Top 10 eCommerce Challenges and How to Overcome Them
The eCommerce world has been growing at an astonishing rate. Interestingly, this means that the amount of challenges businesses have to actively deal with is also growing. As such, there is an ever-present pressure on eCommerce businesses to devise plans and strategies that can help them overcome these challenges.
Interested to find out more? Then keep reading because in this blog post, we take a look at the top 10 eCommerce challenges and how to overcome them:
Contents
- Top 10 eCommerce Challenges and their Solutions
- Summing Up
Top 10 eCommerce Challenges and their Solutions
Let’s get right into the top eCommerce challenges you need to be aware of without any further delays.
Challenge 1: Capitalising data
In today’s day and age, no business can reach the heights of success if it doesn’t capitalise on data. Data is definitely the make or break factor for your business, which means that eCommerce businesses need to start coming up with ways they can prioritise harnessing and leveraging data. Doing this effectively can lead to many benefits, and it is necessary to have data-based algorithms in place to help you make decisions that work well for your business long-term.
This will involve investing in the right equipment and utilising a range of different resources to ensure you can properly capitalise on data. No wonder this is one of the biggest challenges that businesses face.
Solution:
You can overcome the challenge of capitalising data by getting a software solution that provides integration. An integrated eCommerce ecosystem is the best way to get your hands on data that can be capitalised on and used to improve your business’s overall efficiency. With the help of a software system, for example a warehouse management system that can connect to multiple programs and apps, you can centralise your data from multiple channels and then access it from a single place. This will help make it easier for you to deal with data and result in a more streamlined warehouse management strategy.
Challenge 2: Dealing with increased customer satisfaction
As the eCommerce world evolves, so do the needs of customers. The customer expectations of today’s consumers are quite high. It is a huge challenge for businesses to build a reputation and a brand image that customers can truly have faith in.
Since customers are used to convenience and customer-centric approaches, it can be hard for businesses to offer them something that satisfies those expectations and is unique at the same time. As the eCommerce industry advances, it becomes even harder to deal with customers, and hence this is an area that many businesses are likely to struggle in.
Solution:
In order to make sure you are meeting customer expectations, you need to first understand what the customer actually expects from you. This too can only be done with the help of the right technology. The right technology and tools will help you analyse customer behaviour and shopping patterns, and see what it is that really attracts your customers. It is only based on this research that you can make choices that will align with your customers and impress them in the long run.
Challenge 3: Tackling logistics issues
An eCommerce business can only be as successful as its logistics framework. However, eCommerce businesses need help with bringing efficiency and seamlessness to this area because it is an intricate and complicated process.
The logistics process itself consists of hundreds of sub processes, and all of these need to be streamlined perfectly if you want to achieve a successful logistics strategy. Needless to say, this is only possible to do if you are motivated towards bringing change to your business, which is something many businesses find hard to do, given that there is so much else that they need to take care of.
Solution:
Logistics can be easily handled with fulfilment software: warehouse management systems, order management systems, and inventory management systems can help you not only create the perfect fulfilment strategy, but also execute all the logistical processes with utmost perfection. By integrating your operations with advanced automation technology, you can not only bring in more efficiency to your business but you can also make your workforce a lot more productive. All of this combines and contributes to logistical efficiency, and this is the only way businesses can achieve a logistical experience that aligns with customer expectations of the 21st century.
Challenge 4: Creating a more agile store
An eCommerce business needs to be agile. So, there is a pressure on eCommerce businesses to push out new features and content, and react to changes taking place with complete speed. In this regard, it is important for your business to be prompt in terms of adaptability, as this will help you establish yourself as a strong eCommerce contender.
However, doing this is no walk in the park. It requires a holistic approach to setting up your business, as well as complete visibility into all your eCommerce processes from start to finish. Since that is quite hard to achieve, it is understandable that this is one of the biggest challenges for an eCommerce business.
Solution:
As stated, in order to be more agile, you need to improve holistically. For that, you need to strengthen your foundational processes and make sure you have a strong set up to operate on to begin with. Having the right systems in place and becoming as organised as you possibly can is a good way to go about this, as it can massively help you achieve agility and boost your adaptability as a business. Therefore, the best advice as far as this particular challenge is concerned is to be ahead of the time, and implement solutions before the problems even exist!
Challenge 5: Overcoming hosting issues
On one hand, online shopping and selling are simple and convenient. However, on the other hand, they are also hard! This is because your eCommerce experience depends on a lot of external factors, such as hosting.
Businesses find it challenging to consistently be vigilant enough to overcome hosting issues. You want to host your website in a way that it can take a traffic overload as well as have a lightning fast loading time. Because if it doesn’t do either of these things, there is a huge chance that it will negatively impact the eCommerce experience of your customers and hence push them towards having a negative image of your brand.
Solution:
Cloud hosting is the answer to your questions! Cloud computing technology is generally a great fit for eCommerce businesses, as it allows them to store their data safely and securely. When it comes to the problem of hosting, cloud hosting is an amazing option because it is scalable, affordable, and easy to use even if you have little to no technical logic, and hence a range of different businesses can work with it and that too quite effectively.
Challenge 6: Offering a more personalised experience
eCommerce businesses will only succeed in terms of maintaining customer satisfaction if they offer a more personalised experience. For this reason, it is extremely important for them to devise strategies that will help them offer a more personalised experience for all their customers.
However, every eCommerce business’s customer base is likely to be extremely diverse. It can be hard to come up with an experience that accommodates all the different preferences your customers are likely to have. For this reason, a lot of eCommerce businesses lag behind in this area and don’t know how to offer a more personalised experience.
Solution:
You need to start focusing on creating an interpersonal relationship with your customer. Personify your brand and make it your customer’s best friend. This is the best way you can deal with your customer’s expectations as well as provide them with an experience that is wholly personal and hence, more impactful for them. In this regard, we suggest you to focus on your brand voice on different channels and make sure you come across as a business that wholly prioritises its customers and is more than willing to go the extra mile to take care of their customers.
Challenge 7: Outsmarting competition
As the eCommerce industry grows, so does the amount of competition each business has to deal with. What this essentially means is that outsmarting competition can be hard. After all, no matter how special and unique you think you are, there are 10 other businesses in your locality that offer the same thing with a similar level of services.
Yet, to succeed, you need to offer something special, something better, and something more advanced. Sadly, not all businesses understand that this is the case, let alone come up with effective solutions that can help them overcome this particular issue.
Solution:
The best solution for this is to first take the time to understand your competition. If you set out to outsmart your competitors without even knowing what their strategy is, you are definitely setting yourself up for failure. For this reason, it is important for you to first research everything that there is to know about your competitors. Again, the right technology and software systems make this easier and with their help, you can keep an eye on your competitors at all times. Based on that, you can make calculated decisions that will not only set you apart from the competition but also put you 10 steps ahead!
Challenge 8: Executing growth strategies
The biggest aspiration for most eCommerce ventures is to grow and branch out into bigger markets. And even if they make the most comprehensive and effective plan to do that, actually executing the growth strategy can be take time and effort.
This is because this requires time, focus, and operational efficiency. Considering how eCommerce can become hectic even when you are not focusing on the ultimate aim of growth, it is no surprise that it is a lot more stressful when your ultimate focus is to grow and expand as a business!
Solution:
You need something that can take care of the back end operations, while you and your team focus on growing your business. Again, technology will help you in this regard. For example, fulfilment software will integrate with your operations, which will allow you to make them considerably more advanced and efficient. The best part? You don’t even have to do as much as raise a finger. The time and effort you save on this end can then be utilised on creating a growth strategy that actually works, and then of course, you move on to bringing it to fruition.
Challenge 9: Working with new technology
We keep saying that working with new technology is the solution to everything. However, working with new technology itself can be a challenge for most businesses. Most advanced solutions are too complex for a normal person to even comprehend them and use them.
Not only that, but if you have been relying on paper-based systems and the manual way of doing things for a very long time, then transitioning to a new technology that offers a non-traditional way of doing things itself can be very challenging. This is one of the biggest reasons why businesses hesitate making the transition to begin with, and this is why they need to catch up in so many areas.
Solution:
Well, the thing is, new technology doesn’t have to be hard to use and intimidating. For example, Canary7; a simple, intuitive, and user-friendly software system that can be utilised conveniently without any hassle, brings to the table hundreds of next-gen solutions that will help you evolve your fulfilment experience into an unrealistically advanced process. The key here is to do your research and really look for technology that is not hard to use, but at the same time is advanced and effective enough to help you achieve all your goals and that too in a relatively short time.
The Final Word
Nobody said eCommerce is easy. However, if you think that there are no ways you can make it a tad easier for you and your team, you are mistaken! There are so many ways you can make eCommerce a breeze and out of these, the best one is to recognise that technology is your best friend.
The more your operations are dependent on robust technology, the more confidently you can ensure that the eCommerce world doesn’t turn its back on you. So, our advice? Get your research glasses on and find cutting-edge technology that can help you seamlessly navigate any and all challenges that come to you in your journey to success within the eCommerce world.
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