Top 12 ECommerce Challenges That Businesses Face And Their Solutions We’ve listed some of the top ecommerce challenges an eCommerce business can face and we would explain how to fix these problems. Even if you are thinking of starting a new eCommerce store, or facing any of these ecommerce challenges then you should pay close attention to the list and move in the right direction to achieve success.
eCommerce business is all about the right execution. If you get the equation right, the rest should follow. Setting up an online store requires a lot of time, investment, and efforts. Remember that your online store should offer a good shopping experience to the users. Customer satisfaction becomes an important factor to make your eCommerce business successful. If you want to get a greater share of the pie in the eCommerce game, you would have to stay competitive in the market by trying different methods and best in class ecommerce website store solution.
The eCommerce Landscape in 2021 and Beyond Before the covid-19, e-commerce growth was expected to increase at a slow and steady pace but a new study has projected that due to COVID-19 and lockdown, the whole situation of panic and new rules accelerated the eCommerce growth from$1.3 trillion in 2014 to $4.9 trillion in 2021.
Almost every second offline shop owner is now selling products online and contributing to the eCommerce growth which is expected to grow by 265%.
The worldwide eCommerce revenue is forecast to grow to the US $2.699 trillion in 2021 and reach US$3.453 trillion by 2025 and estimated that 2.1 billion shoppers are predicted to buy goods and services online by 2021.
As per emarketer, 2021: The sales are projected to increase from $4.9 trillion to $6.4 trillion in 2024.
“It is expected with the growing pace of eCommerce store and behavior of buyers that By 2040, 95% of purchases will be made online which gives the signal for retailers to digitalize their offline store by facing all current challenges and secure their future now.”
Let’s understand these e-commerce challenges and solutions in detail:
“Challenges are the new opportunities for retailers as the ecommerce industry is growing so as the competitors”
1. Images not done right We live in a visual world. When a customer lands to your store, the first thing they notice is the images of the products. Studies show that store visitors are first engaged by the visual elements on the website. The quality of images of the products you sell can make or break your eCommerce store’s reputation. If you want photos that bring results and sustainable growth, high-quality images of products should be used. Show the purpose of the product or show it in use. Often the online customers who buy online would have never seen the product in real. They want to examine the items before buying. It’s important for eCommerce store owners to convince the users to spend on buying the product. Compelling images can increase the sales of your online
For instance, if you’re selling clothing, it’s always good to show a clothing on a human body rather than on a mannequin. If you’re selling home furnishings, you can get the products photographed in a living room or office set up. Have more than one image clicked from multiple angles of the product? Try to show the close up of the features of products you’re selling.
2. Mobile Shopping Is Still on the Rise
Today is the era of mobile, mobile means not just a mobile phone but the factor that makes the human perform an action from anywhere anytime and move to anyplace wherever and whenever desired.
By 2021, mobile commerce sales are expected to account for 54% of total eCommerce sales. No one likes to sit before the big screen, the time has gone and this is the time of mobile which has even conquered the eCommerce sector by allowing customers to shop with a single tap.
Common benefits of mobile shopping: ● ● ●
Better overall experience for customers A true omni channel experience Variety of payment options
“ecommerce and inventory management system enables store owners to Track Inventory, reduce risk of reselling, Manage Reordering and Update Accounting Data”
Ecommerce store owners who lead the market and stay in trend are those who: ● ● ● ●
Have mobile application with rich features Intuitive user interface Fast loading website Mobile friendly website
All the above options can be utilized and make the store performance more smooth integrating PIM that will maintain transparency by transferring the correct and real-time information to your application, website and also help to market and sell the product through various distribution channels.
3. Unfriendly Returns Policy Shopping online is usually risky for consumers. Nobody would want to be stuck with items that do not fit them or are damaged on arrival. Some countries have a law where consumers have the right to return the purchased items online within a defined timeline. Beyond that, you can make your own set of rules for returns and exchanges. Avoid being too strict as it can put off the customers in the first place. The laws for exchange or returns may vary from country to country.
4. Digital Payment Failures Whether a customer makes online payment by credit, debit card or net banking, or any other digital wallets, failure of digital payments can be frustrating. A technical issue with your website or faltering internet connection results in the payable amount being debited from the customer’s account but the same is not credited to the seller’s account. Retrieving the amount isn’t a quick process. It should be clearly mentioned on your website that it may take around 7-10 working days before the money is refunded to their bank accounts. Such situations can improve with cashless transactions. Tips on payment gateway integration.
5. Additional charges
How many times has it happened that you’ve added products in your cart and when you’re about to place an order, you noticed an additional shipping charge? Some eCommerce stores offer free shipping over a certain amount of orders. Some stores have different shipping costs for individual products. When the customer selects multiple products in a single order, the shipping cost may be multiplied.
6. Slow Online Store Website Speed
It’s rare that the potential buyers would land up to the product page directly, check out there and then. They would like to browse and explore different products. A slow loading website can frustrate the users and they may leave your site without purchasing anything. They might look for the same product at your competitor’s site. eCommerce store owners should aim at maintaining a fast loading speed where an each takes less than 3 seconds to load. There are many online tools that can help you figure out the bottlenecks and improve the speed of your website. Here are some easy tips to optimize speed of your Magento store.
7. Lack of Faster Checkout Options
One of the most frustrating problems faced by the online website owners is checkout or cart abandonment. Nobody would like to waste time for checkout. A customer goes through the entire process of adding products to cart and leaves your website without purchasing the item. One-click checkout can help you prevent cart abandonment. Allow the customers to save the information and other details for a faster checkout.
8. Suspicious Reviews
We all know that good reviews will increase the chances of sales. But what about the neutral or negative reviews left by the unsatisfied customers? There may be a few fake reviews also. 100% positive reviews can turn off the potential customers. A natural, balanced spread of opinions can attract the users and they may be able to show trust in your brand. Avoid any suspicious reviews on your website. Encourage the customers to leave genuine reviews about your products and services by offering them special discount or freebies.
9. Shipping Methods and Time
Online shoppers care about shipping costs and delivery methods. How quickly you deliver the products matters a lot for most of the buyers. A negative shipping experience can have a huge impact on your business. eCommerce merchants compete on customer experience for shipping the orders. Even if the shipping is free, customers would expect fast delivery of their orders. Regardless of the shipping method used, the buyers would expect the delivery within a week. Try to choose carriers that can provide tracking service and notifications when the parcel is shipped, when it’s on way, arrived near the destination, and when it will be delivered. Real-time tracking gives complete peace of mind to the customers.
10. Questionable Customer Service
Questionable customer service is a complete NO for any eCommerce business. If you neglect customer service, then you cannot head to anywhere. If people find it difficult to locate your phone number or email address, they may feel that you’re hiding something. Lack of clear contact information on your website can be a sign that your company is not trustworthy. It’s important that people can see a clear way to reach you. Purchasing online is a matter of trust, and new customers always look for reliable stores to shop for products and services. People who handle the customers should be able to resolve their queries and provide appropriate solutions.
11. Accurate product description for better SEO and ranking Clear and concise content and product description help both the search engine to crawl and humans to understand. Having duplicate content, meta title, meta description, and forced URL can impact negatively on your website ranking and all your efforts and spending you made will go in vain. When you are selling your product online, it is mandatory for every online store owner to have a proper product description with unique content, and to do that you can always hire a content writer or a team of experienced digital marketers to write unique and engaging content and help in making you rank better on the search engine to continue the sale wheel.
12. Omni Channel Experience Most of the consumers use their mobile phones to shop for products online, but some others may choose desktop, tablets, or telephone also. Using different channels for promoting and distributing products can help eCommerce website owners grab more sales. Omni-channel retailing can help the shopper’s purchase products from well-integrated channels and achieve seamless shopping experience. Lack of transparency of inventory across the enterprise, and navigating each and every customer uniquely are the biggest challenge for retailers in implementing omnichannel. The solution is to use customer data to drive iterative improvements and create a seamless and personalized user experience.
Challenges faced by eCommerce for 2018 aren’t different from the ones faced by them during the previous years. Yet, we can assume that intensity has increased with the technology advancements and market cut-throat competition. The customers’ expectations are also changing with the advancements in every sector. Let’s gear up to face the challenges faced by eCommerce website owners and find out suitable Magento development services & solutions.
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