Year one of ecom is a meat grinder. I ran a brand, made every mistake on this list, then started consulting to help others avoid them. This is what I wish I'd known on day one.
The 7 Do's
1. Set Up Real Analytics Before You Launch
GA4, Klaviyo, Shopify reports, and a session replay tool (Microsoft Clarity is free). Before you run a single ad. If you don't know where customers drop off, you can't fix anything.
The 4 events you need tracked: page_view, view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout, purchase. Everything else is optional. These five tell you where the funnel breaks.
2. Write Your Product Copy Like You Talk
"Handcrafted from premium ethically sourced Italian leather" sells nothing. "This belt gets better the more you wear it. My dad had one for 20 years" sells a story.
Read your product page out loud. If it sounds like a corporate brochure, rewrite it. If it sounds like you texting a friend, ship it.
3. Install Klaviyo on Day One
Email drives 25-40% of revenue once flows are running. Skip it early and you're running only on paid traffic. That's expensive.
Minimum flows to set up before first sale: Welcome (4 emails), Abandoned Cart (3 emails + SMS), Post-Purchase (thank you + review request). Everything else can wait.
4. Use Your iPhone for Product Photos
Agency photoshoots cost $3-8K and look generic. Your iPhone 13 in good natural light looks authentic and converts better in year one.
Three shots per product: hero (clean white background), lifestyle (in use), detail (close-up of the best feature). Ship it. Iterate later.
5. Ship Schema Markup on Every Page
Google rewards structured data. Product schema, review schema, breadcrumb schema, organization schema. Most Shopify themes ship partial. Audit yours with Google's Rich Results Test.
Done right, you get star ratings in search results. Done wrong, you're invisible. Takes 2 hours. Do it.
6. Treat Every Product Like a Bestseller
Don't hide mediocre products behind "also available." Kill them. Every SKU is inventory, photography, copy, and homepage real estate. If a product isn't earning its slot, delete it.
Year-one SKU count sweet spot: 8-20. Enough variety for cross-sells. Few enough to focus effort.
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7. Know Your Margin to the Penny
COGS, shipping, payment processing, packaging, returns, app fees, Shopify plan fees. All of it. In a spreadsheet. Updated monthly.
Stores that don't know their margin run ads at 2.5x ROAS and go broke. Stores that know margin run ads at 3.8x ROAS and scale.
The 7 Don'ts
1. Don't Hire an Agency in Year One
Agencies work best on stores doing $2M+ with clear product-market fit. Year one, you're still finding the product, the customer, and the offer. An agency spends your money learning what you should learn by doing.
The exception: a one-time audit from someone who's actually run a store. Fixed price, clear deliverable. Not a retainer.
2. Don't Run Paid Ads Before Conversion Works
Conversion rate below 1.5% on cold traffic = don't scale paid. You'll burn through your ad budget teaching Meta to send you customers who won't buy.
Fix the site first. Get to 2-3% conversion on warm traffic. Then turn on paid.
3. Don't Ignore Mobile
65-80% of your traffic is mobile. Your site should be designed mobile-first. If your site is pretty on desktop but cluttered on mobile, you're losing 40% of potential revenue.
Test everything on an iPhone mini. If it works there, it works everywhere.
4. Don't Spread Across Channels
One acquisition channel, mastered. Not Meta + Google + TikTok + Pinterest + Reddit + affiliate. Pick one. Be the best your niche has ever seen on that channel.
Add the second channel when the first is doing $500K/year profitably. Not before.
5. Don't Discount Your Way to Growth
15% off welcome, 20% off for abandoned cart, 30% off Black Friday. Before long, every buyer waits for a discount. Your margin dies.
Year one, anchor on free shipping thresholds and free gifts, not percent-off. Train your customer to pay full price.
6. Don't Skip Post-Purchase
The 30 days after first purchase is where repeat buyers are made. Thank-you email, how-to-use content, review request at day 14, cross-sell at day 30.
Stores that skip post-purchase have 18-25% repeat rates. Stores that run it have 35-45%. The difference is entire business.
7. Don't Expect Results in 90 Days
Year one is about getting the machine working. Revenue follows in year two. Most stores quit at month 8 because they expected month 3 results. The ones that make it past year one are the ones that expected a slog.
Build for year two. Spend year one learning and fixing.
The One Rule
Do fewer things, better. Year one isn't about the 47-item checklist. It's about 5 things done to a professional standard while you learn who your customer actually is.