Seven shop mistakes that quietly kill sales

A customer fills the basket, types in their details and, at the very last step, sees the delivery charge or the extra fee for cash on delivery. The price they had in mind has just changed, and many close the tab without asking why.

Show delivery costs early: a line on the product page with the shipping cost or the free-delivery threshold, an estimate in the basket based on postcode, and a clear note on surcharges for islands and remote areas. If cash on delivery carries a fee, say so before checkout.

Someone who wants a jar of honey does not want to open an account, think up a password and confirm an email address. Compulsory registration turns a two-minute purchase into a chore, and on a phone it is even more tiresome.

Make guest checkout the default; in WooCommerce it is a simple setting. Offer an account after the order, with a single tap, to customers who want to see their order history or reorder quickly.

Most visitors arrive on a phone, often on mobile data rather than office wifi. If a product page is slow to show the photo and the price, they go back to the search results and tap the next shop.

The usual culprit is photos uploaded straight from the camera or phone. Compress them before uploading, keep plugins to a minimum and test speed on a real phone. We go through this step by step in speed, the first step of SEO most people skip.

A shop can look right on a desktop screen and still be awkward on a phone: small buttons packed together, a size selector that needs zooming, a phone-number field that brings up the letter keyboard. Every mis-tap is another reason to give up.

What we fix:

• Buttons large enough for a thumb, with space between them. Google's guidance suggests tap targets of roughly 48×48 pixels.
• An "Add to basket" button that stays easy to reach as the customer scrolls.
• Fields that bring up the right keyboard (numbers for phone, @ for email) and accept autofill.
• Only the fields you genuinely need.

That is why, in our process, you open the prototypes on your own phone before anything is built.

In a physical shop, customers pick the product up and ask. Online, they only have what you show them. A dim photo and two lines of text with no dimensions, weight or origin send them to the phone or to Viber, and plenty simply leave.

Every product page needs:

• Clear photos in natural light, from several angles, plus one in use or next to something familiar for scale.
• Dimensions, weight or quantity, material and origin.
• For food: ingredients, shelf life and storage.
• Answers to the questions you already hear on the phone.

Write descriptions yourself rather than copying the supplier's text. Good descriptions also help with search, because they give Google real text to read.

Before handing card details to an unfamiliar shop, people look for who is behind it. If they cannot find an address, a phone number or a returns policy, they assume the worst, even when the business is entirely genuine.

Make these easy to find:

• Company details: registered name, VAT number and address.
• A real phone number and email; if you also answer on Viber, say so.
• A returns and exchanges policy in plain language, linked from every product page.
• Delivery times and the courier you use.
• Genuine customer reviews, including those on your Google Business Profile.

Buyers in Greece have their habits. One wants cash on delivery because they don't trust the shop yet, another pays by card, another prefers an instant transfer via IRIS, and for a larger basket someone looks for instalments. If their preferred method is missing, the order often goes unfinished.

Offer the methods your own customers ask for and show them early, not only at the final step. If cash on delivery has a fee, state it plainly. In the WooCommerce shops we set up, payments and shipping for Greece are configured from the start, so every customer finds a way to pay that suits them.

Which mistake should you fix first?

Start with the ones that lose customers who have already decided to buy: shipping costs, forced sign-up and payment options. These are usually settings rather than a redesign. Then move on to speed and product pages.

Do you need a new shop to fix them?

Not necessarily. Most can be fixed on your existing shop with settings, better photos and clearer text. A redesign makes sense when the theme itself is slow or the checkout cannot be changed the way you need.

How can you tell where you are losing customers?

Place a test order on your own phone, on mobile data, from start to finish. Check your analytics for the step where baskets are abandoned, and ask customers who order by phone why they didn't order online.