Launching an online shop is easier than it’s ever been. Making one that actually sells is exactly as hard as it always was.
Here are the mistakes we see most often — nearly all of them fixable before launch, and expensive afterwards.
1. Hiding the postage cost
The single biggest cause of abandoned baskets in the UK. Someone adds an item at £24, reaches checkout, and discovers £6.95 postage. They leave — not because £6.95 is unaffordable, but because it feels like a trick.
Put delivery costs on the product page. If you can afford free delivery over a threshold, say so loudly: “Free UK delivery over £50” raises average order value and removes the surprise.
2. Product pages that don’t sell
A photo, a one-line description and a price is a catalogue entry, not a sales page. Online, the product page has to do the job a shop assistant would.
- Multiple photos — angles, scale, in use, close-ups of detail;
- Dimensions and materials — the questions you’d get asked in person;
- Delivery timescales — “dispatched within 2 working days” beats silence;
- Returns — stated plainly, right there, not buried in a policy page;
- Stock status — “only 3 left” is honest urgency when it’s true.
3. A checkout with too many steps
Every field you add loses customers. Ask for what you need to fulfil the order and take payment — nothing more.
Offer guest checkout. Forcing account creation before a first purchase is one of the most reliable ways to lose a sale. Add a postcode lookup rather than making people type an address. Show trust signals — payment logos, returns policy, a real phone number — at the point of payment, where doubt actually surfaces.
4. Choosing the platform before knowing the requirements
Both main options are good; they’re good at different things.
- Shopify — quicker to launch, hosting and security handled, monthly fee plus transaction costs. Strong when you want to sell and not think about infrastructure.
- WooCommerce — runs on WordPress, no platform fee, far more control over design, SEO and content. Stronger when content marketing matters or you have unusual requirements.
Pick based on catalogue size, how unusual your fulfilment is, and how much you’ll rely on content to bring people in — not on which name you’ve heard most.
5. Forgetting the legal requirements
UK online sellers must display:
- Your business name, geographic address and contact details;
- VAT number, if registered;
- Clear pricing, including whether VAT is included;
- Delivery costs and timescales before the customer commits;
- Returns and cancellation rights — 14 days under the Consumer Contracts Regulations for most goods;
- Terms and conditions, and a privacy policy;
- A cookie notice, if you use non-essential cookies.
None of it is difficult. All of it is awkward to retrofit after a complaint.
6. Treating launch as the finish line
Launch day is when the work starts. Your first month’s data is worth more than another month of tweaking beforehand.
Watch where people drop out of checkout, which products get viewed but not bought, and what people search for on your site. That last one is the most underrated: your internal search log is a list of things customers want and can’t find.
Start smaller than you think
Launch with your best-selling twenty products, not all two hundred. You’ll learn faster, spot problems sooner, and photograph the rest with a much clearer idea of what actually converts.
Planning your first shop, or fixing one that isn’t converting? See how we build ecommerce sites, or tell us where it’s going wrong.
