated world leader 14 million That number will continue to grow as online sales continue to gain traction among everyone from established brick-and-mortar stores to individuals taking their first entrepreneurial steps.

It’s true that setting up an e-commerce store has never been easier, but unfortunately, getting sales and being successful is as difficult as ever. Probably more, given the increased competition. As the CEO of an on-demand consumer goods platform, I have a front row seat to the trials and triumphs of today’s digital businesses. I’ve seen first-time entrepreneurs achieve life-changing success, and I’ve seen great ideas die due to poor execution and other reasons.

What I’ve noticed is that people succeed in different ways, but often fail in the same ways. While it is difficult to identify success stories in advance, it is easy to tell if a business will struggle. With that in mind, here are the four most common mistakes people make when starting an e-commerce business.

Related: Business Owners: Are You Making These 10 Mistakes?

become completely paralyzed

There are also great products that never saw the light of day simply because business owners couldn’t find the best button color for their website. This sounds silly, but you’re the one spending countless hours sweating over the little things trying to make everything perfect.

Perfectionism is a common vice, especially among first-time entrepreneurs, because they don’t understand what is “good enough.” People make every effort to imitate the best examples in their industry, but in large companies, entire teams of developers, designers, and copywriters are doing the work that entrepreneurs try to manage alone. I forget that there are many. “Doing things right” is completely unrealistic.

Instead, it might be wise to take a page out of the product developer’s book and focus on the MVP (minimum viable product). The idea behind an MVP is to do the bare minimum necessary to get a functional product (in our case, a store). And once you’re up and running, you can iterate, improve, and hone to your heart’s content. This will help you overcome perfection paralysis and focus on truly moving the needle.

sell to everyone

Speaking of moving the needle, building a brand without understanding your customers is like sailing without a compass. Sure, you may be moving, but in what direction? What challenges will you encounter? Should you have brought hiking boots or a boat?

The ABCs of entrepreneurship teaches us that for a business to be successful, it must meet a real need. But it’s up to you to identify exactly who has that need. Often it’s a small number of people. (If not, that’s a red flag that you may have bitten off more than you can chew.)

This audience has unique characteristics, including demographics, preferences, pain points, and more. Successful companies leverage these factors to create customized messages, select the best advertising platforms, and further develop their services. Conversely, unsuccessful companies are unaware of who these potential customers are and instead opt for blanket messaging that targets everyone rather than anyone in particular.

Experience shows that a laser-focused approach always beats a broader network.

Related: I became a successful entrepreneur by accident.Here are my top 5 mistakes to avoid when starting a business

Refuse to adapt or admit mistakes

Failure is inevitable in early entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, it is also during this early stage that people become the most idealistic. They have firm expectations about how everything should work and become narrow-minded about making this particular idea a reality rather than building a successful business.

As you can imagine, this initial vision is usually misguided. Want to stand out with a very unique brand voice? There’s a reason no one does it. Do you want to reach new users with your product? There’s a reason why this audience isn’t interested in your product.

The hallmark of high-potential businesses is the ability to recognize when their ideas aren’t working and pivot to alternatives. Yes, it’s hard to kill a loved one, but unless you do, you’ll end up running out of resources and banging your head against a wall on a failed concept.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t just concern your business idea, but all your business activities, including design, marketing, products, and more. If something doesn’t work, adapt.

trying to do everything alone

Going from idea to first sale requires a variety of skills. This means that solopreneurs have to put in a lot of effort. They should be designers, copywriters, website developers, user experience experts, accountants, partnership managers, and marketers. All of this includes design, sourcing, logistics, photography, and more, not to mention the product itself.

Some people do just fine, and that’s great. But you don’t have to go it alone.

For example, I’ve seen many aspiring entrepreneurs get hooked on learning peripheral skills like graphic design when all they really need is a logo. It costs him $5 to get a logo from a freelancer on a job site. Even worse, people get burnt out from constant learning and abandon business ideas simply because they can’t manage what they could have done by paying someone else a few bucks.

Indeed, people who have struggled and overcome love to wear adversity as a badge of honor. It’s human nature to take pride in doing things the hard way. But that’s not necessarily good business.