Understanding Your Target Audience
I've noticed that a lot of store owners seem to slip into a bit of a trap when it comes to figuring out their potential customers. There appears to be this natural inclination for people to want to be all things to all people. No one wants to leave money on the table, right.
And so, with this mindset, they try and cast the net as wide as possible. I'm not saying that's wrong - it makes sense on the surface. But if we really dig deeper into what most successful businesses are doing, they're looking for a particular subset of people and figuring out how their product or service solves their specific problems. It's a little bit counterintuitive but going broad actually leads you nowhere.
Going narrow, however, tells your customers what you're about from the jump. Of course, it's not as easy as picking which group of people you like and then selling exclusively to them. There's research involved and then there's digging into why they make decisions the way that they do.
It feels like trying to untangle different kinds of fishing lines some days - but asking yourself what your ideal customer's day looks like is a great start. It can't stop there though. A thorough understanding means looking at buyer behaviour and competing products too. If you can swing it, talking directly to your customers using surveys or interviews always seems worthwhile for my clients too.
Choosing the Right E-commerce Platform
Let’s face it, most people get sucked in by the bells and whistles when they start looking for e-commerce platforms. All the promises of smooth navigation and endless plug-ins - that's what everyone is looking for. Or worse, they'll base their decision on popularity.
But what these folks forget is that what works for someone else might be a total nightmare for you and your business. Most people I know will go straight for Shopify or WooCommerce without really considering other options that are better suited to their unique business. Don’t get me wrong, I think both are great platforms but if you’re running a huge global operation, they might not be enough for you. Then there’s Magento (now known as Adobe Commerce) that comes with all the advanced features you could ever need.
But if your business is only two years old with less than 50 SKUs, then you’d do far better going with Shopify or even BigCommerce. There’s also this general misconception that once you choose an e-commerce platform, there’s no changing it ever again. I’m not saying it’s easy to migrate - it can be expensive and time-consuming depending on your current setup and how big your operations are.
But if a platform is simply not working for you anymore or if there have been too many performance issues to justify staying on, then migrating is fairly common. It happens more often than you think. At the end of the day, it comes down to several factors like how big your product catalogue is, what payment methods are non-negotiable for you and your customers, how much customisation you need, how much technical expertise your team has and so on. Sort of.
No one expects new businesses to have all the answers but thinking about these things before committing to a platform can somewhat save a lot of time, money and effort in the long run.
Designing a User-Friendly Interface
Design is a bit of a hard sell. People have strong opinions. My Aunty is exactly like that.
She thinks vintage gold and blue floral ceramic tiles are absolutely the pinnacle of kitchen design - she’s clearly got no taste, but don’t tell her I said that. It seems like we all have an Aunty Gladys in our lives, and you’ll run into your fair share when you’re designing a website. The mistake people make is to build for themselves, and not their customers.
More often than not, they overestimate what looks good and underestimate how simple it should be. Design is subjective, sure, but you know what isn’t. What customers want.
You want to build for this specific customer who’s come to your website after seeing you on Instagram or Facebook. Maybe they’ve just discovered your store from a Google search or an advertisement they came across while searching for something else entirely. These potential customers are looking for something that feels familiar - not identical, but not confusing either.
You don’t want to confuse your customers as soon as they get to your website because remember: there are more than a billion websites on the internet and someone else can offer something similar if not identical to yours. And if you don’t keep them engaged with user experience and design, they’ll leave before the page even loads. Don’t overwhelm your customer or give them too much information at once - start small with categories or sections, then get specific so people who do know what they want can find it quickly without getting overwhelmed by everything you have available right away.
Implementing Secure Payment Solutions
There seems to be this lingering belief that setting up payments is all about picking Stripe, clicking a few buttons, and calling it a day. I think people get the whole thing wrong as soon as they forget that secure payment systems are not there for convenience - they’re there for trust. People want and have come to expect safe, hassle-free ways to pay, yes - but most store owners tend to skimp on the part about ensuring their buyers feel confident in the store. It’s so much more than asking for someone’s credit card details and encrypting them at rest.
A good chunk of the process is about ensuring sellers are PCI-compliant, while another big part is in making sure buyers know you’re not going to scam them. And then you have to think about multiple payment methods so you can serve the widest customer base possible (but not so many that it starts slowing down everything for everyone else).
Then there’s the privacy issue. You’d think people stopped worrying about privacy in 2024, but they really haven’t. Quite the contrary - every time the media brings up data breaches or scams or the likes, people set stricter boundaries on who can typically have their data and what they can use it for. This means privacy policies need to be clear and easy to find - because if someone has a hard time finding your privacy policy, there’s no way they’re giving you their credit card details.
I think, ultimately, it comes down to how well a secure payment system is implemented. Stores aren’t going to go out of business if they don’t have biometric authentication but can’t seem to make it work - but being secure (and showing customers you’re serious about their safety) has never hurt anyone’s chances at conversion.
Optimizing for Search Engines and Mobile Devices
Many business owners seem to think search engine optimisation is a sort of mysterious dark art. They treat it like a magic spell you cast once, then forget about it. The thing is, search engines are apparently just robots who read content and analyse words, links, and website structure.
And they don’t love walls of text or clickbait that bounces people off your site. There’s so much more to proper SEO than plugging in a few keywords or using some AI tool to “optimise” a blog post. The way I see it, truth is, the real secret is to write for humans who are searching for what you offer - not for the algorithm. Clear categories, smart image tags, fast-loading pages - they all matter when robots are crawling around your online shop.
Especially if you want your customers to find you first. But it does get quite complicated and technical, especially with mobile optimisation now being crucial. Websites that don’t load quickly on phones will lose sales, no matter how pretty they look on desktop or how clever the marketing pitch sounds. I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck - somewhere between being creative and being technical.
It can be hard to know what matters most. If there’s one tip that feels timeless, I’d say: keep things simple for people and robots alike. Search engines aren’t scary when you remember they’re just code reading copy and checking if people hang around your site long enough to buy something. Write copy that is clear, friendly, and encourages people to come back because they feel understood - not because the Google overlords told them to.
Strategies for Effective Marketing and Customer Retention
Many business owners think they can get away with splashing a bit of cash on an ad campaign and get a decent customer base. Some people think it’s about quantity, rather than quality. I think a lot of the time, it’s quite the opposite.
The reality is that being able to draw in the right kind of customer is vital to a store’s success. You don’t want someone who will make one or two purchases and then never come back again. Instead, you should be attracting the kind of shopper who will keep coming back for more of your products or services.
You have to consider whether you’re also making your store easily accessible for people with disabilities. You’ve got to factor in how you want to market your product: do you want to offer deals on holidays. Do you want to do giveaways for customers.
Is there a way you can create a customer loyalty program. There are so many things to consider that it can sometimes feel overwhelming, but if you remember that the main goal is creating a sense of community, then it gets easier. At the end of the day, all people really want is something unique and engaging - so why not take the opportunity to highlight what makes your store special.