It took a lot of hard work and, at times, you nearly gave up on the dream of owning your own business. But, you stuck it through, staggered along and finally made it. Your e-commerce site up and running, you are fully stocked and all that is needed is for your customers to come rushing in your “front door”.

And so you wait … and wait. Absolutely nothing.

You start to panic as you realize that with the way things are going, you won’t even be able to make rent (or to be more specific, make hosting and domain payments) and it could get worse – if you have goods in storage, you could be holding on to liabilities instead of assets.

Try as you may, you can’t figure out why your e-commerce isn’t making you any money. Everything looks perfect, everything runs smoothly, your products are of good quality and the little feedback you do have seems to be positive- so what could it be?

Well, there could be many reasons and it could also be because of a combination of them. But in any case, here are some important points you need to focus on to get back in the black:

High Prices

The internet market is highly volatile. In a world where globalization is the norm, each product that you are selling is available from thousands of other vendors with just as many prices. Throw into the mix that currency exchange rates dip and rise by the minute and you get a price for each of your products that is never truly stable. This, in turn, means that unless you keep a close eye on the details, you will always have competitors that offer everything you have at a lower price.

Therefore, you will either have to keep adjusting your prices as regularly as possible or make up for the difference by offering something extra – like free shipping locally or discounts on purchases exceeding a certain amount.

Low Conversions

One important reason why you aren’t making money could be the fact that people are just window-shopping on your site – they come, they see they leave. This is a clear indication of a low “conversion” rate – a term used to indicate the rate of people being converted from visitors to paying customers.

If you can’t convince your visitors that your goods or services are exactly what they are looking for, they will simply move on. You have to focus on increasing your conversion rates. Simple things like making your website easier to navigate, gathering feedback from your customers and improving on issues they raise and also sharing your positive feedback will help a lot.

Too Complicated

There is nothing more annoying than going to a site and not being able to find what you are looking for because you do not know how to proceed. If your site has buttons and links everywhere that end up getting your visitors lost or unable to figure out the next step, they’ll just click on the “X” and move on.

Always make sure that your visitors know where to click to proceed to the next page or the subsequent part of your process. You can make sure that they see the buttons or links by using eye-catching graphics and placing them where they expect to find them.

A better way to handle it would be to shorten your processes so that they are completed with as few steps as possible and on a minimum number of pages. If you think that having your process end on one or two pages might confuse your visitors, consider adding textual or graphical instructions to help clarify each step.

Technical Issues

One of the most common reasons businesses lose customers (and revenue) is because things simply don’t work like they are supposed to. A visitor coming to your site only to find that it crashes, will either make a u-turn to never return or – if he or she decides to stay – will have second thoughts about doing business with a company that doesn’t have a working website.

Before launching your website, or right after any improvements have been made on it, you must take it through a rigorous testing process which should include all conceivable business scenarios, to ensure that everything works as it is supposed to.

If everything works fine and you still have issues with your site, then you should probably look into problems with your hosting solution provider.

Limited Payment Options

A truly global company cannot afford to limit its options when it comes to accepting payments. Yes, it is one thing to opt for the most secure and trusted methods, but omitting to entertain a preferred payment option could be a costly mistake.

The most popular ways to pay online are by using credit or debit cards that are issued by MasterCard and Visa. For those that prefer paying via online payment gateways, nothing compares to PayPal. These are the industry standards.

But, if you want to attract customers outside your domain, you will need to get out of your comfort zone and incorporate their preferred way of payment. Take China for example, if you aim to tap into that huge market you will have to accept payments via Union Pay, as it is the most commonly used payment gateway there. The Japanese would rather use Japan Credit Bureau.

Along with payment methods, remember to list your prices in the local currencies – or at least provide a way for your visitors to switch currencies.

Security Feature

The internet is full of horror stories that tell of people who had their accounts wiped out and their lives destroyed because of hackers. It is becoming quite difficult to convince visitors to part with their credit card information. One way of raising their confidence is by making sure you have the required security checks in place.

Things like SSL certificates and making certain that your site is PCI compliant are the basics of ecommerce security today. Implement them – most webhosting companies offer these features at affordable prices – and then let your visitors know about them.

Next, make the utmost effort to never put your customers at risk and the online community will learn to trust you. For example, avoid storing users’ information – that way there is nothing to lose. Follow security news and make sure your website is always patched up and updated.

Finally, make sure that everything is secure by testing your site using penetration tools.

Commerce, be it online or in the real world, is highly unpredictable. You need to keep tweaking and updating your site for the duration that it is up and running – just like you would keep improving your physical brick-and-mortar store.