Fed up with successful conversions and rising profits? Want to mix it up a bit and give the competition a chance? A quick online search turned up some examples of bad eCommerce practice so in a positive spin we decided to harness some of the worst to produce a quick overview of appalling eCommerce business strategies. Think of it as reverse psychology to help you tighten up on your site, and you can thank our team of Magento eCommerce solution specialists later!

Clutter, Clutter, Clutter Your Homepage

To do a really bad job in eCommerce, you’ll need a complete overload of information on the homepage. Choose to flash and moving images, and insert poor and irrelevant graphics set against a vibrantly coloured background. Lovely. Think the 1990s, before the invention of sophisticated shoppers and alternative places to shop. Grab their attention with whatever scrolling banner you like best and be sure to design against all the good rules of taste and colour. After all, nearly 50% of shoppers make their decision about you simply based on the way your homepage looks. That’s a whole half of the buying public you can turn away at the door. (Or not!)

Be Really Pushy, Right From The Start

If you want to turn away new customers with ease, have a delay of not more than 2 seconds before your first pop-up. That way they don’t even have the chance to draw breath before you’ve asked them for registration details and long-term commitment. Oh, and why not jump in straight away with a spot of live chat to check why they haven’t bought yet. In short, follow them around as if your annual personal commission depends on manipulating the very thoughts in their brain.

Keep Shipping Mysterious And Complex

For the icing on the eCommerce sabotage cake, bear in mind that you can lose an extra 30% of sales if you absolutely refuse to offer a guest checkout option. Also, why not cram as many steps and fields into the checkout process as possible. Yes, you really DO need to know their shoe size and which badges they gained in the boy scouts. Above all, make it near impossible to find out what your shipping costs are and never – that’s never – make shipping free.

Hope that helps towards positive changes. Many thanks to the eCommerce sites that inspired this advice. You know who you are!