About how I wasted a couple of bucks

    For three years in my online commerce business, I made a lot of mistakes. It affected that I did not know whom to ask and where to read. He stuffed all the bumps himself. Today I’ll tell you about one big deal that I filled with my site and it cost me the most.

    First I will tell you how I screwed up and what I got in the end, and then what I learned from it.

    The first start of the store, or rather the first engine, was Shopcms (at that time avalonshop). Without painting all the charms of this engine, I will say that it is difficult for modifications. Even in those distant years, even making a normal design for the engine, and then pulling it would cost us, by our then standards, a lot of money. And for three months we realized that we need to change the design. And besides design, I wanted to make a beautiful, convenient site.

    This is where the general mistakes began.


    A new CMS has been selected - shop-script premium.

    Well, like almost all novice traders, I turned to a friend who made the first version of the site. What is “detailed and competent TK” I did not know, therefore it was cut and corrected for profit. And the search for the optimal way of speech was not carried out, as I saw it, it was done.

    From what I planned, it seemed to me, it would be cool and the customers would be delighted - listing the product catalog and the goods themselves using Ajax. Ideally, by clicking on the letter of the alphabet, in the left column of the catalog a list of brands fell out, in the right list of products starting with this letter. When switching to a brand in a block, brand goods appeared in the goods.

    In practice, everything turned out to be deplorable. Felts because of the curvature of the programmer, felts because of the idea itself, the “return” button in the browser did not work the way most users are used to, and they swore a lot (there was a return to the beginning of the session, not the previous page). Filters: women’s, men’s, “everything ...” malfunctioned, and it’s not clear whether anything changes when the filter is activated.

    The main page was different. There was not a single product, not a single advertising banner. The percentage of failures (withdrawals without visiting each site’s pages) was very high. Then banners and products on the main one were already developed. But again, take a look at how goods are sold on the main one))). It was planned that in the opening window there will be competitor prices and our wonderful price. After implementation, we thought that this was incorrect. Yes, and with the output of photographs of goods in the drop-down window, something is still unclear - sometimes some kind of randomness is felt)

    The withdrawal of goods to the client part was made so that in the admin panel it was necessary to update the goods manually. Although it was possible to specify the articles, it turned out to realize this function only after a year and redid it very much. Before that, the engine was so tricky and cut up with various modernizations that almost nothing worked of the old functionality.

    When we launched cosmetics, I again stepped on an old rake and decided to surprise my customers.

    See how cool colors are displayedin? When hovering over a small icon, a large square indicates the color. We made poti in exactly the same way, only with instructions on how to use it. It looked awful, uncomfortable, inaccessible. We decided to stand out, but forgot about usability, so cosmetics did not go. After a couple of months, they redid it as it is now, as in almost any other online store.

    And the problem is not even that, we spent a lot of time and money on alterations, the amount of 1500 cu ran You yourself see the condition of the site. The biggest problem is that the current engine is not subject to modification. It’s easier, cheaper, faster to buy a new one and do everything on it. And the old one also works with periodic glitches, the most deadly ones were fixed, but earlier they “killed” orders / clients.

    PS I am sure there will be those who want to measure in pipes or draw quick conclusions. Despite the govnosayt, my store has conversion only for new customers at 6%. We work with the old ones through constant mailings and personal contact, which gives us a good influx of new orders, despite the small number of visitors. Relations with regular customers are built on high trust in the store, excellent service, in a word - on marketing, and not usability, prices, design, etc. About this - which is cooler than design / usability or marketing, I will write more.

    Why we have not yet launched a new site - a long, confidential conversation.

    “A fairy tale is a lie and a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows ...” (c)


    Any modernization of the site should be carried out after a deep analysis of the issue. The statement of the problem, the need, the methods / methods, the material and time costs, the compilation of the TOR and the CONSEQUENCES of implementation. The latter is not just an analysis and forecast of the result of introducing new functionality. During planning, it is necessary to calculate the consequences for each item.

    The statement of the problem - on how much the task will be formulated, it depends on how easily it will be solved, how much money will be spent. In addition, a detailed description of the problem helps to see more subtleties and small things in implementation, and to find new ways to solve it during the preparation of the ToR. The consequences of a poor study of this stage is an increase in temporary and material resources for implementation.

    Necessity - are there any changes at all? How profitable are they? Are there any more pressing issues? Consequences - if it turns out that you were solving a particular problem, instead of solving global issues, in the future the created functionality may turn out to be irrelevant and subject to remodeling.

    Ways \ methods - look for a long time, painstakingly, dig deep, find many different ways to solve the problem. Approach systematically the development of a method for solving the problem. Analyze the links tied to future functionality. Plan how the new functionality will work in conjunction with the rest of the engine. Consequences - an innovation may simply not fit into the existing system if you develop it in isolation from the functionality of the entire engine.

    Material and time costs - as already mentioned, you can find a middle ground. Need to find.

    The result of introducing new functionality is how end customers will perceive it. As far as the new function will be clear and accessible to customers. The consequences are ignoring the service, worsening conversion, losing money.

    Why did I decide to talk about this?


    Honestly, a year ago, I didn’t fully understand why professionals should pay money to solve your problems, consult and conduct an audit. But more and more delving into the essence of the matter, the understanding comes that: “doing everything right from the very beginning” saves not only time, nerves, but also money. Yes! Most importantly, a professional solution to the issue saves money. The avaricious pays twice, and each time a large sum.

    No, I by no means urge to urgently run to order audits, studies, business plans, marketing support, which of course is worth doing with money. But at least consult on the subject of elementary things. As practice shows, this is very relevant, most startups are surprisingly uniform in repeating the same mistakes of doing business in online commerce.

    No money for IT? Have you thought? This is another big problem - the wrong profitability calculation system. Entrepreneurs spare money for design + engine, snatch where they can, in order to put as much as possible into contextual advertising. And at the same time, many do not understand that not only did the advertisement run stupidly (in the vast majority of cases), it gives a small result because it was poorly prepared. And now 100 bucks spent with an efficiency of 20% (cost + 20% repelled), could be spent more rationally: spend 20% of the budget on specialist assistance, and then the remaining 80% of the budget, to implement with an efficiency of at least 50% . The context is taken as the simplest example.

    Fasting is not something revolutionary. I once again appealed to those who have not yet realized the vital truth of this post.Repetition - mother of learning

    PS want to trust, want to check

    PPS thank you dimansky for the remark with errors in the text

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