Mistakes have a bad reputation, but entrepreneur Alexa Curtis has learned to see them differently. On Shopify Masters, she shares, “You have to go through all of the highs and all of the lows to become the best, most successful version of yourself.” Now, she says, she loves the mistakes that she’s made because they’ve helped her learn and grow, not just personally but when building her brand, Be Fearless Inc.
While mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of, there’s no sense in repeating them. Generic product pages lose sales to competitors. Poor checkout experiences drive shoppers away at the finish line. Neglecting mobile users means missing out on the majority of online purchases.
Learn how to identify and fix 11 common mistakes in the ecommerce industry so you can avoid costly missteps and build a more successful online store.
11 common ecommerce mistakes
- Ignoring audience insights
- Choosing the wrong tools
- Designing a poor checkout experience
- Neglecting web design
- Forgetting mobile users
- Creating uninspired product pages
- Overlooking content
- Using overly aggressive marketing tactics
- Skipping technical SEO
- Lacking customer service
- Failing to establish your “why”
The most common ecommerce mistakes can run the gamut from forgetting mobile users to overlooking your content program. However, Alexa shares one tip that applies across the board: Shamelessly document and share your mistakes and learnings to save yourself and others on your team from repeating them. Here’s what to watch out for:
1. Ignoring audience insights
Without audience insights, businesses often end up prioritizing corporate goals over consumer needs, leading to generic, unappealing results. For example, a furniture ecommerce store might focus on launching a mobile app that customers weren’t asking for, rather than improving the clunky customer checkout experience most customers already use.
Market research can reveal consumer interests, desires, and motivations. Successful ecommerce companies use this information to develop products and marketing strategies that connect on a personal and emotional level.
Start with customer needs research, and define your target audience through customer surveys, competitor analyses, and third-party industry reports. Once you’ve established a general sense of the market, build buyer personas to encourage team members to think deeply about consumer behavior and preferences and keep these insights top of mind.
2. Choosing the wrong tools
Selecting the wrong ecommerce platform or CMS creates daily headaches: duplicate customer records, orders that don’t sync, inventory counts that don’t match your stock. One mismatched tool can mean hours of manual data entry each week.
Ecommerce companies often work with multiple software tools, such as a content management system (CMS), a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an ecommerce platform, and a point-of-sale (POS) system. If they don’t integrate properly, you can face a lot of headaches in tracking orders and customer engagement—particularly as your business grows.
Finding ecommerce integration solutions can save you time and improve your return on investment (ROI). If you’re already operating an ecommerce store, audit your technical needs and work with team members across departments to choose tools that meet everyone’s needs. If you’re planning to launch a new ecommerce store, use a platform that comes with built-in tools and native apps, like Shopify.
3. Designing a poor checkout experience
Checkout problems like website glitches, limited shipping or payment options, and UX design flaws can increase your abandoned cart rates. A complicated checkout process can also lead to lost sales, because each extra step increases the chance a shopper will leave. Removing unnecessary fields or adding a progress bar may help keep customers on the purchasing path.
When customers are handing over their credit card information, a seamless, secure checkout can inspire trust. Ecommerce websites can use trust signals, like displaying an HTTPS certificate and payment processor logos, to help consumers feel confident about payment security.
Establishing credibility, minimizing steps, and offering consumer-friendly payment and delivery options help build a strong ecommerce checkout experience that encourages customers to complete their orders.
4. Neglecting web design
Careless design problems like slow loading times, confusing navigation, and low-resolution images can make your business seem less trustworthy.
Good design matters because your website is one of the main ways to express your brand identity, build credibility, and interact directly with customers—not to mention generate sales. Marketing and advertising initiatives often send consumers to the website to learn more or make a purchase. Once a user lands on your ecommerce site, their first impression and browsing experience can directly influence their opinion of your brand.
Use a high-quality website builder with pre-built templates or investing in professional web development to build an appealing ecommerce store that inspires confidence.
5. Forgetting mobile users
Industry estimates predict mobile commerce to become 63% of total retail ecommerce in 2025. If your ecommerce site doesn’t display properly on mobile devices, you risk missing out on a significant number of potential customers.
Using responsive web design can greatly improve the mobile customer experience. To ensure a high-quality experience, preview website updates on both mobile and desktop devices before publishing. Other mobile optimization tactics include simplifying filtering and sorting in your product search, including video and zoom views, and avoiding pop-ups that cover too much of the screen on mobile devices.
6. Creating uninspired product pages
Generic product pages with blurry photos and thin descriptions lose sales to competitors who show customers exactly what they’re buying. High-quality images and detailed descriptions don’t just inform—they help shoppers imagine owning your product.
To build compelling product pages, include a variety of high-resolution photos, such as clear product images that show users what to expect and curated lifestyle photography that demonstrates how products fit into everyday life. Write product descriptions that capture your brand tone and highlight key use cases, and add a complete list of product specifications and features.
7. Overlooking content
Without high-quality content on your site and social channels, you risk missing out on organic search traffic that can lead to sales.
Creating high-quality, original content may take time and effort, but this practice can bolster your marketing strategy. As a professional content creator, Alexa recommends you hone in on a niche so your content feels distinctive and stands out in a saturated social media environment.
Consistent blog posts and social media content let you connect with consumers in an authentic way. Sharing organic content on social media or in email newsletters can help drive brand engagement and build long-term customer relationships.
8. Using overly aggressive marketing tactics
Relentless discount codes and “Buy Now!” emails drive unsubscribes. Customers stay engaged when you provide value first—helpful content, brand stories, products that solve problems—and save the hard sell for when they’re ready.
Emotional marketing engages with your target audience on a deeper level by creating materials and campaigns that evoke emotions and build meaningful relationships between customers and your brand. By humanizing your brand and your customer’s experience, you can forge relationships that go deeper than a discount code or shopping cart reminder emails ever can.
9. Skipping technical SEO
Optimized blog posts and keyword-rich product pages are only part of the search engine optimization (SEO) equation. A site that loads slowly or confuses search engines can drop from page one to page three—where most searchers never look.
Content marketing initiatives are much more likely to reach the top of search results with technical SEO, the behind-the-scenes work that ensures your site is fast, crawlable, and easy for search engines to index. Issues like broken links, slow loading times, missing site maps, and inconsistent URL structures can all hurt your search engine ranking.
Running a site audit helps your team identify and resolve these website issues. Implementing essential website maintenance tasks and optimizing your website structure with meta titles and schema can boost your domain authority.
10. Lacking customer service
Customer service interactions are important in shaping brand relationships. Negative support experiences can damage a brand’s reputation and contribute to churn. Conversely, handling concerns efficiently and kindly builds trust.
Providing the right resources can set your customer service team up for success. Using a customer service management or customer relationship management (CRM) platform to organize and keep track of incoming tickets reduces the risk of missed communications. Establishing clear guidelines and providing a script for your customer support teams can help ensure customers have consistent, positive interactions.
11. Failing to establish your “why”
Think through the original motivation behind your products. “You can’t just go into this wanting to become famous or make a name for yourself. There has to be a why,” Alexa says. For her, the “why” was creating an outlet for herself as a kid from a modest background with no connections, and wanting to make friends on the internet.
Let that motivation come through in your brand storytelling, marketing messages, and even product copy so that your potential customers have a chance to build an emotional connection.
Common ecommerce mistakes FAQ
Is ecommerce still worth it in 2025?
Although ecommerce competition is high, the global ecommerce market is expected to have an annual growth rate of 6.29% and a projected market volume of $4.96 trillion by 2030. Starting an ecommerce business still lets you reach customers all over the world at a minimal cost, whether you’re interested in a side hustle or building a big brand.
What is the slowest month for ecommerce?
Seasonal sales demand varies depending on your product and industry. In general, January and February tend to be slow sales months for ecommerce as consumers dial back their holiday spending.
What is a good profit margin for an ecommerce store?
Standard profit margin benchmarks vary between ecommerce industries. As a general rule, a 10% net profit margin is deemed average, while a 20% margin is deemed high and 5% is considered low.
