The twenty-first century has surprised humans with rapid and dramatic changes, especially over the last few years. The recent advancements were hard to imagine just a decade ago. Whether it is education, food, clothing, or name any industry, nothing has stayed away from the impacts of these advancements.
Go back in time twenty years ago, a business started up at the storefront, gets an advertisement published in a local newspaper, joins a local networking firm, and hoped to meet the needs of the local people in the market. However, in the new world, all this is considered old-school. This changed with the inception of the internet. Suddenly, businesses are no longer dependent on the local buyers as with the birth of the internet; businesses can now connect with the world.
Customers no longer need to make a trip to brick and mortar stores to make their purchases. Due to the rise in digitalization, companies have transformed the way they interact with their existing and potential customers. Customers can shop for their favorite product in the span of a few clicks now. Online businesses still deal with the goods and services, but the selling procedure has turned out to be different and hoping to change even further in the future.
As per the survey of Statista, the retail sales reached up to $342.96 billion in 2015, whereas by 2019, it raised to $600 billion. The facts and figures made it pretty clear about the potential and power of online businesses.
This does not state that all online businesses are swimming in pools of money every day. No matter how big or small your business is, the challenges faced by both are equal. Developing an e-commerce business is not as easy as it seems because great care and hard work are required to stay up and running in the digital market.
We don’t mean to scare you. It is not as bad or challenging as it seems. The biggest advantage of e-commerce is that you can practically sell anything worldwide even if you just sell your idea of ‘how to write an eBook?’. All you need is a strategy to survive. Lucky for you, we have listed down some challenges faced by online businesses. Take notes and prepare yourself to tackle the obstacles and emerge victoriously.
WHAT TO SELL?
Whether you are an e-commerce business or a traditional one, the question stays the same, “what to sell?”. For a business, introducing a new product or service in the market is a challenging task.
Luckily, some shopping cart platforms like Shopify have broken down the barriers for businesses to enter the online market. You can launch your online store in a few days and sell your products efficiently.
We all know that Amazon tops the ladder when it comes to the world of e-commerce business tycoons. Their services have made it easier for sellers to approach their customers. Aliexpress stands second; however, they too simplified their product sourcing by giving opportunities to Chinese manufacturers in just a few clicks. This has made it a little difficult for most online businesses to come up with something out of the box.
WHO’S THAT PERFECT CUSTOMER?
Online shopping is not the same as shopping in a mall. Change due to digitalization also means changes in the consumer’s behavior. They don’t just shop what they like; the product or service has to go through various steps before a consumer decides to buy it. They look it up on various search engines, read out the specs and reviews, ask for recommendations on social media, and if it meets their standard, this is when they bring out their credit card.
It is not easy to please the customers because they can easily get diverted due to social media. For a business, you need to know who your target audience is and how to reel them in without exceeding your market budget.
GENERATING TRAFFIC
Since it is the era of digitalization, there is also a rapid change in digital marketing channels. For an online business, generating the right kind of traffic is a challenge. To overcome this, you cannot just rely on one channel to drive the traffic to your sites.
Emails, social media, SEO, PPC, display ads, SMS marketing, shopping engines, etc. are all marketing channels that can help you drive your targeted traffic towards your business.
HOW TO CONVERT PAYING CUSTOMERS FROM SHOPPERS?
The key to closing the deal is nurturing leads and driving quality traffic. Eventually, you would have to convert those leads so you can pay for your marketing campaigns.
Online businesses need constant efforts to change those window shoppers and emails leads into actual customers. This is almost a never-ending procedure.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Did you know that acquiring a new customer can cost you up to five times more than just retaining the existing ones?
Selling to an existing customer turns out to be 60-70% successful as compared to the success rate of 5-20% for new customers. It takes serious effort for an online business to stop its current customers from switching to another business. The struggle is real.
The main reason is the level of trust between the customer and the seller. Since the two cannot see each other, the customer develops a sense of trust in face-to-face interaction. For e-commerce businesses, you have to make sure the quality of your customer service is spot on for them to trust you better.
RETURN AND REFUND POLICIES
According to a survey by ComScore and UPS, 63% of American buyers go through the return and refund policy before adding products to their cart, and 48% of them would only buy if the business guarantees them a hassle-free return policy. This is the concerning point for every e-customer these days.
For an online business, a return or a refund could end up in a massive loss in reputation and shipment. Shipment and logistics are a serious battle for online businesses since it makes it harder for them to deliver the products for free.
However, this can also be a positive turning point. How? Having a strong return and refund policy can win the customer’s hearts, thus generating genuine customers for your site, which in the end gets you money.
Online businesses have to stay prepared with what could be thrown at them by the customers—keeping the customer’s satisfaction needs to be your main target.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT PARTNER, STAFF, AND TECHNOLOGY
Some online businesses go through tough measures because they may have hired the wrong people to manage their projects, or the technology they use is stopping them from growing further.
If you want your online business to grow, you should have a strong technology foundation. Choosing the right management software, inventory, shopping cart solution, and email software should help you survive and thrive.
Apart from this, you have to be precise with the selection of your work crew, your marketing partner, or various other agencies. One wrong move can ruin tons of effort and money.
Thinking to start an online business may seem easy, but it is not always necessary that you would hire people who share the same vision of growing your business as you do. Acquiring the targeted talent to help run your business is very important. Having the right leader to lead the team is equally crucial. Employees opt for jobs that pay them good, provide job security, and care about their well-being, too. Pick the right ones and offer them something in return. Did you know that your employees can also bring in customers?
It is all about choosing the right equipment and people to help you grow.
CONCLUSION
As you can see that there are various challenges that an online or e-commerce business needs to go through before making its mark. These are just the basics explained.
Although, if you follow your growth plan accurately and keep all these challenges in mind, the path wouldn’t be as hard as you imagined. There is no shortcut to success, and it is your persistence, hard work, and never-dying attitude that eventually set you on the road to growth and success.
