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Some Daunting Challenges Faced By Ecommerce
Ecommerce has been changing the face of businesses since the last two decades, or approximately so. Every material comfort of life is just one click away. You could enjoy a variety of products, of different brands and all in the same platform. Needless to say, online shopping has been in vogue since the last twenty years and would probably continue with its long run. However, like every other business venture, e-commerce too has its own share of challenges that it needs to overcome. Back when the concept was very new, and not many knew what it was about, there was less competition in this sector. As and how the domain of e-commerce started flourishing, and more people realised the brilliance of it, competition grew strife and challenges started inundating this online business venture. Also, with Amazon, the biggest name in e-commerce, every other e-commerce site has threats to its existence. In a situation as this one, with Amazon swallowing everyone else, it is crucial that all e-commerce websites learn about their potential threats and challenges and adopt effective measures in time to stay afloat.
The Most Common Challenges of Ecommerce:
We have come up with a list of some of the biggest challenges that this sector faces so that it is easier to acknowledge the situation your e-commerce website is in and then devise efficacious ways to deal with them.
Targeting the Right Products-
Like we have already discussed, the domain of e-commerce has become fiercely competitive and it is quite easy for anyone to penetrate the market within a few days of inception of the idea. Therefore, there has been a sudden mushrooming of numerous e-commerce websites. Platforms like Shopify keep no tabs on the criteria of entry, and thus, anyone can get their online shopping store up and running without the slightest research or effort. Several other shopping platforms have made it effortless for Chinese dealers and manufacturers to dominate the market by giving them easy access. Consumers would much rather opt for inexpensive Chinese products than the ones on other e-commerce websites at a higher price. Also, Amazon has complete control over this sector and serves as the end-all solution to everybody’s shopping woes. Therefore, with such big names in the domain, it has become incredibly difficult for retailers of various other online shopping websites to streamline the products that can entice customers and increase their sales.
Understanding Your Customer-
Targeting the right customer group is no easy feat. Customers are astute, and they have evolved in terms of their decision-making skills, budget, knowledge and wits over a period of time. It is not how it used to be twenty years ago when online shopping was still a budding concept. It was easier to shove products down the customers’ throats back then because they were still learning the process of online shopping. However, things have undergone a drastic change and to think that your customers do not know what they want would be the thought of imbeciles.
Therefore, it is quite challenging to target the right group for a specific product. Customers do their research on social media platforms and seek refuge in Amazon for even the smallest of items. It shall thus, require retailers to understand the pulse of their customers and analyse their interests before putting products out on their online sites for them.
Retaining Customers-
Branding a product and then luring customers to buy the product is just the initial and most basic phases in business. You need to learn the art of retaining your customers as well. Customers might develop brand loyalty but will switch to other brands in a heartbeat if they look promising and better than the ones they had been swearing by. Therefore, retaining your customers is a big challenge.Retailers must understand the trend of the market and incorporate essential ideas and changes in the features of their products to ensure that their customers do not bounce to other online websites in a bid to find something better.
Staying Ahead of the Curve-
Retailers must be smart enough to plan the phases of their growth before they even consider taking the plunge into this domain of e-commerce. It is a dog-eat-dog-world at this point of time, and if retailers do not have it all planned out, there are high chances of the business to fade out.Therefore, if e-commerce is what you have on your mind, you need to think of something more than just an immediate increase in sales. Think of cost-cutting measures like a reduction in shipping costs, smarter marketing tactics and other things. That is the only way you could increase profitability in the long run and stay ahead of the curve.
Generating Traffic-
When it is an online endeavour, there is no way you can evade the most critical factor- traffic. It is not enough to have the right people working for you and the right products targeted. You need to put all those features out in the market and get more people to learn about your website. Therefore, you need effective ways to generate traffic. There can be no conversion rate if there is no traffic for your website. Thus, generating traffic for your e-commerce website can be a daunting challenge if retailers do not know where to look for services that can help them in this area. Digital marketing is the perfect solution for this problem, and the strategies of SEO, Social Media Marketing and the like should be engaged effectively to deal with the challenge.
Human Resources-
Technology might be the only way to go about any project in this century, but it has its own limitations. The HR team must work relentlessly to make sure that they are pooling in the right people for the job at hand. Hiring people with a wrong profile can be deleterious for the growth of e-commerce. Retailers could try to deal with this very ‘human’ challenge by attending seminars and workshops, e-commerce conferences, and scouring social media to identify the right genes of talent.
Conclusion:
Online shopping is a revolutionary concept to put it humbly. However, the challenges it faces are too corporal to overlook. If not handled on time and diligently, it might not be long before this gem of a business venture perishes. The big fish, like Amazon, might survive. It is the smaller ones that might keep inching towards the brink of extinction without the right measures.
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