In the realm of e-commerce, progress comes from the intelligent use of forethought and how you work to achieve the goal of total customer satisfaction. To create a successful online store, it’s crucial to win over your customers by providing them with a website that meets the requirements of modern trends. In today’s age, where planning is the thought to be imperative in any policy-building exercise, online owners are encountering some critical mistakes that hamper the development of their projects and disturb the fortunes of their online store.
These issues can be related with the scalability of the website, software or design implementation, customization, or anything that can severely affect the growth of your business. Some of the mistakes are inherited from the development stage, while some of them are committed due to lack of accurate planning and clear understanding of Magento principles. To help you identify these errors, we have listed some common mistakes that ecommerce website owners commit.
Technical Mistakes
1. Making Alterations to the Magento Core Files
Developers often face time constraint issues while working on a Magento project. They usually have to complete the project within a short span of time and hand it over to their client. As a result, few developers attempt to alter the core Magento files to fulfil the requirements of the customized solutions. However, this type of development process can have adverse effects on the website, resulting in inefficient operations and scalability issues.
One of the tried and tested methods for modifying the core files can be achieved by creating a copy of the same folder in a local module folder. It will appear like this:
e.g.: To modify
app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/controller/ProductController.php
Copy the complete folder structure to
app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/controller/ProductController.php
2. Not Opting for a Proper Server Location
To make your website score well on the top of your customer’s mind, it’s essential to have a hosting plan or server that effectively locates your target customers and thus helps you to serve their needs better. For example, you want to score well for the keyword: “soccer T-shirts” and your target market is the UK, it’s crucial to have a hosting plan that is directed towards the audiences of that country.
3. Disabling the Caching Module
It has been often observed that at the time of creating custom module or when it comes to integrating third-party Magento module is concerned, developers have the tendency to disable the cache module and then test it. This kind of practice will not provide you with the desired results. So, it’s recommended to enable or switch on the cache when a module is tested or customized.
4. Not Modifying the Homepage Title
This is probably one of the most common mistakes made by the owners. Magento comes with a default homepage title called “home”, which needs to be altered to ensure the safety and functioning of your website. So, it’s recommended to fix the issue and give your store a more suitable name.
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Marketing Mistakes
1. Ignoring Social Media
It’s not important to be proactive across the numerous online channels, but it’s crucial to be informed about what kinds of opinions and views your customers are forming about you. When they complement you, it’s good to thank them with the nice gesture, and when they criticize, it’s your duty to come up with the solutions that safeguard your reputation. And, in most of the cases, it’s the social media platform that allows you to stay abreast of all the latest changes in the attitudes and preference of your customers.
2. Not Providing Clear Information to Your Customers
Being an owner, it’s your responsibility to be clear about your service and product offerings. You should strive to provide complete and reliable information to your customers regarding products, cost of shipping involved, methods of payment, product categorisation, user accounts ( if providing) etc. This will boost your users confidence on your website, which would result in improved sales and customer loyalty.
3. Not Optimizing Check Out Process
When customers select the products, add them to their cart, and proceed for the payment options, make sure that the process should be seamless enough to make your customer feel easy and comfortable. So, it’s crucial to ask them only about that information which is essential to continue the process. You can also ask your customers to provide relevant feedbacks and opinions to make the process smoother.
Conclusion
The above mentioned are just the common errors that developers and store owners often commit while building or running a Magento store. Avoiding these pit falls will definitely help them a lot to leverage the overall benefits that Magento has to offer, and thereby improving revenue and growth of their business.
Author Signature: Danial Wright is certified Magento Developer cum blogger. Presently, he is employed with Magentax Ltd, a Custom Magento development company. He loves sharing information rich content about Design to Magento conversion tips and tricks.
