6 Reasons Your Ecommerce Website Isn’t Getting Enough Sales

Over the last few years, eCommerce has boomed massively due to the pandemic.

The result is more businesses turning to eCommerce, which means more competition, and tougher markets to tackle.

If you’re struggling to generate sales through your eCommerce website, there could be multiple factors contributing to the underperformance.

If you’re not sure what is causing your issues, then keep reading as we cover the 6 most common reasons your eCommerce website isn’t getting enough sales, and how to fix them!

Your SEO needs some work

If your website isn’t getting a lot of visitors, then you could be ranking quite poorly on Google and other search engines.

To get your products ranking highly in search results, and to attract a load of customers to your online store, you need to have a strong SEO strategy in place.

A big misconception that a lot of SEO novices have is that to rank highly, all you need is more backlinks and authority.

But SEO is so much more than that!

If you want to improve your SEO, here are some of the main things you need to look at:

• Implementing the right keywords on your website
• Ensuring your website loads quickly
• Making your website mobile-friendly
• Optimising meta titles and descriptions
• Filling your website with valuable, keyword-rich content
• Optimise images across your website
• Update outdated content
• Find and fix crawl errors
• Ensure your website is free from broken pages
• Use an SEO-friendly URL and page structure
• Build backlinks from relevant, high-authority websites
• Audit your backlink profile and remove any spammy links

And more.

If you want a quick report on your SEO performance, check out our Free SEO Audit Tool! And if you need a helping hand, check out how we can help you supercharge your SEO!

Remember that SEO is a long-term strategy – you can’t expect to see a massive change in just a few weeks.

This is what leads a lot of business owners to abandon their SEO claiming “it just doesn’t work”.

It does; you just need to be patient and consistent with your optimisations.

You’re not running any ad campaigns

Pay-per-click advertising should form a key part of your marketing strategy, so if you’re not running ad campaigns, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to drive visitors and sales to your online store.

While with SEO, it can take a few months before you see results, PPC advertising is great for quickly driving traffic and sales through your website.

With 76.4% of all e-commerce ad spend going through Google Shopping, it’s a great place to start if you want to promote your products online.

With Google Shopping campaigns, you can reach potential customers as they search for products like yours so that you can attract relevant, ready-to-buy visitors to your online store.

The average cost-per-click for Google Shopping ads is around £0.54 ($0.66) – so if your campaign is set up and optimised correctly, your ROI could be massive!

Another great thing about PPC campaigns is that you can raise or lower your budget depending on how many sales you need.

If you want to give your sales a little boost, you can set a smaller budget, but if you need to bring in a lot of revenue quickly, then you can set a higher budget.

You’re targeting the wrong people

If you’re not getting enough sales, then it could be that your product isn’t relevant to the audience you’re targeting.

Here are a few signs that you might be targeting the wrong people:

• High bounce rate on your website
• Your marketing spend has gone up, but your results haven’t
• Low click-through and reply rates on your email campaigns
• High impressions but low click-through rates on your ads
• Negative reviews from previous customers
• More people unsubscribing from your newsletter

If you’re experiencing any of these, re-evaluating your audience targeting is a good idea.

If you haven’t already, start by creating a profile of the current ideal customer you’re trying to target. This should detail who they are, some key demographics and identifiers, and what their needs and problems are – like the example below.

Creating an ideal customer profile gives you a better idea of who you should target by identifying who has a genuine want or need for your products.

You’re not harnessing social media

Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your products online – and it’s free!

Data shows that e-commerce brands that utilise social media see around 32% more sales than those that don’t.

But social media doesn’t just help to bring in more revenue through direct sales; it also helps to build brand awareness and allows you to engage and provide a load of value to your audience.

That, in turn, can also have a substantial positive impact on your sales and revenue!

Providing this value is a crucial step because too many brands just jump on social media and shout about their products 24/7 – but your audience don’t want products and promotions forced down their throats.

If you help them out, give them advice and tips, and other value that keeps them engaged, the sales come naturally through credibility and customer loyalty.

So if you’re not using social media to its full potential, you better get started!

Your User Experience is driving customers away

User experience on your website is everything, and if you’re getting a lot of traffic but not a lot of conversions, then you might need to review it.

Whether it’s the layout and structure, design and colour scheme, or slow loading times, they can all impact your sales.

So what are the signs of a bad UX that you need to look out for?

Low Conversion Rate

This is a big indicator of an issue with your user experience.

Conversion rate is the percentage of your website users that actually convert into customers. If you have a good amount of website traffic, but barely any sales, you’ll have a low conversion rate.

Although it varies in different industries, the average conversion rate for e-commerce websites is around 2.5% – 3%. So, if your conversion rate is considerably lower than that, then there’s an issue somewhere.

Low conversion rates are often caused by poorly worded website copy, poorly structured navigation, and generally poor website experiences.

High Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate indicates that there’s something about your website that’s putting your visitors off.

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave your website without interacting with any other pages or content. They land on your website, have a brief look around, and bolt.

The average bounce rate for e-commerce websites is between 20% and 45% – so if your bounce rate is higher, you’ll need to review your UX.

A high bounce rate can often result from a disengaging user experience, but if you’re running ads, it could mean that what you’re promising in your adverts isn’t matching up to your website.

That’s why it’s essential to review your website user experience and any ad campaigns to ensure they are the best they can be, and are consistent across the board.

Low Session Duration

Session duration is also a big indicator of user satisfaction.

If your users spend a good amount of time on your website, then clearly, your website is pleasant to use and has something that your visitors want – whether that be products, services, or information.

As you’d imagine, on the flip side of that, if your website has a low session duration, and your users are sticking around for just a few seconds on average before leaving, then you’re your user experience, and content on your website are likely to blame.

The average session duration for the e-commerce industry is around just over 2 minutes, so if your users spend only a few seconds on your website, it’s time to revamp your user experience.

High Cart Abandonment

Of course, for e-commerce websites, cart abandonments can also be a clear sign of UX issues.

Cart abandonments are a common occurrence on e-commerce sites. People get distracted, they become busy, or they just change their minds about making a purchase.

Cart abandonment rates are usually quite high, with the average cart abandonment rate falling just under 70%.

But, if you’ve got an unusually high rate of abandoned carts or you’ve seen a sudden increase after making changes to your website, then clearly, there’s an issue somewhere.

If it occurs right at the last stage of purchase, there could be an issue with your checkout structure or payment gateway.

Your prices are too high

Price plays a big part in your customers’ buying decisions, especially if your products have a lot of competition.

If the price of your products is higher than your competitors’, without clear justification as to why, you’ll end up missing out on sales as your potential customers go for the cheaper options.

Here you have two options; lower your prices, or explain why you’re charging more than your competitors – what are your customers getting for spending more?

Implement Strong Product Copy

This is something I recommended to a PPC client that I worked with a few years ago.

They had listed their products online for almost double the price of their competitors, which they explained was down to their product being much more advanced than others on the market.

But their product price wasn’t the issue; their landing pages were.

They were just run-of-the-mill product pages with very little content and no explanation of why their products were better than others on the market. Without this context, all their users will see is a product very similar to others they’ve seen, but for twice the price.

So revamping their product page copy with some strong and compelling content that focuses on the product benefits was my biggest recommendation to them – and it’s my recommendation to you as well!

Limit Additional Costs

Aside from the prices of your products, you also need to consider the additional costs that might be putting your customers off, like shipping costs.

This client I mentioned above was charging around £18 per unit of their products, and their shipping costs were £10, even on small orders!

Most of their competitors were charging far less for their products, and having much lower delivery charges (with some even offering free delivery through retailers like Amazon).

I warned them that it was likely the reason their in-house campaigns in the past didn’t do so well, and they started looking into cheaper providers.

But forget the performance side of things for a minute; it’s also just beneficial for both parties. If you’re paying over the nose for a courier service, and your customers are also being affected by higher delivery charges, then it makes sense to find a cheaper provider. It’ll be better for your customers and for you.

Need help with some fresh marketing ideas for your online store?

If you’re looking to get some fresh ideas on how to grow your e-commerce business, come join us for a Free 1-2-1 Growth Strategy Workshop!

In your 90-minute, 1-2-1 session, you’ll chat with our founder Adam and some of our business growth specialists about the challenges that you’re facing with your business growth and marketing, and how you can overcome them.

The session will be entirely bespoke to you and your business challenges, and you’ll leave with a better understanding of how to grow your online business, as well as some new marketing ideas to try!

You will also get:

• A free website and user experience review
• A free Google ranking audit report
• Advice on the latest and greatest digital trends and tools
• Advice on how to generate leads for your business
• Marketing strategy guidance – how you can overcome your specific marketing challenge and grow your business