E-commerce has been booming in the last few decades, but no industry comes without its challenges. In fact, retail sales for e-commerce platforms fell drastically all over the world with the onslaught of the pandemic. Besides this hit, here are seven of the most commonly faced challenges of owning an e-commerce endeavor.
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Finding the perfect customer
There are millions of e-commerce websites for customers to choose from. Let that sink in. If a customer wishes to buy a wallet, she can likely find at least 50 wallet stores that ship to her location. With customers having so many options at their fingertips, it can be difficult to find one who likes your product at the price you offer it. The solution to this is to cater to a niche of customers. A niche that is unfulfilled creates demand in the market. You will find an army of customers when you create the best products within a certain niche.
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Identity verification online
Whether you wish to trust the identity of a customer or an e-commerce advisor or even e-commerce acquirer, online identity verification comes with its loopholes. How do you ensure that a person is who they say they are behind their screen? Luckily there is a slew of online verification tools that can be inbuilt into your website. These include biometrics, single sign-on, AI, two-factor authentication, one-time password, and more.
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Cybersecurity
One of the major challenges faced by e-commerce platform owners is that of cybersecurity. When dealing with e-commerce, there is a lot of valuable information involved. Even a single technical issue involving data can lead to a major blow to a business’s operations, as well as the brand image of the retailer. Ensure you remain vigilant and are always backing up your data. Post this, you can also install website plug-ins that protect it from malware or hackers.
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Retaining customers
Apparently, acquiring a new customer can be five times as costly as retaining older ones. Additionally, the rate of success when it comes to selling to an older customer is about 60% to 70% and it is a meager 5 % to 20 % for new customers. Customer retention is, therefore, vital for a company to maintain its revenue. Excellent customer service is one means of retaining customers. The next is to keep in touch with customers so they are reminded of your products, be it through SMS or MMS texts, email, blog posts, and more. Finally, you can also offer loyal customers incentives in the form of special coupon codes, promotional offers, and sales.
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Customer experience
The experience your customers have when shopping on your website is vital when it comes to your performance, and even in cases when FBA acquirers or e-commerce acquirers are attempting to purchase your store. Shopper reviews can make or break how many sales you make. To improve user experience, you should have a simple and clean website that can be easily navigated. It is also recommended to have multiple clear calls to action (CTAs) so that the shopper knows where to click if they wish to go through with a purchase.
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Conversion rate
One of the major e-commerce challenges that FBA acquirers and e-commerce acquirers take note of is your business’ conversion rate. Essentially, this is how likely your business is to convert visitors into a shopper or a paying customer. While most e-commerce websites generate traffic and clicks, some may not be making the sales they anticipate. What can be done to generate more sales? Find the bottlenecks that are preventing visitors from shopping. Does it have to do with navigating your website? Is the checkout process too slow? Are products priced too high? These bottlenecks, once identified, can be easily eliminated to improve your online store’s conversation rate.
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Competitor analysis
Sound competitor analysis is vital to creating targeted products that have an identity of their own. It also helps pick out what works and what doesn’t. However, with millions of websites to consider, competitor analysis is harder than ever. The solution is to keep competitor analysis cyclical rather than a one-time process. New shops constantly open up and the faster you take note of them, the better you will be when it comes to retaining your customers.
The Bottom Line
E-commerce comes with its own set of challenges. However, once you know what these are, you can be prepared to tackle them head-on. In case you wish to sell your business online to FBA acquirers, click the link here.